Well, this ruled quite a bit. Having a lackluster match with Ishii is pretty hard to do (Taichi got rather close), but this was easily the best YOSHI-HASHI match I've ever seen. Really loved the theme of the two friends and stablemates pushing each other so hard it looked like they hated each other's guts. Ishii brought the violence as always but YOSHI-HASHI managed to convincingly go blow-for-blow with him and had some really fiery comebacks. YOSHI-HASHI has really endeared himself to me as the guy who almost always loses and know he's probably going to lose and yet never gives up while finding ways to overachieve in singles matches.

Definitely seek this one out. ****1/2

Gave it a shot and HASHI just didn't do much for me as a compelling opponent. I liked his babyface fire going right for Ishii when Ishii ripped the shoulder tape off but then they did an endless Butterfly Lock spot that kind of killed the momentum for me.

***1/2

Ishii straight up bullies YOSHI-HASHI into showing some damn personality, and it works in some short bursts - the moments where HASHI actually answered right back at Ishii's trashtalk & showed some fire were good, but for the most part, this was the same ol' boring ass non-charisma having YOSHI-HASHI that I've come to expect in pretty much all of his matches. Some points for Ishii being Ishii & HASHI actually showing SOME personality in a couple of moments, but yeah, this wasn't good. *3/4