instant day six reaction, take it with a pinch of salt if you prefer your opinions with a bit more distance and reflection
Kojima-Elgin Cozy is killing the opening spot and am not sure why he gets the Nagata job spot (could be a booked slow start), he can obviously put together good matches with this crop of young tyros. MIKE~ is very much in his element here with Baseball Elgin a dot in the rear view mirror. Brought the crowd, who probably needed an intermission after a 5 match opening half, back well. Kojima sold the hell out of all those bombs at the end. ***1/2
Tama-EVIL pet peeve of mine, even in worked contests, is ineffectual officials. This brawl went all over the city of Fukushima, more-or-less, with loads of cheating and the ref getting hit and enough room for 6 count-outs. I'm not saying every match should be a UWF style in-ring classic. I'd just like to see refs call it more like a shoot. Anyway, when they got it back in the ring it was alright. Tama's doing great at getting the change in his character over and I'm ok with them taking tournament matches as character dev. real estate as long as they don't mind me marking them down. End tease and final sequence was good. **3/4
Juice-Suzuki when Juice limped out to the ring I rubbed my hands together as who better to work over a crocked limb than Suzuki? unfortunately instead of being 10-12 mins of grim limbwork this followed the same pattern as the previous match, except it looked rougher and wilder bcs Suzuki. A much-more one-sided contest than we're used to and probably more interesting for it: Juice had some fire spots but Suzuki just soaked up the strikes, ground Juice into paste, and finished him. I know Minoru is old and takes half a G1 off so I cut him some slack. Interesting but not necessarily 'good'. **3/4
Kenny-Yano comedy match that was mostly pretty inventive. best unspoiled but it's one of the matches where Yano has stuff planned out. ***
Okada-SANADA strong main event match that had me buying into a couple of the lines it was trying to sell me on. crowd clearly bought into the threat of SANADA too which made for a stronger contest. Sad thing is this was really good but in Okada's year it will be forgotten about. But if they have any plans on this being a long-term feud then I'm sold on its potential. ****1/4