Masamune Produce Murasaki Hige Dokugan 3 6/19/2022

 Kagura vs. CHANGO

Started as a really solid undercard lucharesu match. Apparently Kagura is Taro Yamada, who's really good on the mat and can do athletic stuff, and CHANGO is a trickier worker than you expect from someone who works the lowest tier indy undercards. Really liked how Chango reversed a bodyslam attempt into a cool llave, and his 619 over the rope was another cool spot that a more famous indy wrestler could steal for a potentially viral GIF. However Chango does two comedy spots, one where he entangles Kagura in the ring apron, and one where he undoes ALL the turnbuckle pads and wraps them around his fist. Both took forever and took me out of the match. They also kept doing ref bumps and such bullshit spots which is a bit much for an opener. Aside from that you had a pretty good match here.

Gabai Ji-Chan vs. Pretty Ota

More old man comedy. Lots of walking cane jokes, apparently the cane is cursed or something and whoever holds it has to walk around like an old man. Gabai Ji-Chan ends up breaking the cane in a moment that feels like it should bury the gimmick, but I'm sure he will be back on the next z-tier indy undercard to repeat the same jokes soon enough.

Keita Yano & Takafumi Ito vs. MASAMUNE & Harutoki - FUN

 Nice thrown together match. Apparently Masamune is a Jiraya trainee which explains his adeptness at both llave and shootstyle matwork. He meshes extremely well with Keita and Ito, and the second exchange between Ito and him where they went all out was really good shit. It was all submission work, and then suddenly Ito ate a fucking Regalplex out of nowhere. Harutoki isn't terribly interesting, he needs to learn some llaves, and he doesn't have great execution, so the finish between him and Keita was really solid. Keita looked good as usual doing his weird stuff, I really liked how he broke out of a pin by raking the eyes. The finish with Keita doing a bunch of Negro Navarro stuff into a super tight chickenwing crossface was awesome. This was FUN as far as Keita performances go, but the Masamune vs. Takafumi Ito stuff here was money.

GENTARO vs. Kenichiro Arai

Slow, deliberate 70s style grappling match that really explores working holds and breaking out of them to the maximum. It‘s an aquired taste, but really good for what it was. Gentaro when in a technical match always looks like one of the greatest grapplers on earth. Arai looked comfortable rolling with him too. They kept doing these intense struggles over basic holds and most importantly, they absolutely sold their butts off. Something like a bow & arrow, or a double axe handle felt epic. The last 5 minutes was Arai just desperately trying to hang on with Gentaro busting out cool, unexpected finish attempts. It's a shame GENTARO rarely gets booked into matches like this because he's looks world class in them.

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