First NOAH of the year

Kensuke Sasaki vs Takuma Sano, NOAH 1/15

This was a pretty fun slugfest of sorts. Both men hit very hard and Sano seems a lot more motivated than usual. He hits some pretty nasty double-stomps, which Sasaki sells bigtime to the point of making Sano look like a threat to him. There's one overly long Figure Four spot, but again Sasaki sells it well enough to make it seem worthwhile. Sano brings it more than I can remember him doing in a long time, even busting out a cool elbow combo and hitting a savate kick that plants Sasaki right on the jaw. Nothing high-end, but a solid match nonetheless.

Jun Akiyama/Akitoshi Saito vs Go Shiozaki/Shuhei Taniguchi, NOAH 1/15

This was pretty average. Taniguchi still sucks, though Akiyama got a good exchange out of him at the start that led to them both showing hardway blood. Unfortunetly the intensity wasn't kept up, and the rest of this was pretty mediocre and padestrian. Akiyama waving Saito off and telling him "I got this" before the finish was a nice touch, even though Go pinning him didn't feel like a big moment at all.

Yoshihiro Takayama vs KENTA, NOAH 1/15

What a horrifying display of violence this was. These two have become one of the most reliable pairings in puro, due to Takayama being able to make KENTA look like a threat while keeping the heavy vs junior psychology intact (his selling was really great at points), but more importantly because they absolutely fucking maul each other. Good God this was stiff. Every knee strike, lariat and kick connected with audiable force, and Takayama even hardway’d himself with a sick headbutt in grizzly fashion. KENTA hit a breath-taking double stomp from the top the outside, and there was also a jaw-dropping shoot punch exchange. I only wish the crowd had been better, but otherwise this was really good stuff.