All Japan 08/29

Summer Explosion 2015

(2015/08/29)

BJW 2014/10/31

Saikyo Tag League 2014

 (2014/10/31)

BJW 2014/9/23

Saikyo Tag League 2014

(2014/9/23)

2.      Isamu Oshita & Toshiyuki Sakuta vs. MEN’S Teioh & Tatsuhiko Yoshino

The centerpiece was Oshita/Yoshino and it was awesome. Teioh works so well with young guns.

***1/4

3.      Ryuichi Kawakami & Kota Sekifuda vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Masaya Takahashi

I love it when puro companies get the very most out of obvious tag matches where you’re 100% sure who’s a fallman. And it doesn’t get much better than this, poor tiny Sekifuda against the surly duo of big bad animals, especially Shuji Ishikawa who’s toying with him until the moment he’s not. Korakuen adores good underdog stories, and so do I.

***3/4

4.      Saikyo Tag League 2014 (Death Block) – BARBED WIRE BOARD STREET FIGHT DEATHMATCH: Heisei Gokudo Combi (Kankuro Hoshino & Masato Inaba) vs. Jaki Numazawa & Masashi Takeda

Wow, this one totally caught me off guard, great fucking match and definitely the best HGC effort ever, by a large margin. This was just a whacky rollercoaster of fun.

****

5.      Saikyo Tag League 2014 (Strong Block): Shiori Asahi & Shinobu vs. Koji Kanemoto & Kazuki Hashimoto

And here is ANOTHER super fun match. Kanemoto and K-Hash are teaming together after the grueling rivalry and obviously they’re stupendously awesome in kicking asses.

***3/4

6.      Saikyo Tag League 2014 (Strong Block): Speed of Sounds (Hercules Senga & Tsutomu Oosugi) vs. Daisuke Sekimoto & Hideyoshi Kamitani

Great power vs. speed clash, with a strong subplot of Kamitani digging in VERY fucking deep to justify the privilege of teaming with Sekimoto, this was a captivating story.

****

7.      Saikyo Tag League 2014 (Death Block) – IRON CAGE & LIGHTTUBE DEATHMATCH: Ryuji Ito & Abdullah Kobayashi vs. Yankee Nichokenju (Yuko Miyamoto & Isami Kodaka)

Such a neat and proper match to cap off this highly entertaining show. The match wasn’t anything particularly new, but the story of Abby getting some of his mojo back after the return was enough for me and Korakuen to care and enjoy. Pretty damn good deathmatch.

***3/4

BJW 2014/9/3

2014/9/3

BJW 2014/8/21, 8/24, 8/31

Daisuke Sekimoto 15^th Anniversary

Drama in Saitama

Saitama Super DDT 2015

(2015/2/15)

1.       Yoshihiko, Antonio Honda, Great Kojika vs. Akebono, Toru Owashi, Kazuki Hirata

The HIRATA GO! magical glasses fad goes on, this time with Bono in the mix. Dancemania is on! Yoshihiko is scarier than ever! Akebono doubts himself!

GOLD

2.       12-PERSON BATTLE ROYAL for Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship: Kubo Yukamoto © vs. Yasu Urano vs. Shunma Katsumata © vs. Yuto Aijima vs. Soma Takao © vs. Hikaru Sato © vs. Bernard Ackah vs. Tomomitsu Matsunaga © vs. Zeus © vs. Saki Akai vs. Makoto Oishi © vs. Aja Kong ©

Ridiculous(ly fun), which is always the case with these looney Ironman Title matches, this time we had the cameraman jumping Aja Kong backstage to win the title, among many other things that happened. Pure camp.

**1/2

3.       RULE RUMBLE for DDT Extreme Championship: Shiori Asahi vs. Akito ©

The Rule Rumble gimmick means the match rules change every 90 seconds, which led to one of the most creative matches I’ve seen lately, this was top notch entertainment.

***3/4

4.       KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship: Shuten-doji (KUDO, Yukio Sakaguchi, Masa Takanashi) vs. Gorgeous Matsuno, Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei ©

Whacky Brahmans style match, first there was some really funny brawling through the crowd before calling it a day inside the ring, starring Sakaguchi and Matsuno, they had a surprisingly competitive round. Fun stuff.

***1/4

5.       4-WAY SUPER TLC MATCH: Daisuke Sasaki & Suguru Miyatake vs. MIKAMI & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Shigehiro Irie & Keisuke Ishii vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Jun Kasai

So basically the point of the match was to promote DDT’s next outdoor show, and the prize Takagi and Kasai won is the right to compete in a Street Wrestling Match there. Hehe. The match wasn’t super spectacular and they didn’t exactly break any new ground here, but damn it if it wasn’t tons of fun and charm. Cute little match worth of your time.

***1/2

6.       Michael Nakazawa vs. Danshoku Dino

I understand the stories they were telling, but I’ve never been a Nakazawa fan (probably my least favorite puro guy ever) and Dino’s act can be very amusing, but more than often it’s not. Again, though, I get it why they did what they did here, but they bored the shit out of me because I don’t care for the participants.

bad

7.       Super Sasadango Machine vs. Kazushi Sakuraba

PowerPoint presentation, hilarious slides, banana peels, three Lehman shocks, narrated video packages… Vintage SSM!

wat

8.       KO-D Tag Team Championship: Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Konosuke Takeshita & Tetsuya Endo ©

Marvelous match with interesting booking where the Strong BJ duo proved to be a more complete and experienced tag team, as they dominated majority of the match, basically they slowed the pace down and were systematically wearing down the Happy Motel duo in all the slow paced workovers. The only way for the young champions to gain some advantage was through heroic comebacks and rapid fire shots, which led to great tag team wrestling. Seriously, the entire thing was beautifully booked in this clear cut piece of storytelling, and I hope we get all the one-on-one match variations possible, matter fact they already booked Endo/Okabayashi for February 21^st to play off the finish from this match. Fuck yes, DDT!

****1/2

9.       KO-D Openweight Championship: Kota Ibushi vs. HARASHIMA ©

Excellent main event between DDT’s biggest stars, HARASHIMA’s long reign is in real danger here against his biggest rival. This was a three act match: careful/defensive grappling and SHIMA working on Kota’s mid-section in the beginning, the second act was fighting on the entrance stage and the third one was calling it a day slowly but surely, Kota didn’t give the champ another opportunity to damage his mid-section and that’s what prevailed. They threw some very rough smacks at each other and the finish was amazing.

****1/2

Awesome show with loads of hot shot entertainment, DDT delivered again.

All Japan 2015/1/3

New Year Wars 2015

(2015/1/3)

1.       Yohei Nakajima, Naoya Nomura, Yuma Aoyagi vs. Masanobu Fuchi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Ultimo Dragon

Fun opener with a peculiar underdog trio led by jobber Nakajima battling against the super experienced trio, they stood no chance and the story went exactly that way.

**3/4

2.       Soma Takao vs. Atsushi Aoki

Killer little match, rough and heavy, Aoki was relentless with attacking Takao’s back and it paid off. There was that one totally fabulous sequence with Aoki shoving Takao into the guardrails repeatedly, smashing shit. Also, the finish was excellent.

***1/2

3.       GAORA TV Championship: Ryuji Hijikata vs. KENSO ©

This was actually passable until the unnecessary ref bump.

bad

4.       Jun Akiyama, Takao Omori, SUSHI vs. Akebono, Shigehiro Irie, Shuji Ishikawa

So cool to see my man Shuji in All Japan, man I wish it could happen more regularly. Anyway, fuck SUSHI, there was too much of him in the match and he brought it down, because that’s what he does best. Fuck SUSHI. Sure, he was the obvious fallman, but still – FUCK HIM.

***1/4

5.       Shingo Takagi & Zeus vs. Suwama & Hikaru Sato

The fallman is obvious here but it didn’t prevent the match from being really good. That’s because they worked smart and didn’t get overambitious. It was cool to see Shingo in All Japan, just like Shuji Ishikawa earlier, hopefully they come back.

***3/4

6.       All Asia Tag Team Championship: Mitsuya Nagai & Takeshi Minamino vs. Kento Miyahara & Kotaro Suzuki ©

This was really awesome until KENSO decided to stick his beak in, and it was all downhill from there.

bad

7.       AJPW Triple Crown Championship: Go Shiozaki vs. Joe Doering ©

Unfortunately, this didn’t live up to the massive hype, as much as it really pains me to say. Good title match, but nowhere near the MOTYC level or something. Also the atmosphere was falsely advertised as “red hot Korakuen”. The pacing was kind of off and some moves/transitions were too botchy and weird, dunno how it got overlooked by the smarks, lol. Go did some things that were awkward and had me scratching my head a lot. Their September slugfest was much, much better. But like I said, good match though, and even though I was disappointed because I expected a bonafide classic, I’m still very happy for Go and have big hopes for his reign. However, All Japan is going produce at least 20 matches in 2015 better than this one, you can put that in the bank.

***1/2