Puroresu Show Reviews

Starts off with a look back of the feud between Don Fujii and Yasushi Kanda, culminating at the 2/24/2006 Korakuen Hall PPV where Kanda had enough of Fujii’s abuse and finally fought back, only to be given a spike piledriver on a chair by Fujii and CIMA. But Kanda would have the last laugh that evening as he made a triumphant return in his M2K gear to smash a blue box over the head of a shocked Fujii! Kanda than issued the challenge to Fujii and Blood Generation to face him and fellow original M2K members Masaaki Mochizuki and Susumu Yokosuka, which will finally settle the score at tonight’s PPV!

Kenichiro Arai & King Shisa VS Anthony W. Mori & Turbo
What the Hell? Anthony gives Araken a missile dropkick to the head, and he hurts his legs instead while Araken doesn’t budge or feel anything? I think it was supposed to be comical, but I think that’s just ridiculous. Araken looks like he’s 45 instead of 33 for crying out loud, and he even blew a few spots cause he couldn’t keep up with Turbo!
King Shisa and Turbo at least keep the match interesting, with Turbo’s flip-floppy offense and Shisa still impresses me the way he moves around for his size. The tandem tombstone piledriver by Araken & Shisa was a cool spot though, before Araken hit a high diving headbutt off Shisa’s shoulders off the top rope for the win.
Match Rating: *

Open the Brave Gate Tourney: Naoki Tanisaki (2pts) VS Super Shisa (4pts)
The more aggressive Tanisaki controlled most of the match, which is a good thing cause the kid was long due for a push. He added some ground ‘n’ pound to his mat game, and was able to counter the Yoshi Tonic into a face-plant. He hit a great looking DDT off the top rope also, and after a few near falls from Shisa, was able to hit the Implant reverse piledriver followed by the Casanova running knee for the quick win.
Shisa should NOT have kicked out of the Implant since Tanisaki pinned him right after hitting it. Too bad Tanisaki ended up quitting after finally getting a push some time later.
Match Rating: *1/2

Open the Brave Gate Tourney: Tozawa (0pts) VS Naruki Doi (5pts)
Good to see Tozawa finally coming into his own. He attacked Doi off the bat sending him to the outside and hitting a big suicide dive throught the ropes. Doi came back breaking a chair over his head and dominated some more in the ring. I don’t know why, but the referee totally let Shingo Takagi come in ring and pummel Tozawa for a bit and double team him with Doi. Araken evens the odds for a bit spitting alcohol in Doi’s eyes, leading to a near fall for Tozawa with a hurricanrana. Shingo tries to interfere again with a powder attack, but accidentally hits Doi instead leading to another near fall with a roll-up. The referee gets distracted as Tozawa grabs the bag of powder and throws several hands full of it into Doi’s face before placing the entire bag over his head and rolling him up with a small-package to score the HUGE upset!
Araken offers Tozawa a spot in M2K, but Tozawa turns down the offer. Probably cause of all the abuse Araken has been laying on him and not letting him have any fun?
Match Rating: **

Open the Brave Gate Tourney: Dragon Kid (2pts) VS Masato Yoshino (5pts)
Man, how bad is the ringside crew at doing their jobs tonight? Every match so far had one spot where the wrestlers flew into the audience (there’s no guardrail) and the crew couldn’t get the fans out of the way in time.
The ending of this one really came out of nowhere, as after some quick counters, Kid scored the flash win with a crucifix-hold. I thought the match sort of lacked structure, as after working on Kid’s legs for a bit, they just started going for big moves out of nowhere. Kid even hit the Ultra Hurricanrana out of nowhere for a near fall, totally wasting that finisher.
Match Rating: *1/2

Intermission time and they show clips of M2K VS CRAZY MAX from August 2000, though the footage looks like it’s from 1995. Some good team work between Kanda & Susumu, including a double team Exploder on Fujii. Sucks that the match ended on a double count-out. We than get the November 2001 match where CIMA debuted the Schwein against Chocoflake K-Ichi, which was also the last match K-Ichi had in Toryumon before disappearing off the wrestling map.
Next up is a quick retrospective of Kanda’s wrestling career in Toryumon, including his retirement match against Stalker Ichikawa, which was mostly an exhibition in double team moves with Susumu on poor Stalker before he hit his diving elbow finisher.

After the intermission we get an in ring segment with K-ness, Stalker Ichikawa and the Florida Brothers. I skipped the whole thing since I had no idea what they were talking about.

Ryo Saito & Genki Horiguchi VS BxB Hulk & Magnum TOKYO
Even teaming with the Dream Gate champion, Genki can’t get a break. It pains me that they give Genki an awesome finisher like the Beach Break, but never let him pin anyone with it. Sucks even more that he has to job to Hulk here after his E.V.O finisher. Didn’t help any that this match went way longer than necessary.
Match Rating: *1/2

Original M2K (Yasushi Kanda, Masaaki Mochizuki & Susumu Mochizuki) VS Blood Generation (Don Fujii, CIMA & Shingo Takagi)
Kanda leads out the crew, and they are flanked by original M2K members Chocoflake K-Ichi and Darkness Dragon (so much cooler looking than K-ness!)! Easily the best match of the show with a ton of crowd heat for everything.
Kanda had his neck work over a lot by Blood Gen, but he showed he could still go in the ring and can still pull off his great double-team moves with Susumu, like the double-Exploder, the double modified-suplex and their tandem finisher where Susumu does a rolling Samoan drop and Kanda comes off the top with a big diving elbow drop, which they used to put away Fujii with for the win. Good to see Kanda get his rightful revenge, and also a fun bonus that Darkness Dragon and Chokoflake got involved, and K-Ichi got a small measure of revenge on CIMA when he escaped the Schwein and put on the iron claw!
Great match overall.
Match Rating: ***1/2

I didn’t get the ending though. Blood Generation were supposed to be these bad ass heels, and the whole night when they lost they still punked out their opponents, but after this one they actually bowed their hats to M2K and give Kanda his props. Both faction stood in the ring and didn’t lift a finger at each other and chatted over the mic like nothings been happening these past few months.
Susumu than declared his challenge for the Dream Gate against Ryo for the next PPV, but it sort of came off as an afterthought here.

Overall: Even though he eventually made a full time return to in-ring action, I guess it’s good they only did the Original M2K reunion for just one night and didn’t drag it out like DX is in WWE now. An OK show overall, next to the main event, seeing Naoki’s new mean streak and Tozawa’s big upset win were the best parts of the show.

Labels: Dragon Gate