I thought this was a solid match but my least favorite Suzuki defense of the year. Daichi didn't do a whole lot to differentiate his performance from every other mediocre Daichi performance, and it definitely lacked the pissy-ness I was hoping he'd tap into. He showed some dominance early on with his kicks and his headlock, but once Hideki finds a way out, it becomes the Hideki show, cranking cravates and throwing suplexes. He quickly adapts to Hashimoto's strike-based strategy so that when Daichi comes kicking again, he's able to catch a leg and capture suplex him. I liked Daichi's knee counter to the Robinson backbreaker attempt, which sets up a run of offense building toward the finish, but Suzuki quickly cuts him off and puts him down with the double arm suplex.

Yeah, this was worked like a regular "veteran vs young guy" match instead of an important title match. I was impressed by Daichi's matwork but after that he kinda went through the motions and didn't start to pick things up till the final sequence, and then the match ended quickly. There was no drama and not a lot of space for Daichi to even sell and mount an interesting comeback. It was a fine match but kind of a waste of a title shot imo, I was hoping we would get the Daichi that faced Sekimoto last year and Okabayashi this year but this was more of a Suzuki showcase putting the kid in his place without much problem.

Agree this was my least favorite Hideki defense so far but I still enjoyed it for what it was. I thought Daichi added a lot to the opening moments with his grappling and kicks but agree with both comments before that once Hideki took over, he didn't really look back. That isn't a bad thing per say considering how strong they are trying to book Hideki but the drama down the stretch wasn't really there even when Daichi reeled off a DDT and got some nearfalls. ***1/2