I thought their February match was OK but it was highly elevated by that Korakuen MAGIC. This one is even better imo, Korakuen is not nuclear like their title match but they are very much into everything they do and they continue to be fully behind Nakanoue. Daichi does a much better job working on top than in their previous encounter and Nakanoue doesn't have to rely on selling his arm like last time so his comeback has less issues. Final couple of minutes are fucking FIRE. I mean, the only thing this match has going against it is that it's clearly edited in two or three sequences, but even though the cuts are very noticeable they don't take away anything from how good this match was. The Strong Climb tournament has been fucking awesome, can't stress this enough, a bunch of very fun matches that are very short and easy to get into - a Strong BJ staple tbh - and a couple of REALLY fucking good encounters like this one.

This was fun, although I think I preferred Nakanoue's performance in the title match more...but Daichi definitely looked more like a champion here. Still don't really care for him though. Nakanoue is super over right now and I can't wait to see the semi-final against Hideki Suzuki, considering their heated feud from summer 2016.