Puroresu Show Reviews

“Interception” 10/09/2005 - Korakuen Hall

Takehiro Murahama VS Rikiya Fudo
Clipped down and looked to be a very mat based match. Fudo looks a lot like Tomoaki Honma now, even with the same hairdo and white colored tights! Since it was clipped down, not a lot was shown other than Jr. heavyweight Murahama using his submission skills to lock down and eventually get the submission out of Fudo.
Match Rating: ½*

Kamikaze VS Lingerie Muto
Wow, they actually had a build-up video for Muto. For the life of me I will never understand why ANYONE would want to be a Keiji Muto impersonator who wears lingerie in the ring.
Anyways, not really a lot to this one. Crowd pops for Muto hitting Keiji Muto’s spots like the dragon screw, space rolling elbow, rushing elbow etc. He even did an impressive Shining Wizard off the referee’s back! Unfortunately he would botch the moonsault and lose the match. Not a lot to say about Kamikaze either. Just applied a few rest-holds, bumped for Muto’s offense, than finished him off. I would have preferred if they cut this out and put in the Tatsuhito Takaiwa VS Takuya Sugawara match that was originally on the card but cut out of the broadcast.
Match Rating: ½*

NWA International Lightweight Tag Titles
Minoru Fujita & Ikuto Hidaka VS Johnny Storm & Joedy Flash
This was clipped a bit, but still REALLY good. A lot of fast paced, high-flying action from the gaijin duo. Flash (or Fleisch?) has a really good springboard shooting star press, and is a great high-flyer. Storm is equally as good and is definitely an insane risk taker as he hit a HUGE dive off the BALCONY of Korakuen Hall onto the defending champions! They duo even pulled off this really awesome looking double-team move where Storm German-suplexed Flash off the top rope and Flash flipped into a moonsault on Hidaka! I was really surprised at the amount of offense they got in on the champions here.
I noticed Fujita didn’t do much but bump his ass off, and Hidaka carried most of the offensive load for the team. They did have this one cool double team where Fujita would alley-oop one of his opponents into Hidaka, who would catch them out of mid-air with a sit-out powerbomb!
I guess letting the gaijins get in a ton of offense added emotion to the match as the champions were really challenged here to hang on to their titles and pushed to the limit.
Match Rating: ***1/2

Shinjiro Ohtani & The Sandman VS Masato Tanaka & Yoshihito Sasaki
They showed the Sandman’s full intro, and I literally had goosebumps seeing the reaction the Hardcore Icon received here as the fans sang along to Enter Sandman and shared beers with him on his way to the ring. But when the match actually starts, you can see Sandman is a little wasted from all the beer he’s been chugging. He got his nose busted when Tanaka smacked a steel case into his face, but he fans loved him anyway. To his credit, he hit the top rope frankensteiner on Sasaki, as well as launching him through a table. And he took several good whacks to the head with chairs and table bits too.
You could tell Tanaka wanted to soften up Sandman for their upcoming singles match as he took it to the Hardcore Icon. He was the guy trying to take Sandman’s head off with the chair and table shots. I can’t wait to see their singles match.
Ohtani seemed to have to keep Sandman in check throughout the match. But he did his usual spots and had some great exchanges with young Sasaki, taing some of his signature moves including the Argentine Coaster, and the big combination attack from Sasaki and Tanaka.
Despite Sandman’s awkwardness in the match, this was really fun to watch and I hope Sandman comes back to Japan soon. Heck, I’m secretly praying Big Japan books a death match between him and Necro Butcher!
Match Rating: ***

Overall: The two tag main events of the show were really fun to watch, and you should pick this one up for them alone. And of course you will definitely want to check it out if you’re a Sandman fan. Thumbs up from me once you get past the first two matches.

Labels: Zero-1 MAX