Hideki Suzuki vs Yu Iizuka
Nice little match to start the event. Mostly grappling, everytime Iizuka get a submission on Hideki was really cool. Iiizuka seemed to be the one pushing the pace while Suzuki mostly relied on his size and didn't do much, though he had one really neat counter to an Octopus Stretch attempt. Finish was Suzuki starting to hit elbows during the grappling and KOing Iizuka, I felt it would have been nice if we had got a bit of back and forth. I mean Iizuka has gone toe to toe with Masakazu Funaki, it wouldn't have been absurd to see him take it to Hideki a bit more.
Ikuto
Hidaka & Tanomusaku Toba vs Brother Yasshi & Hikaru Sato - EPIC
Great super violent undercard tag. I wasn't sure how Yasshi would do in this, but he does pretty good and took some insane punishment. He was solid early on taking down Toba, before he tries some pro wrestling bullshit and immediately gets punched in the face HARD. Hidaka/Sato was good shootstyle stuff with Hidaka being really lively and aggressive. Match got great once Yasshi took a sick out of nowhere bump on a German suplex. Toba then turned into super violent mode and started dishing out incredibly stiff punches and kicks. Sato/Toba exchange was brief but pretty great, I definitely would've liked to see more of that. Toba/Yasshi was just awesome as Toba was brutalizing Yasshi and Yasshi started hitting these sick jumping shoot headbutts which were some of the sickest I've ever seen. Hidaka/Sato finish was excellent BattlARTS stuff with some big strikes neck crunching moves and cool submission counters. Really good quasi shootstyle undercard tag that left me wanting more, just what we need in this day and age.
Keita
Yano vs Super Tiger II - GREAT
I was curious to see Yano doing shootstyle matwork, but he stuck to his british style grappling even in this context. He was pretty good, though. He did things like leaning into a shoulder pin really slowly to emphasize he was stretching his opponent in painful ways. Keita controlled about 80% of the match. Tiger sold the fuck out of that armwork and hit some ultarsharp kicks when he got fed up with being toyed with. Tigers kicks looked great and he seemed to have a lot of spark in him, I would definitely like to see more of his modern day work. He looked like a badass when he finished Keita with a couple of brutal kicks.
Yuki Ishikawa & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Minoru Fujita
Ishikawa pretty much carried the match, always doing neat maestroish things when he was in the ring. I haven't seen Fujita in years but he looked fine doing serious wrestling here. He did the right thing immediately going for his finisher during a brief grappling section with Ishikawa. He was also fun looking out of his depth against Sekimoto and trying to pull off a counter. Sekimoto didn't really do do Bati-Bati style here, just his pro style stuff with things like Irish Whips cut out, but the random touches like his big cross body were fun. I thought the final Ishikawa/Ikeda exchange underdelivered as Ikeda looked blown up after eating some slams from Sekimoto and nearly KO'ing himself with a big running headbutt. He didn't put up much fight against Ishikawa besides some Baba chops. Slightly disappointing outing from the two though I understand Ikeda is probably on his last legs.
Fuminori Abe vs. Takuya Nomura
Sick, blood-drenched fight. I was worried Abe would bring a goofy vibe, and while there was a bit of that early on, they stuck to doing serious pro wrestling. Nomura looked really great whenever he was doing Hashimoto-like beatdowns to his goofy opponent. After getting stomped in the corner, Abe finally decided to quit the silliness and just started knuckle punching his opponent in the face. After that the match got pretty great as both guys were just violently pummeling each other. Tons of sick headbutts, at one point Abe started bleeding from the crown of his head and it was just grizzly. Abes knee to the side of Nomuras face was by far the highlight of the match. Nasty nasty finish where a bleeding and beaten down Abe was stuck in a submission like Austin in the sharpshooter. Really good shit, no downtime and both guys just punished each other, really hope they keep doing this stuff as the whole show was great from top to bottom, and this was one hell of a fight to cap it off.
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