NOAH 3/21

Atsushi Aoki vs Bobby Fish

Solid if uneventful low-card match. Fish seemed to be working hurt as he was covered in bandages. Aoki attacks his injuries like a dick and Fish gets somewhat fired up and responds with some hard shots. And that was that.

Kensuke Sasaki/Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Jun Akiyama/Naomichi Marufuji

OK match. Enjoyed Akiyama working Nakajima over but the beating wasn't big enough. Marufuji was surisingly not awful and didn't do anything too stupid, he actually threw some decent looking strikes instead of doing his usual superfluous bullshit, and he took a wicked bump off a Sasaki lariat. Nakajima's kicks are still brutal but his exchanges with Marufuji were standard juniors dryness. Still despite this it was pretty forgettable and they never really kept the momentum going.

Takeshi Morishima vs Yoshihiro Takayama

Another solid but ultimately forgettable match. Pretty tame by these guys' standards, not nearly enough ass-kicking. Interesting finish with Takayama choking Morishima out, though.

Takashi Sugiura vs Trevor Murdock

Holy hell Murdock was great in this. The guy is a heavy, heavy hitter and is a great heel. Everything he did was really stiff, including his great looking punches to the face, and he busted out lots of other swank offence. Unfortunately the Southern schtick doesn't go over in NOAH, which is a shame because him cheapshotting Sugs at the bell, using a chain and and using low-blows are all great stuff that gets no reaction. Sugiura dished out some hellacious elbows in the corner, but was otherwise pretty medoiocre (the guy just isnt good at lengthy singles matches), and Murdock having less than 0.000001% chance of winning really took any drama out of the match, which is a shame considering how great Murdock was. Why oh why does he not have a full time gig somewhere? WHY.