Different Style: Keisuke Yamada vs. Masahiro Tsukuda
One of Yamadas earliest matches! He takes on the mysterious, boxing-gloved Tsukuda to open this show because why not. Mostly Yamada going for explosive takedowns and Tsukuda beating on him with those fists. Pretty short, energetic, and the crowd was really hot for this. Eh, why not.
Quarter Finals
Goro Tsurumi & Masahiko Takasugi vs. Toyonari Fujita & Hideo Takayama
Tsurumi and Takasugi are like the APA on this laying an assbeating on Fujita and the future Hido. Fujita goes for some elaborate flips that look impressive for a stocky guy but Takasugi just lariats his daylights out. Meanwhile Tsurumi is hanging Takayama outside the ring. Fujita eats some nasty chair shots and a piledriver before getting pinned. I think this lasted 2 or 3 minutes.
The Scalper & The Geezer vs. Jun Kikuwada & Kazuhiko Matsuzaki
The Scalper and Geezer are a pair of hooded figures. They must've gotten some trainees to play these monsters because they are extremely limited brawlers. I think Kikuwada who has boxing gloves is the future Shinjuku Shark and he is kind of the star in this punching the monsters and hitting a suicide dive. Not much else here besides the monsters doing claw holds.
Hiroshi Itakura & Nobutaka Araya vs. Fukumentaro & Winger
This was a "workrate" match compared to everything that came before. Everyone just busted out their moves. Araya was really green here (he kind of no sells a german suplex completely) but he had nice powerbombs and a moonsault. I always enjoy watching Itakura and while Fukumentaro and Winger aren't very good they don't blow it completely here. Okay 7 or 8 minutes.
Poison Sawada & Masaru Toi vs. Hiroshi Shimada & Hirofumi Miura
Poison Sawada teams with Toi here, not Kenichiro Yukimura like Cagematch claims. The camera man misses a good chunk of this. I enjoyed Toi and Shimada stiffing people. Toi has a nasty double stomp and boots people in the face and Shimada hit big lariats and nasty short kicks. Miura wasn't doing his karate act yet and he isn't better or worse as a generic guy.
Semi Finals
Hiroshi Shimada & Hirofumi Miura vs. Hiroshi Itakura & Nobutaka Araya
This match was whatever, but Shimada hit this amazing full speed dive over the top rope. It was awe inspiring. He didn't even do a sloppy Undertaker dive, just went full flying couch on people, outstretched over the 3rd rope. After that Itakura hits a dive and he and Araya act like big shots as if we all didn't just see Shimada doing something that was about 10000 times cooler? They kind of isolate Miura for a bit and instead of making a hot tag he just gets pinned. Shimada didn't even try to safe him. Guess he was happy with just that dive he hit.
Kazuhiko Matsuzaki & Jun Kikuwada vs. Goro Tsurumi & Masahiko Takasugi
Fun stiff brawl. I buy Tsurumi and Takasugi as tough old guys cleaning out a bar. This was all about Tsurumi shrugging off Matsuzakis stiff kicks and Kikuwadas punches. The Kikuwada/Tsurumi exchanges were especially cool. Takasugi also busted out his awesome crowbar dropkick. This went 6 minutes which was just the right amount of time.
Final
Hiroshi Itakura & Nobutaka Araya vs. Goro Tsurumi & Masahiko Takasugi
This was the first match that had some kind of build and we get some cool basic opening exchanges with Tsurumi and Takasugi doing basic opening moves in really rough veteran fashion. Really dug all the punch variations Tsurumi throws especially his punches to the gut. It felt like Itakura and Araya had to survive a stiff onslaught from the veterans and that gave the match some structure and purpose. As usual the match spills to the outside with Tsurumi breaking out the noose again - and I don't know if it was restarted or if it was like that from beginning but apparently this is elimination rules now which gives us two fun finishes. One has Takasugi just decimating Araya with a Vader-level german suplex and some nasty lariats before he and Itakura work a bunch of nearfalls. Takasugi usually doesn't sell and just destroys everyone so Itakura going even steven with him felt like a nice moment. Good main event.
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