Toryumon is back in my good graces. This had a neat set up starting as a trios and then tempers flaring up resulting in the five vs five encounter here. This gave an opportunity for us to look at Yoshiyuki Saito who will become SHISA. Overall, the match was very good but I do miss Mochizuki certainly mixing it up with Fuji and as much of a bad rep as he has, I continue to think the matches take a slight dip when Magnum Tokyo isn't involved because he is a fun foil and pairing for CIMA. Fuji was a star here and really seems to be building a case for a worker that really doesn't historically get talked up enough. This showed with the face side that the depth was growing, a cohesive unit just needed to be formed to go up against the big bads of Crazy Max. ***3/4

One thing that I really liked about this was that until they got into the hot finishing stretch, they really worked hard to keep a sharp contrast in styles. What that meant was that Crazy Max worked a more grounded style while the babyfaces were the high flyers. These guys clearly admire and aspire to American psychology. I like how patient the build is for Crazy Max in establishing their foil -- you know it's going to happen, but they are waiting to do it until the mood is just where they want it and it has the most impact possible. ****

This was more of the same from Crazy Max. That's not necessarily a bad thing mind you, but the babyfaces didn't mount any challenge whatsoever. Dragon Kid needed to shine for this to be anything special but he was largely anonymous. Hopefully, they address the heel/face balance soon.

Another bland Toryumon match. Everything was technically fine, but it was just a wall of action with very little character work to make anybody stand out. The only interesting thing was Judo Suwa getting more cheers than usual. Below average.

This felt a lot more grounded than the usual Toryumon tags. Not better so much but different and different is good. The more methodical pace allowed for Crazy Max to put in stronger heel performances than usual. I wouldn't say that anyone individually stood out in this with a great performance but everyone was good. They can't go all out all the time but this served well as a between big shows match to keep the rivalry going while delivering another good match.

This was a bit of an upgraded small show match and better than the previous two small show matches.

They don't go all out here, but its still relatively good for what it is.

 

This is out first look at SAITO who would eventually go on to become Super Shisa. SAITO does some of the cool handstand pinning combinations that he would later use regularly as Super Shisa.

 

SUWA showed some of his vicious heel personality at the start of the matching by attacking his opponents with a wooden stick.

 

Tiger Mask was less botchy here and despite not being a Toryumon guy, he's meshed in well with them for the most part.

 

Dragon Kid's best exchanges are usually with MAKOTO. MAKOTO will eventually go on to become Darkness Dragon and these two would have some very good singles matches iirc.

 

There was some chaos all over the place here as they focus mostly on what's going on in the ring, but when the zoom out you can see the chaos thats occurring with them brawling all over the crowd.

 

Very good match.

 

***1/4