The Wrestling Bucket

Yoshihiro Takayama/Takuma Sano vs The Kings Of Wrestling, NOAH 4/16

This wasn't even half as good as their match from last year. Hero WORKS the apron and does a good job of actively getting the fans to care, but otherwise this was largely really dull. Hero also dishes out some nasty chops and elbows (standard) and a nice tope, but the Sano/Claudio exchanges were outright shitty.

Kazunari Murakami/Seiya Morohashi vs Yoshiaki Yago/Kengo Mashimo, Union Pro 5/4

I only checked this out because Yago was a freaking badass in his breif Chikara stint and I wanted to see if him Murakami would wail on each other. Murakami crowbar'd him a few times, but really this match almost isn't worth commenting on. Too long, too much filler, not enough ass kicking.

Dick Togo vs Shuji Ishikawa, DDT 5/4

I actually like Ishikawa but there's no two ways about it - he sucked pretty fierce here. There was some good stuff like Togo's selling, bladejob, his last flurry of strikes near the end and the way he sold the finish to make it look devestating, but this was a long match with periods of nothing happening. Even with the clipped version, it felt too long with a lot of overkill, and Ishikawa no-selling the Senton for a sloppy as hell chokeslam killed it for me.

Yoshihiro Takayama/Takuma Sano vs Jun Akiyama/Akitoshi Saito, NOAH 5/8

I almost gave this a second look because I literally had no opinion on it after watching it. I didn't like it, didn't dislike it. There were sections that were good, such as Akiyama getting worked over, Sano delivering a hellish stomp from the top to the floor, and the finishing run had it's moments. But to balence that there was an awful lot of dead air and a particularly bad no-sell exchange from Sano. I was left thinking "well, that certainly was.... a match". I guess that's not a good thing.