Wakizawa’s outfit is ***** right away. Noumi and Toyota was a team I didn’t know what to expect but they work pretty awesome together. Toyota is a prick and she shows her young protégé the way. Wakizawa takes a big beating and Toyota throws in the fish hook and other painful stomps. This is the best part of Manami and she gets some revenge against Ito as well. Finish shows the team work paying off with Noumi holding Ito at bay for Manami to gain the win. A very good tag match and a pretty cool Korakuen card for AJW overall. ***1/2 (7.2)

This was the opening night of the Tag League the Best tournament. Pretty standard round robin stuff. The Toyota vs. Ito rivalry has been one of my favourite things in Joshi but aside from one hellacious hiptoss from Ito they didn't do anything special. Toyota and Wakizawa had been the TLTB winners the year prior and watching them troll each other here was pretty cringeworthy. Wakizawa is kind of annoying in general. I like her Gap Band outfits even if they're twenty years out of date but she doesn't have enough charisma to oull off her jokey persona. At least not for me. I do like her headscissors spot, though. Noumi, on the other hand, is a bit bland. Neither of them look like the future and both of them dragged this down, but it was the round robin. I was looking forward to a bit more with Toyota and Ito on opposite sides, but a match with a couple of dives at the end was about as good as you could expect.