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KENTA & Marufuji vs. Samurai & Inoue - January 10, 2004

Turns out NOAH did indeed have the best match of the day over ROH. This was the typical great puro match in which the first 2/3 or so it looks like it'll be peak with being very good, but the heat got tremendous in the last third of the match. There was a segment between Inoue and Marufuji, in which Marufuji did a super-hurricanrana followed by missile dropkick, that look a bit choreographed and business-exposing. At that point i also asked myself this - why the fuck did these two men, both with somewhat long hair, no upper body tattoos, cruiserweight style bodies, wear loose white pants? Made it difficult to differentiate.

KENTA was on fire in this one, getting the chance to do some Ricky Morton work when the challengers went to work on his neck, which started after a piledriver. The challengers were pretty vicious. In the last segment of the match, when Marufuji was playing the Morton, KENTA was tremendous with the hot tag. My favorite moment of the match was KENTA ducking Inoue and Marufuji delivering a superkick that would make Shawn Michaels proud. The remaining 2-3 minutes were fantastic stuff. Great tag match. ****

This was just an outstanding tag bout. Loved the super hot beginning with KENTA & Inoue going at it - that set the pace for rest of the match, which was full of hot action. The star of it all was KENTA, he rocked the FIP role so well, I absolutely loved seeing him sell his ass off as Inoue & Samurai did work over him - all of that culminated in that finishing stretch which was just fantastic. ****1/2

This was intense from the off. No wasting time, Inoue and Marufuji beating the hell out of each other. Samurai and Inoue working over KENTA in a great, heated way. Marufuji coming in and getting the hot tag was awesome. Really great match. Blew me away ****1/4

The only good parts of this were when KENTA was in the ring. He was fantastic here, from his "Where's the Hood At?" entrance to his flourish at the end to win it. Marufuji was awful. His timing was completely off. He kept on coming up short on his moves, barely grazing his opponent instead of hitting them flush. I've never understood the appeal of El Samurai. What's the deal with that guy? Why does he wear a mask and call himself El Samurai? KENTA was awesome.