ken45° vs. Kenbai - 3
Ultimo Dragon, Yapper Man #1 & Yapper Man #2 vs. Kinya Oyanagi, Rui Hiugaji & Satoshi Kajiwara - 5
MEN's Teioh, TAKA Michinoku & Kesen Numajiro vs. Rasse, Takeshi Minamino & Maguro Ooma - 5
Jinsei Shinzaki, Tiger Mask & Dick Togo vs. Shu Sato, Kei Sato & Shinjitsu Tohoku - 5
Jr. Heavyweight Title: Fujita "Jr." Hayato © vs. Great Sasuke - 6
Reflecting back on this, this wasn't a bad match, but it never really took off. The fans didn't seem very connected as it was pretty much Ken45 killing Kenbai. Kenbai took a beating with pride and sold well. Ken hit this nasty finisher that Kenbai sold like death, adding a nice touch of kicking only one leg up at the 3-count.
The team of younger guys were absolutely decimating the Yappers. Now, I've seen a few Yapper matches and I've never really been taken by them, but their performance here was pretty good. They were just eating everything the younger team was dishing out. Yapper #2 was especially good, crawling to get the hot tag to Ultimo, who by the way looked fucking incredible. Quite an impressive showing by all six guys, but the younger team was just so stiff and good that I think they really shined through in this match; however, the Yappers (despite a terrible arm drag botch) really did look good as well.
Teiho looks like he hasn't missed a damn beat. Kind of like the blue man group. Hell, for that matter, Taka still looked awesome as well. This followed the great puro multi-man tag formula of great technical wrestling combined with some great exchanges that reverberated through the concession stands of Korakuen. Minamino seems to have this excellent mean streak about him that if you met him on the crowded Sendai streets, you'd probably plow through the crowd to get the fuck out of his way. PS: sweet hair, bro. Ooma looked like a complete dick in the ring by treating the vet team like dojo boys fresh from the streets, garnering heat. Just a really solid match that went the perfect amount of time.
This broke down really quick. Tohoku squared off with Shinzaki in the ring and looked like an ant going up against a tarantula. Things went to the outside where Shinzaki took some whips into chairs like a motherfucking SlipNSlide. Shu and Kei were bringing it throughout the match, and their sweet skullets were looking brutal. They both connected with the audience really well by yelling at them and getting them fired up. Togo looked jacked as hell and in great shape. He hit some clean as hell offense as well. TM, while he gets a lot of heat online, looked really good and connected with all of his offense. My one gripe is that I wish they would've built to the spring environment a bit more slowly. Oh yeah, get KEN45 the fuck out of the ring or DQ the bastards! Easily could've been a 6 otherwise.
The main event was pretty damn good. I loved the story of the young, brash, hot-headed rookie Hayato taking on the vet Sasuke. Hayato held nothing back and looked to be stiff as hell with Sasuke, really taking it to him with stiff kicks that Sasuke ate reluctantly. I dug the psych during the crowd brawl when Hayato gave a con-chairto to Sasuke's leg, then proceeded to pick apart the leg inside the ring. Sasuke was selling the leg vocally which made it seem that much more real. Sasuke hit his signature dives which hearkened back to those days of '94, too, which made me smile. Props to Hayato sticking it to Sasuke and not taking it easy on him. He gets over that young stiff punk vibe so well. Overall, a well-worked, well paced match that was quite appropriate for Sasuke's 20th.
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