CyberFight Festival 2021
** Pre-show **
Toribami is a new masked wrestler joining TJPW, her mask looks like a dark version of Super Delfin. Obviously she's green as grass, but she looked ok in the ring.
Not much to the match, this was the pre-show match to have all of the TJPW undercard booked, while people are still making their way into the arena. TO no one's surprise, Maiumi was the best, pairing up with Kiryu or Kakuta, with Endo being a close second. Maiumi would end up getting the win over Kiryu. Happy for Maiumi getting the win in this match, she's fantastic.
Yoshiaki Yatsu vs Makoto Oishi vs Yuya Koroku vs Kazuki Hirata vs Muhammad Yone vs Shuhei Taniguchi vs Akitoshi Saito vs Masao Inoue vs Saki Akai vs Toru Owashi vs Yusuke Okada vs Shu Sakurai vs Yuna Manase vs Yuji Hino vs Antonio Honda vs
Rules of the match are pretty much Aztec Warfare rules, pins, submissions, and over the top rope will eliminate you. The time between entries is way shorter to, countdowns usually start by the time the previous is making it to the ring, so not a lot of time for spots while people are still coming in. Big difference is that eliminations can't start until everyone has entered the match.
Yoshiaki Yatsu was the first entrant, he lost his right leg to diabetes not long ago, he came in with the Back to the Future theme, it was great. Second entrant was Makoto Oishi. Yatsu got a couple of early spots in, but he actually stayed in the match longer than I would had expected.
I marked out for Owashi's entrance, I'll never not mark out for anyone using Darude's Sandstorm. Funky Express, as in Yone, Taniguchi, Inoue, and Saito all came out together under one person's entry.
Oishi and Okada were unfortunately eliminated first by everyone, they had the most potential. Yatsu was schooled boy after he was trying to lock in a Figure 4, which I don't know if it's even possible with a prosthetic leg. There was a big staredown with Taniguchi and Hino, using Sakurai and Koroku as crash test dummies to show off against each other. They would end up getting eliminated by Owashi and Yano.
Saito eliminated Hirata after allowing him to dance, but later, Inoue eliminated him by mistake after they got pervy with Akai. Yone eliminated Akai with a Muscle Buster. Honda and Inoue eliminated both Owashi and Yone by manipulating Owashi's Magistral.
Final two were Honda and Inoue. They did the Gon The Fox spot, that ended with a double nipple twister, a low blow from Honda, and the win. Antonio Honda wins the whole thing.
This is the only Ganbare match that made it in, but just the fact that they made it into the card is big. You could tell they really tried their hardest to put in a strong match. Layout was basic, Shota was the babyface in peril, Ohka got the hot tag, and after the tornado stuff, and at the end, the team of I
It was just a couple of months ago that I tweeted Shota and told him that he looked like Chavo Guerrero Jr, and now he has fully embraced it with the flame tights, the bandana, and the Frog Splash.
Post-match - The took the mic to put Ganbare Pro over. Their seconds joined them in the ring to dance and pose together as their theme played.
** Main Show **
Opening Video - This was more about the growth that DDT, TJPW, and consequentially NOAH had all of last year. Quite lukewarm video for those that have followed this promotions for a while.
After the video, Susumu Fujita, CEO of CyberAgent, did the opening speech. STATOO!
This is the first DDT vs NOAH inter-promotional match of the night. This originally had Keigo Nakamura and Yasutaka Yano involved, but Nakamura got injured in the last DDT show and so the match became a 2-on-2.
Match was great, but given the DDT, it felt like a NOAH showcase, it wasn't Okatani or Okada or even Nakamura being serious. Instead, NOAH's Okada and Miyawaki got Kojima who is good, but still quite green, and Iino, who is experienced, but he wasn't going to win the match alone. So story was Kojima got his ass kicked, Iino kinda leveled things out, but at the end, it came down to Miyawaki and Kojima, with the former tapping out the a latter.
This was freaking great! Shoko Nakajima especially, she was wrestling on another level, completely unstoppable. She would end up getting the win with a top rope senton on Aino, but the whole match, she was up and down and left and right taking on everyone with such a high speed.
There wasn't much story to this match, they didn't get much time, so they went all out from the start with 2 or 3-person spots. They also got the cutesy stuff out of the way early on and then just went straight into the high speed action. Everyone looked great, but I'd argue that Watanabe and Nakajima looked the best, or at least had the most impressive spots and sequences of them all.
Super Sasadango Machine Powerpoint Presentation - He talked about what are the ways to defeat them and why defeating them is way more prosperous for the world because embracing diversity is important.
Saku/Sugi Championship Match
Sakuraba and Sugiura came out with Machine masks, so they're SakuMachine and SugiMachine. This is gonna be the biggest clash of styles of the night.
Story of the match was Dango and Dieno were no match for Sugiura and Sakuraba wrestling-wise, so Dieno and Dango tried a lot of tricks to break them mentally with hopes of a flash pin or something. They played around with stocking masks and dizzy bats, but nothing worked and Sugiura pinned Dango without breaking a sweat.
There was almost no Dieno stuff in the match, he touched Saku's butt once and that was it, and so I'm wondering if Sugiura and Sakuraba are not as comfortable with their sexuality to have a match with him.
These two were originally in the Kongo vs DDT match, but after Kitamiya turned on Nakajima and quit Kongo just days ago, they were given a singles match. Okatani stood no chance, he started with a flurry of offense and got a near fall on Kitamiya, but it as a matter of Kitamiya cutting him off before he got the win by submission. NOAH is going strong with Kitamiya this year, but I don't know if this match was necessary in the main card.
It says a lot about TJPW's investment in Yuki Arai, that she is in the main card with less matches in her belt than fingers in my hand. This was (per my memory) Itoh's biggest performance, so the "Fired Idol" ended up making it big. Marika and Kamiyu as her backup dances was great.
This is not the best combination of wrestlers, they're all popular, they're all in a way, Idol based gimmicks, but this is a match with a brand new rookie, Kamiyu and Itoh who are not workhorses, and Marika who is not that established in TJPW. Because of that, A LOT of the match fell on the shoulders of Kobashi taking on Noa and Mizuki. Kobashi herself I have to give praise, her basics are all there for someone that is still somewhat new for TJPW, she doesn't get the credit she deserves.
Match was built around Arai being the babyface in peril, Mizuki and Noa having the hot tag and running wild until the end when it all came back around to Itoh and Arai, with Itoh submitting Yuki Arai with a deep Boston Crab for the win.
For NOAH fans, they focused the match on the Harada v Ogawa rivalry, and the Kotoge vs Yoshioka one. Ohara looked really good, but was also cut off and got his leg worked on, which kinda sucked for me personally because I enjoy his offense a lot more. Kotoge eventually got the hot tag, but would end up getting cut off too after a low blow from Ogawa. At the end, it came down to Harada pinning Yoshioka with a German bridge after a really good exchange. Good match, but it was the first that felt like a restroom break, it was the same NOAH Jr. stuff that you see on every show.
This was great, when it came to these 6-person promotional showcases, I thought DDT did the best and I'll elaborate at the end, but this felt like a bigger deal of a match, a better showcase of what the promotion has to offer.
This wasn't a 'Junior' match, yet it was the most high flying match of the whole show, one of the fastest paced matches of the night, just everything that we're accustomed to seeing in a junior division. MAO and Endo alone brought in all the high flying necessary, doing SSPs to the floor and springboard everything, but then you also have Soma and Katsu, who can both fly and keep up the pace, and Brookes and Sasaki, who don't really fly, but bring in the submission work to ground things when necessary. Most of the match felt like tornado tag, but at the end, it did come down to MAO and Sasaki alone, with the latter getting the win with the crossface lock. Overall I thought everyone looked great, this was as much as you could do to showcase Endo since he wasn't included in any of the big matches.
Sasaki has been winning most of the DAMNATION matches with the crossface, which makes me suspect that
Kongo came out with their usual entrance, but for DDT, each member came out with one of the historical weapons/props of DDT history. It made them seem wacky for sure, but it also made them seem like a stronger and united team, whereas Kongo not only lost Kitamiya days prior, but also you see the entrance and Nakajima is out there doing his own thing.
The match (and the feud for that matter) was all about the different philosophies between companies. Kongo, being from the boring workrate promotion that takes itself too serious, is worried that the fun side of DDT is going to infect them and change them, but they're just being paranoid, since neither CyberAgent, DDT, or Takagi have ever said they want to change anything in NOAH. The Takagi vs Kenoh match kinda introduced the idea of the match, but it came to it's full development here.
The big components to the match were the rivalry between Takagi and Kenoh, and this newly found rivalry between Kenoh and Sakaguchi, I don't know if there is a history between those last two, but they couldn't keep their eyes off of each other. The match initially played around with some of the most anticipated pair ups left, we got Higuchi vs Soya, some Kongo triple team stuff, and among all the mixing up, it all eventually came down to Sakaguchi vs Nakajima, for an incredibly stiff kicking and slapping exchange, and then Sakaguchi went back to back but with Kenoh, also just stiffly kicking and slapping the shit out of each other. Sakaguchi vs Nakajima and Kenoh were my most anticipated pair ups.
DDT tried to play Kongo's game and they got dominated, so DDT had to turn things around and rely on their style of wrestling, and that's when things got crazy. The DDT started to use their gimmicks, which for the right reasons, didn't work against Kongo. The Kongo team destroy the Dramatic Dream Mobile after using it on Takagi, but the cockiness did allow to fire up the DDT guys and fight back stronger. Takagi got taken out by Naka and Kenoh together, but that's when Eruption came back stronger, leveled out Naka and Kenoh, and that's when it came down to Takagi and HAO.
Finish saw Takagi pin HAO with a sitdown Himawari while Sakaguchi and Yoshihiko have Kenoh in a sleeper, as he pulls himself, hoping to break the pin, but he can't. It was a beautiful visual. I really liked this match, I like that there is an understanding that DDT has this style and that they're not going to force the NOAH fans to see their guys sell to giant mallets, but they still showed that the wrestlers that wrestle for DDT, regardless of their style, can string bring the fight, take on one of NOAH's strongest factions, and defeat them in their own game.
Post-match - Takagi cut a promo putting over DDT. He said that they've been doing their thing for 24 years and they'll continue to do so, and NOAH will to, and TJPW and Ganbare too, because they all have a common goal, become #1 in the industry.
This match should have had the slogan "Battle of the future stars as long as NOSAWA doesn't screw up". Back in February when Akiyama won the KO-D title, people immediately started speculating that it was a matter of time before Kiyomiya and Takeshita would defeat Mutoh and Akiyama respectively to win the titles and start a new era for both men and promotions. Months later, one man still seems to be on his way there, the other has been quite derailed going through a downward spiral storyline.
The match was just the perfect combination of both teams, playing around with all pairings. Inamura was the powerhouse, while Ueno the high speed guy and 'high flyer', Kiyomiya and Takeshita being the guys in the middle of the spectrum. There was this feeling in both teams's behavior that the NOAH team was more serious than the DDT team, which led to he NOAH team having some control, well, that and Inamura's advantage against Ueno, but as the match went on, they started to cut down Kiyomiya until it came down to Ueno and Kiyomiya, and in the most poetic way, the guy who's career has skyrocketed in the last year, hit a BME and pinned the guy who's career is just chaotic right now.
This match had a couple of great spots, one was a really painful looking moonsault from Ueno to the floor, but one leg landed on the elevated ramp. Ueno also delivered one of the prettiest moonsaults I've seen this year. Takeshita hit a double German on Ueno while he held Kiyomiya.
Post-match - As they walked to the back, Inamura tried to console Kiyomiya, but he was pushed off. Kiyomiya's breaking point HAS to be close.
Princess Of Princess Title Match
Match of the night, I never doubted them. These two were picked for this match for a reason, they even ended the reign of Rika Tatsumi to create this match, when it comes to TJPW, there is no bigger match than this. They have probably the longest story together, going back almost to the beginning of the promotion, and even going back to the start of 2020, they were in a big feud for what was Sakazaki's championship reign at the time before Tatsumi took it away.
The story coming in is that Yamashita, as soon as she won the title, challenged Sakazaki, but the latter seems to have taken it as Yamashita looking down at her.
Of the last five matches on the show, this was given the least amount of time, and so they packed the action. They went for big moves and tons of striking. Yamashita kept going for the head knockout kick, while Sakazaki worked the mid section towards the Magical Girl Splash. Eventually, it was Yamashita that landed the Crash Rabbit in her second attempt to get the win.
KO-D Openweight Title Match
This match was quite basic, both men worked each other's head. Most of Akiyama's arsenal is geared to finishing you with head trauma. HARASHIMA also worked the head, but he went after Somata, his usual signature move. They also just went at it from the start, back and forward action, but as a means of not ending HARASHIMA in such a short time, the finish saw Akiyama choke out HARASHIMA with a front head lock. The finish came off as an MMA finish, with a head lock getting the finish, almost out of nowhere.
GHC Heavyweight Title Match
This was definitely my favorite match of Mutoh's reign, I think there would be an argument for Shiozaki's, but the circumstances and Shiozaki being a strong champion had us at a different anticipation. I do think that Mutoh came in knowing that he was going to lose the title, that this was going to be a huge turnout, and he went all out, he straight up did a moonsault for the first time since forever.
This match revolved around Mutoh working on the leg that he'd been working on for the whole build up tour, in which he actually tapped out Marufuji before. On the other hand, Marufuji worked on Mutoh's arm. Beyond that, both men kinda worked on each other's heads towards the end, since both men's signature moves really target the head more than anything else. At the end, it came down to Marufuji surviving the Shinning Wizard, landing a series of knees to the head until Mutoh was knocked down and Marufuji got the pin.
If I can give it any praise, is that this was the longest match of the night, but it didn't feel as long as it was.
We do have to talk about Mutoh's reign. He came in, ended one of the best reigns NOAH had seen in years (granted, Shiozaki needed to take time off either way), defeated a bunch of new guys, and then, when it came to ending the vanity reign, he went for someone who is, without saying old, already established with a long and legendary career. We can't deny that he brought back a lot of attention to NOAH, the big turnout for Budokan, and maybe even for this show, so we can't fully blame Mutoh or NOSAWA, but Mutoh gotta Mutoh and he can now leave saying he had the biggest sellouts of NOAH, that he held all major titles in Japan, and who he put over? Marufuji?
Post-match - Akiyama and Yamashita joined Marafuji in the ring. They all thanked the crowd and said that they'd each work hard to bring their respective promotions to higher levels. Yamashita said that she was glad that the TJPW roster got to perform at such a large stage and hoped that for those who's first exposure was this, than they'd come back for more. Yamashita closed the show.
What a fantastic show, it lived up to the hype and magnitude of having all of the CyberAgent promotions coming together. All promotions worked on storylines coming into the show, came up with matches that featured their roster and strengths, and even for DDT and NOAH, they came up with a series of inter-promotional matches that not only made sense, but that worked out considering how different each promotion's philosophies are.
I liked how he show was laid out, I didn't notice it until the whole card came together. We had some rookie or comedy stuff to start, when proceed to each promotion having a showcase match, then back into the inter-promotional stuff, then each promotion having their main title defended. I wasn't really comparing the promotions in terms of what promotion offered over the other, but you still kinda saw it since the show was laid out in groups of 3s.
This show is a SOTYC and a must watch.
BeeStar (Mirai Maiumi & Suzume), Arisu Endo, Haruna Neko & Moka Miyamoto vs. Kaya Toribami, Mahiro Kiryu, Nao Kakuta, Pom Harajuku & Raku - 4.5/10
Toribami is a new masked wrestler joining TJPW, her mask looks like a dark version of Super Delfin. Obviously she's green as grass, but she looked ok in the ring.
Not much to the match, this was the pre-show match to have all of the TJPW undercard booked, while people are still making their way into the arena. TO no one's surprise, Maiumi was the best, pairing up with Kiryu or Kakuta, with Endo being a close second. Maiumi would end up getting the win over Kiryu. Happy for Maiumi getting the win in this match, she's fantastic.
Delayed Entry Battle Royal - 4/10
Yoshiaki Yatsu vs Makoto Oishi vs Yuya Koroku vs Kazuki Hirata vs Muhammad Yone vs Shuhei Taniguchi vs Akitoshi Saito vs Masao Inoue vs Saki Akai vs Toru Owashi vs Yusuke Okada vs Shu Sakurai vs Yuna Manase vs Yuji Hino vs Antonio Honda vs
Rules of the match are pretty much Aztec Warfare rules, pins, submissions, and over the top rope will eliminate you. The time between entries is way shorter to, countdowns usually start by the time the previous is making it to the ring, so not a lot of time for spots while people are still coming in. Big difference is that eliminations can't start until everyone has entered the match.
Yoshiaki Yatsu was the first entrant, he lost his right leg to diabetes not long ago, he came in with the Back to the Future theme, it was great. Second entrant was Makoto Oishi. Yatsu got a couple of early spots in, but he actually stayed in the match longer than I would had expected.
I marked out for Owashi's entrance, I'll never not mark out for anyone using Darude's Sandstorm. Funky Express, as in Yone, Taniguchi, Inoue, and Saito all came out together under one person's entry.
Oishi and Okada were unfortunately eliminated first by everyone, they had the most potential. Yatsu was schooled boy after he was trying to lock in a Figure 4, which I don't know if it's even possible with a prosthetic leg. There was a big staredown with Taniguchi and Hino, using Sakurai and Koroku as crash test dummies to show off against each other. They would end up getting eliminated by Owashi and Yano.
Saito eliminated Hirata after allowing him to dance, but later, Inoue eliminated him by mistake after they got pervy with Akai. Yone eliminated Akai with a Muscle Buster. Honda and Inoue eliminated both Owashi and Yone by manipulating Owashi's Magistral.
Final two were Honda and Inoue. They did the Gon The Fox spot, that ended with a double nipple twister, a low blow from Honda, and the win. Antonio Honda wins the whole thing.
Keisuke Ishii, Ken Ohka & Shota vs. Kouki Iwasaki, Shuichiro Katsumura & Yumehito Imanari - 7/10
This is the only Ganbare match that made it in, but just the fact that they made it into the card is big. You could tell they really tried their hardest to put in a strong match. Layout was basic, Shota was the babyface in peril, Ohka got the hot tag, and after the tornado stuff, and at the end, the team of I
It was just a couple of months ago that I tweeted Shota and told him that he looked like Chavo Guerrero Jr, and now he has fully embraced it with the flame tights, the bandana, and the Frog Splash.
Post-match - The took the mic to put Ganbare Pro over. Their seconds joined them in the ring to dance and pose together as their theme played.
** Main Show **
Opening Video - This was more about the growth that DDT, TJPW, and consequentially NOAH had all of last year. Quite lukewarm video for those that have followed this promotions for a while.
After the video, Susumu Fujita, CEO of CyberAgent, did the opening speech. STATOO!
Junta Miyawaki & Kinya Okada vs. Toi Kojima & Yuki Ino - 6.5/10
This is the first DDT vs NOAH inter-promotional match of the night. This originally had Keigo Nakamura and Yasutaka Yano involved, but Nakamura got injured in the last DDT show and so the match became a 2-on-2.
Match was great, but given the DDT, it felt like a NOAH showcase, it wasn't Okatani or Okada or even Nakamura being serious. Instead, NOAH's Okada and Miyawaki got Kojima who is good, but still quite green, and Iino, who is experienced, but he wasn't going to win the match alone. So story was Kojima got his ass kicked, Iino kinda leveled things out, but at the end, it came down to Miyawaki and Kojima, with the former tapping out the a latter.
Hyper Misao & Shoko Nakajima vs. BAKURETSU Sisters (Nodoka Tenma & Yuki Aino) vs. Hakuchumu (Miu Watanabe & Rika Tatsumi) - 7.5/10
This was freaking great! Shoko Nakajima especially, she was wrestling on another level, completely unstoppable. She would end up getting the win with a top rope senton on Aino, but the whole match, she was up and down and left and right taking on everyone with such a high speed.
There wasn't much story to this match, they didn't get much time, so they went all out from the start with 2 or 3-person spots. They also got the cutesy stuff out of the way early on and then just went straight into the high speed action. Everyone looked great, but I'd argue that Watanabe and Nakajima looked the best, or at least had the most impressive spots and sequences of them all.
Super Sasadango Machine Powerpoint Presentation - He talked about what are the ways to defeat them and why defeating them is way more prosperous for the world because embracing diversity is important.
Saku/Sugi Championship Match
Super Sasadango Machine & Danshoku Dieno vs Takashi Sugiura & Sakuraba - 4/10
Sakuraba and Sugiura came out with Machine masks, so they're SakuMachine and SugiMachine. This is gonna be the biggest clash of styles of the night.
Story of the match was Dango and Dieno were no match for Sugiura and Sakuraba wrestling-wise, so Dieno and Dango tried a lot of tricks to break them mentally with hopes of a flash pin or something. They played around with stocking masks and dizzy bats, but nothing worked and Sugiura pinned Dango without breaking a sweat.
There was almost no Dieno stuff in the match, he touched Saku's butt once and that was it, and so I'm wondering if Sugiura and Sakuraba are not as comfortable with their sexuality to have a match with him.
Masa Kitamiya vs Hideki Okatani - Squash
These two were originally in the Kongo vs DDT match, but after Kitamiya turned on Nakajima and quit Kongo just days ago, they were given a singles match. Okatani stood no chance, he started with a flurry of offense and got a near fall on Kitamiya, but it as a matter of Kitamiya cutting him off before he got the win by submission. NOAH is going strong with Kitamiya this year, but I don't know if this match was necessary in the main card.
Saitama Itoh Respect Army 2021 (Maki Itoh, Marika Kobashi & Yuki Kamifuku) vs. Hikari Noa, Mizuki & Yuki Arai - 6.5/10
It says a lot about TJPW's investment in Yuki Arai, that she is in the main card with less matches in her belt than fingers in my hand. This was (per my memory) Itoh's biggest performance, so the "Fired Idol" ended up making it big. Marika and Kamiyu as her backup dances was great.
This is not the best combination of wrestlers, they're all popular, they're all in a way, Idol based gimmicks, but this is a match with a brand new rookie, Kamiyu and Itoh who are not workhorses, and Marika who is not that established in TJPW. Because of that, A LOT of the match fell on the shoulders of Kobashi taking on Noa and Mizuki. Kobashi herself I have to give praise, her basics are all there for someone that is still somewhat new for TJPW, she doesn't get the credit she deserves.
Match was built around Arai being the babyface in peril, Mizuki and Noa having the hot tag and running wild until the end when it all came back around to Itoh and Arai, with Itoh submitting Yuki Arai with a deep Boston Crab for the win.
Atsushi Kotoge & Daisuke Harada, & Hajime Ohara vs. Stinger (HAYATA, Seiki Yoshioka & Yoshinari Ogawa) - 7.5/10
For NOAH fans, they focused the match on the Harada v Ogawa rivalry, and the Kotoge vs Yoshioka one. Ohara looked really good, but was also cut off and got his leg worked on, which kinda sucked for me personally because I enjoy his offense a lot more. Kotoge eventually got the hot tag, but would end up getting cut off too after a low blow from Ogawa. At the end, it came down to Harada pinning Yoshioka with a German bridge after a really good exchange. Good match, but it was the first that felt like a restroom break, it was the same NOAH Jr. stuff that you see on every show.
DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki, Soma Takao, & Tetsuya Endo) (w/Mad Paulie) vs. The 37KAMIINA (MAO & Shunma Katsumata) & Chris Brookes - 8/10
This was great, when it came to these 6-person promotional showcases, I thought DDT did the best and I'll elaborate at the end, but this felt like a bigger deal of a match, a better showcase of what the promotion has to offer.
This wasn't a 'Junior' match, yet it was the most high flying match of the whole show, one of the fastest paced matches of the night, just everything that we're accustomed to seeing in a junior division. MAO and Endo alone brought in all the high flying necessary, doing SSPs to the floor and springboard everything, but then you also have Soma and Katsu, who can both fly and keep up the pace, and Brookes and Sasaki, who don't really fly, but bring in the submission work to ground things when necessary. Most of the match felt like tornado tag, but at the end, it did come down to MAO and Sasaki alone, with the latter getting the win with the crossface lock. Overall I thought everyone looked great, this was as much as you could do to showcase Endo since he wasn't included in any of the big matches.
Sasaki has been winning most of the DAMNATION matches with the crossface, which makes me suspect that
Kongo (HAO, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Kenou, Manabu Soya, Nioh, & Tadasuke) vs. Eruption (Kazusada Higuchi & Yukio Sakaguchi), Akito, Naomi Yoshimura, Sanshiro Takagi, & Yukio Naya (w/Yoshihiko) - 9/10
Kongo came out with their usual entrance, but for DDT, each member came out with one of the historical weapons/props of DDT history. It made them seem wacky for sure, but it also made them seem like a stronger and united team, whereas Kongo not only lost Kitamiya days prior, but also you see the entrance and Nakajima is out there doing his own thing.
The match (and the feud for that matter) was all about the different philosophies between companies. Kongo, being from the boring workrate promotion that takes itself too serious, is worried that the fun side of DDT is going to infect them and change them, but they're just being paranoid, since neither CyberAgent, DDT, or Takagi have ever said they want to change anything in NOAH. The Takagi vs Kenoh match kinda introduced the idea of the match, but it came to it's full development here.
The big components to the match were the rivalry between Takagi and Kenoh, and this newly found rivalry between Kenoh and Sakaguchi, I don't know if there is a history between those last two, but they couldn't keep their eyes off of each other. The match initially played around with some of the most anticipated pair ups left, we got Higuchi vs Soya, some Kongo triple team stuff, and among all the mixing up, it all eventually came down to Sakaguchi vs Nakajima, for an incredibly stiff kicking and slapping exchange, and then Sakaguchi went back to back but with Kenoh, also just stiffly kicking and slapping the shit out of each other. Sakaguchi vs Nakajima and Kenoh were my most anticipated pair ups.
DDT tried to play Kongo's game and they got dominated, so DDT had to turn things around and rely on their style of wrestling, and that's when things got crazy. The DDT started to use their gimmicks, which for the right reasons, didn't work against Kongo. The Kongo team destroy the Dramatic Dream Mobile after using it on Takagi, but the cockiness did allow to fire up the DDT guys and fight back stronger. Takagi got taken out by Naka and Kenoh together, but that's when Eruption came back stronger, leveled out Naka and Kenoh, and that's when it came down to Takagi and HAO.
Finish saw Takagi pin HAO with a sitdown Himawari while Sakaguchi and Yoshihiko have Kenoh in a sleeper, as he pulls himself, hoping to break the pin, but he can't. It was a beautiful visual. I really liked this match, I like that there is an understanding that DDT has this style and that they're not going to force the NOAH fans to see their guys sell to giant mallets, but they still showed that the wrestlers that wrestle for DDT, regardless of their style, can string bring the fight, take on one of NOAH's strongest factions, and defeat them in their own game.
Post-match - Takagi cut a promo putting over DDT. He said that they've been doing their thing for 24 years and they'll continue to do so, and NOAH will to, and TJPW and Ganbare too, because they all have a common goal, become #1 in the industry.
Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshiki Inamura vs. The 37KAMIINA (Konosuke Takeshita & Yuki Ueno) - 9.25/10
This match should have had the slogan "Battle of the future stars as long as NOSAWA doesn't screw up". Back in February when Akiyama won the KO-D title, people immediately started speculating that it was a matter of time before Kiyomiya and Takeshita would defeat Mutoh and Akiyama respectively to win the titles and start a new era for both men and promotions. Months later, one man still seems to be on his way there, the other has been quite derailed going through a downward spiral storyline.
The match was just the perfect combination of both teams, playing around with all pairings. Inamura was the powerhouse, while Ueno the high speed guy and 'high flyer', Kiyomiya and Takeshita being the guys in the middle of the spectrum. There was this feeling in both teams's behavior that the NOAH team was more serious than the DDT team, which led to he NOAH team having some control, well, that and Inamura's advantage against Ueno, but as the match went on, they started to cut down Kiyomiya until it came down to Ueno and Kiyomiya, and in the most poetic way, the guy who's career has skyrocketed in the last year, hit a BME and pinned the guy who's career is just chaotic right now.
This match had a couple of great spots, one was a really painful looking moonsault from Ueno to the floor, but one leg landed on the elevated ramp. Ueno also delivered one of the prettiest moonsaults I've seen this year. Takeshita hit a double German on Ueno while he held Kiyomiya.
Post-match - As they walked to the back, Inamura tried to console Kiyomiya, but he was pushed off. Kiyomiya's breaking point HAS to be close.
Princess Of Princess Title Match
Miyu Yamashita (c) vs. Yuka Sakazaki - 9.5/10
Match of the night, I never doubted them. These two were picked for this match for a reason, they even ended the reign of Rika Tatsumi to create this match, when it comes to TJPW, there is no bigger match than this. They have probably the longest story together, going back almost to the beginning of the promotion, and even going back to the start of 2020, they were in a big feud for what was Sakazaki's championship reign at the time before Tatsumi took it away.
The story coming in is that Yamashita, as soon as she won the title, challenged Sakazaki, but the latter seems to have taken it as Yamashita looking down at her.
Of the last five matches on the show, this was given the least amount of time, and so they packed the action. They went for big moves and tons of striking. Yamashita kept going for the head knockout kick, while Sakazaki worked the mid section towards the Magical Girl Splash. Eventually, it was Yamashita that landed the Crash Rabbit in her second attempt to get the win.
KO-D Openweight Title Match
Jun Akiyama (c) vs. HARASHIMA - 9/10
This match was quite basic, both men worked each other's head. Most of Akiyama's arsenal is geared to finishing you with head trauma. HARASHIMA also worked the head, but he went after Somata, his usual signature move. They also just went at it from the start, back and forward action, but as a means of not ending HARASHIMA in such a short time, the finish saw Akiyama choke out HARASHIMA with a front head lock. The finish came off as an MMA finish, with a head lock getting the finish, almost out of nowhere.
GHC Heavyweight Title Match
Keiji Mutoh (c) vs. Naomichi Marufuji - 8/10
This was definitely my favorite match of Mutoh's reign, I think there would be an argument for Shiozaki's, but the circumstances and Shiozaki being a strong champion had us at a different anticipation. I do think that Mutoh came in knowing that he was going to lose the title, that this was going to be a huge turnout, and he went all out, he straight up did a moonsault for the first time since forever.
This match revolved around Mutoh working on the leg that he'd been working on for the whole build up tour, in which he actually tapped out Marufuji before. On the other hand, Marufuji worked on Mutoh's arm. Beyond that, both men kinda worked on each other's heads towards the end, since both men's signature moves really target the head more than anything else. At the end, it came down to Marufuji surviving the Shinning Wizard, landing a series of knees to the head until Mutoh was knocked down and Marufuji got the pin.
If I can give it any praise, is that this was the longest match of the night, but it didn't feel as long as it was.
We do have to talk about Mutoh's reign. He came in, ended one of the best reigns NOAH had seen in years (granted, Shiozaki needed to take time off either way), defeated a bunch of new guys, and then, when it came to ending the vanity reign, he went for someone who is, without saying old, already established with a long and legendary career. We can't deny that he brought back a lot of attention to NOAH, the big turnout for Budokan, and maybe even for this show, so we can't fully blame Mutoh or NOSAWA, but Mutoh gotta Mutoh and he can now leave saying he had the biggest sellouts of NOAH, that he held all major titles in Japan, and who he put over? Marufuji?
Post-match - Akiyama and Yamashita joined Marafuji in the ring. They all thanked the crowd and said that they'd each work hard to bring their respective promotions to higher levels. Yamashita said that she was glad that the TJPW roster got to perform at such a large stage and hoped that for those who's first exposure was this, than they'd come back for more. Yamashita closed the show.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
What a fantastic show, it lived up to the hype and magnitude of having all of the CyberAgent promotions coming together. All promotions worked on storylines coming into the show, came up with matches that featured their roster and strengths, and even for DDT and NOAH, they came up with a series of inter-promotional matches that not only made sense, but that worked out considering how different each promotion's philosophies are.
I liked how he show was laid out, I didn't notice it until the whole card came together. We had some rookie or comedy stuff to start, when proceed to each promotion having a showcase match, then back into the inter-promotional stuff, then each promotion having their main title defended. I wasn't really comparing the promotions in terms of what promotion offered over the other, but you still kinda saw it since the show was laid out in groups of 3s.
This show is a SOTYC and a must watch.