OTANI~! (and some other scrubs)

ZERO1 2015/3/29

Ikuto Hidaka & Fujita Hayato vs. Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

Otani’s always been fabulous and severely underrated, but now he might have evolved into his best version yet – a grumpy cutthroat whose biggest pleasure in life is beating the shit out of people. Basically, a new Tenryu. Here he is, a force to be reckoned with, going all the way with the fierce Juniors, and really, Otani made this match great, everything he did was awesome, in every part of the match, whether it’s feeling out process, crowd pandering spots, laying smackdowns, hot tag, etc. Hidaka and Hayato were solid enough and Takaiwa wasn’t anything good until the finishing run. The match ended on a very high note, I gotta say, the climax was exciting and well done with all the nearfalls and fall-breakers, great drama right there, plus they never went over-the-top, everything felt organic. What a great tag team gem, this mustn’t remain hidden under the big pile of other March wrestling.

****

ZERO1 2015/1/23

Shinjiro Otani & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Kohei Sato & Hideki Suzuki

Technically, this wasn’t exactly a ZERO1 show, it was a joint (?) show with Onita’s (?) Super Fireworks indie promotion (?), but waddaya gonna do, I’m putting this into a ZERO1 drawer. Jesus, on paper this looks like a total dream match of utter asskicking and manliness. They never really got there, though, partially because the match wasn’t very long and partially because they didn’t quite create a different story other than “four men married to violence”. For that, the match was very good, but ultimately – aimless. There’s no need for singling out any particular match-up here, because pretty much everything was solid/good/great, and you know what you get from all the names involved. The finishing stretch with Otani and Suzuki was brutal. Too bad this was basically a B-show, put this pairing in Korakuen and you’ll get something truly special.

***3/4