All Japan 3/14

Dream Power Series 2015

(2015/3/14)

1.       Ryuji Hijikata & Naoya Nomura vs. Masanobu Fuchi & Yuma Aoyagi

Solid opener with Hijikata looking great as a merciless punisher.

**1/2

2.       Mitsuya Nagai vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru

NO!

3.       SUSHI vs. Suwama

SUSHI got way too much out of this one, should’ve been more one-sided in Suwama’s favor.

**3/4

4.       Keisuke Ishii & Soma Takao vs. Joe Doering & Atsushi Aoki

Aoki and Joe have a significant size advantage due to Joe being a fucking mammoth, but the Team Drift duo has way more experience in teaming together. What will prevail? Good little sprint. Joe towering over the DDT guys made for some fun moments.

***

5.       GAORA TV Championship: Hikaru Sato vs. KENSO ©

I’ve never seen a match going from “***1/2” to “bad” so quickly. Shit was good until Nagai’s countless interferences occurred, and there were 3-4 ref bumps, the whole thing got awkward and obnoxious. Shame, because the first half was really good with Sato realizing this is turning into the hardest fight of his career during KENSO’s awesome control segment.

bad

6.       Jun Akiyama, Takao Omori, Ultimo Dragon vs. Akebono, Yutaka Yoshie, Shigehiro Irie

Decent 6-man tag that should’ve been better considering the place on the card, however, those 15 minutes just flew by, I’ll give them that. Akiyama was the standout, creating and accelerating beef with just about everyone.

**3/4

7.       Kento Miyahara & Kotaro Suzuki vs. Go Shiozaki & Yohei Nakajima

Xceed members collide in what was a really good match, this was a build to the Kento/Go Triple Crown clash scheduled for the tour-ender in Korakuen. If you watched this match in a vacuum, you’d have no fucking clue these four are stablemates, no way. And while Kotaro/Yohei exchanges might seem “normal”, Kento and Go went to war here, both inside and outside the ring, with Kento once again making strong claim to be declared the modern Genichiro Tenryu, dude creates tons of natural heat and hate with everyone. The Triple Crown encounter looks promising after this prelude.

***3/4