NOAH wasn’t shy about giving these guys a ton of time right out of the gate. While that is admirable in the sink or swim mentality, this match certainly could have used some editing. Marufuji was fine and played the FIP role for the majority of the match. He got his nose busted open on a Kanemaru dropkick which helped emphasize the story. Shiga has filled out a bit and remains to be just “there” as a character overall. I didn’t think he had a good hot tag but he was in the right position to break up tags. Kanemaru was a good sleazy heel with his look and arsenal but he was still green in being unable to come up with many useful things to do on offense when he was working over Marufuji. His attack was focused and this was where editing would had come in handy. Inoue was pretty useless. Overall, a good match to post mark where all four of these workers were at this point in time but a pretty mundane match overall that wasn’t worth the 20 minute run time. **1/4

This just felt like it took an eternity. And it's correct that they did not have much to fill that time with. This was a reallllly tedious and mundane heat segment on Marufuji, though I liked the backdrop he took early on getting insane height. Both guys work over Fuji with bodyslams and not much else until Kanemaru's dropkick drills him in the face. I certainly could have done with a few more hope spots or some semblance of a struggle or will to fight back from Marufuji who mostly just takes a bland beating with a mixture of competence and disinterest. Inoue was kind of fun in this and he and Kanemaru's double team communication was a good moment and Kanemaru showed more charisma than anyone with his low blow on Shiga. But this was mostly forgettable.

 

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