Big Japan 2/12

Takashi Sasaki vs Kankuro Hoshino (Ladders & Chairs Match)

This started off pretty damn badly but got good by the end. T. Sasaki has gotten pretty good at working these ace vs lower ranked guys matches where he gives his opponents a lot and lets you buy into them getting the upset over him. The stipulation and gimmicks were pretty lame, but Hoshino is a scrappy underdog whose sentons on various plunder looked nasty, and he bled a bucketload. Had the start been better and the gimmick not awkward this could have been something.

Abdullah Kobayashi vs Masashi Takeda (Light-tubes Deathmatch)

This was one of the most bizarre matches I've seen maybe ever. It was a deathmatch, but with a strong emphasis on lots of shoot-style elements. Whilest I give them marks for trying something new and out-of-the-box, they might be the two most conflicting styles in pro wrestling. These sorts of blood'n'gore, tonnes of tubes used deathmatches push the suspension of disbelief enough on their own, but shoot-style requires the most realistic approach possible. The execution of the idea wasn't bad (Takeda's shoot punches looked great), it's the idea itself that was just a mess. A guy no-selling a german suplex onto a stack of tubes, then getting caught in a flash cross armbreaker just doesn't cut it.

Daisuke Sekimoto/Yuji Okabayashi/Ryuichi Kawakami vs. Yoshihito Sasaki/Shinya Ishikawa/Masashi Otani

This was alright but one of the weaker Strong BJ tags of late. Otani is a rookie who made his debut the week before, so he was spotlighted in trying to earn his stripes. Unfortunately, he is still pretty green and easily the weakest of the Strong BJ crew, but he atleast brought the EFFORT which was enough for the crowd to get behind him. The main problem was that the extended beatdown on him was boring as shit. Yoshihito was pretty good here, constantly berating and smacking Otani about in order to fire him up, and he was great off the hot tag. He is still a visious bastard and it looked like they were going for a hot finishing run, but then they lost steam and went on for another 5 minutes without ever getting the heat or momentum back. Ishikawa was also great and totally brought it to Sekimoto, to the point where you wish he was the one being spotlighted in Otani's role, but instead he was only a backseat character.