What a great showcase match for everyone. The Toryumon guys were able to shine particular Mochi and SUWA as they were the ringleaders for a lot of the action and kept things moving along. Tanaka felt more spirited here and was able to bust out his flash submissions in a believable and exciting way. The big standout however was Ricky Marvin who flew around like a crazy person and did state of the art highspots for 2017 standards much less 17 years ago. A wonderful way to show the talent that got eliminated in the first round in the best light. ***3/4

This was a terrific match. It was my first chance to see young Makabe, who I assumed probably wasn't very good just because I never heard anything about him until New Japan's renaissance. In actuality, he's very good. But yeah, no one in this can hold a candle to Ricky Marvin, even though everyone is having a good night. He now very much has my attention as we move forward with the decade. ***1/2

Interesting match with a lot of different characters. You have the old guard like Tiger Mask and El Samurai, the new guys like Marvin, Suwa, and Makabe and the rest of the guys who are known. Good to see LA Lucha legend Super Boy. Marvin was great but i think the star of the match was Suwa. I've heard of the things he did in wrestling but never seen him before. Such a dick to the audience and even his own partners. He didn't like Ka Shin one bit. Enjoyable match.

This was one fast paced multi-man match. Ricky Marvin's high flying is amazing and so effortless. I also really liked the exchange between El Samurai and Tanaka with his submission attempts. Suwa did a good job heeling and kept after that poor referee even after the end of the match. Everybody came out of this one looking good. Very Good Match.

I suppose Champinger was Motegi (at least that's what his robe and Cagematch are telling me, though Cagematch spells that name "Chabinger")? He completely stunk in this match, stumbling around like the worst rookie. Marvin already was pretty good here, though not as good as he would become 5 years or so later. Might also be that at that point he was more used to work with Japanese guys.

I thought this was an incredibly fun match to watch. I was really won over by SUWA and Ricky Marvin. SUWA was such to everyone in the building from the fans to the referee to his opponents and even his team mates. Ricky Marvin was especially great in this as he was doing some really impressive high flying. I thought Champinger was pretty awful in the time he was in this match but thankfully it wasn't very long. The pacing of this was really great and not a slow or boring spot in this one.

This was a ton of fun. The go balls to the wall in the second half with Ricky Marvin and SUWA looking great for both sides.

 

SUWA finally gets a chance to show more personality and on a bigger stage than the normal Toryumon show. He attacks the luchadores in the crowd and bullies the ref. slapping him around and even tearing his shirt. He's a great base for Marvin's highspots.

 

Marvin goes busts out a ton of great looking stuff and as he's paired up with SUWA, everything flows greatly.

 

Everyone else looked pretty good here, except for Chabinger who's Masayoshi Motegi. Whenever he was in, this dragged, but luckily he didn't get much time.

 

***1/2