I am fairly sure from watching this that Takayama was pretty injured going in as this was 95% a Akiyama carry job. For a match that was very short for a tournament final (13 minutes) they spent a lot of it in headlocks and other holds or doing count out teases to waste some time. … Continue reading Yoshihiro Takayama Vs Jun Akiyama Global League final NOAH 02/05/2010
Set up as a super dream match between legends and it largely delivered except a rushed feeling finish. You had a cool couple of dreamatch style face offs at the start until the real match began with the heel team working over Misawa for a short while until he makes a awesome comeback with really … Continue reading Tatsumi Fujinami & Mitsuharu Misawa Vs Masahiro Chono & Jushin Liger NJPW 14/05/2005
Other than the very start and one or two bad moments this was a pretty exemplary version of heel invades from another promotion and challenges face champion. Makabe was a dickhead using deliberate ref bumps help from Honma, a chair and a table in his attempt to take out Sugiura and his left leg. The … Continue reading Takashi Sugiura c Vs Togi Makabe GHC Heavyweight title 28/02/2010
What this match really did show was how much better Sugiura was than goto and how dull Goto really was in 2010. He just appears to be so generic here and runs through his moves when on offense and worse than that his transitions into offence are built upon 'my turn to be on top … Continue reading Takashi Sugiura c vs Hiroki Goto GHC Heavyweight Title NJPW 04/01/2010
The first title match of the post Misawa era to be between two guys who were not established main eventers from when Misawa was alive. Thankfully they dont try to dispel any idea that they are not ready to be in the main events by putting on an attempt at a multi-layered epic which would … Continue reading Go Shiozaki c vs Takashi Sugiura GHC Heavyweight title 06/12/2009
The third big title match between these two in 14 months, starting with Kaito's title win at the end of 2018 in a really good match, followed by a title defense in mid 2019 in what was a pretty good at best match. Here this one is right in the middle of those two. I … Continue reading Takashi Sugiura c vs Kaito Kiyomiya GHC National Title 24/02/2020
There was a hell of a lot to like in this match including some excellent matwork as you might expect with Hideki but also a couple of glaring issues that regardless of the positives of the match could not be overcome. The grappling section followed by a good ten minutes of matwork at the start … Continue reading Katsuhiko Nakajima Vs Hideki Suzuki NOAH 16/02/2020
This was mostly a hell of a build up tag. It had its issue (Ricky Marvin in general) but was mostly really effective at building to SUWAMA vs Akiyama. The two of them were not in the ring together until 10 minutes and that was when SUWAMA was not the legal man. The two of … Continue reading Jun Akiyama & Ricky Marvin Vs SUWAMA & KAI AJPW 10/10/2011
Yuma's first world title shot and the build up to it was fairly hot, they sold out korakuen for it and Yuma looked good in the prelude tags and some of the singles matches he had. often winning quick with three different moves, including a brutal new spin kick which is surprisingly good considering how … Continue reading Kento Miyahara c vs Yuma Ayoagi Triple Crown Heavyweight Title AJPW 11/02/2020
As is happening all too often in this rewatch of the KentFuji title run the matches are far too long and can feel samey and dull from the middle on-wards. The very end of the finish stretch is often very good as it was here but they often start to speed up with 10 or … Continue reading Naomichi Marufuji & KENTA c vs Kotaro Suzuki & Ricky Marvin GHC jr Heavyweight tag Titles NOAH 01/06/2004
Korakuen Ramblings 