Yuki Ishikawa vs. Atsushi Sawada
As usual Ishikawa has the best match on the show against a young Sawada in his first match ever. Tough match where Ishikawa mostly beats the shit out of Sawada with brutal kicks and stomach punches, one absolutely disgusting headbutt included. Sawada is big and burly, he swings hard and he has one or two great looking at-will suplexes on Ishikawa. There was less matork than in other Ishikawa matches, but he twisted Sawada into ridiculous ground octopus stretch at one point. Finish was ridiculous as Ishikawa was caving Sawadas face in. It looked like Sawada would power out of the following sleeper but then just went out on his face. Gritty rookie punishment stuff and another night where Ishikawa ruled.
Tom Howard vs. Alexander Otsuka
Tom Howard is kind of a quirky great wrestler. In this match he has a boxing glove on one hand which adds to his goofiness. But the stuff he does looks cool and he's unpredictable. He hits a great trust kick then locks on a random forearm choke that you totally buy might put Otsuka to sleep because IGF undercard matches are weird and it fits Howards character. I also really liked his trip to counter Otsukas giant swing. Otsuka had a great triangle rana over the fucking rope and hit his big suplex on the big foreigner. I think this went 6 minutes and was a great bizarro world WCWSN match.
WAKASHOYO vs. Erik Paulson
It's MMA and grappling pioneer Erik Paulson against a sumo. LOVE INOKIS BOOKING! Wakashoyo is fun here, pummeling Paulson around and not holding back with his palm strikes. He also hit this huge slam that was really cool. Paulson looks like he would do well in a shootstyle fed, his grappling is very neat and he got some fun takedowns on the big fat guy. Cool finish. I think this lasted 2 and a half minutes.
Kazuhiro Hamanaka vs. Taka Kunou
Wrestling vs. Judo grappling match done almost like a spotfest. Hamanaka has really nice throws and Kunou has a really great flying armbar and STO, and they match up very well and Kunou produces a cool finish. This lasted slightly longer than 3 minutes.
Michiyoshi Ohara vs. Kevin Randleman
It's the MMA legend Randleman against Tatsutoshi Goto underling Michiyoshi Ohara. Ohara gives his all here and they have a scrappy match fighting clinches and beating on each other. Ohara spits on Randleman and Randleman has ridiculously fast shots and damn near kills Ohara with a gigantic suplex. Then Ohara wins it with his awesome running headbutts! This went close to 4 minutes.
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