Posted April 2, 20241 yr comment_6019805 Lacks the Tenryu/Jumbo interactions since one of those guys is missing, but I think as an overall match I liked this more than Tenryu/Kawada vs. Jumbo/Takagi. It's more kept on the ground, especially thanks to Inoue wanting to suffocate the opposing team, but also has plenty of impatient Tenryu breaking things up when it isn't necessarily entirely legal to do so, and a hot last few minutes. Also this one has Great Kabuki, who's an awesome madman throwing those blows to Tenryu's ear (who sells an ear better than anyone in history), and I can only assume a Tenryu/Kabuki singles match a week later would have been a MOTYC. Kawada is much, much more intense in this tag; he's throwing such a force behind everything that he about trips over Inoue's knocked over body when he an Tenryu deliver a double shoulder block. He also does get almost choked out about twice too, to be fair, and he does a great job balancing that with trying to be fresh after tags by moving slower, holding palm to jaw, etc. I might question why the tags between Tenryu and Kawada are decently frequent after Kawada almost gets his windpipe closed, but I think that would just be projecting my own idea of this being a 'trapped protege' match when it wasn't really that. The last five minutes are really exciting, I thought, and Tenryu takes enough shots to the face within one of those five minutes to justify him not breaking last pinfall even after going out of his way to break almost every other (and a bunch of holds). Bonus points to Inoue ending things with a pin combination after keeping things to the ground most of the match. I really liked this a lot.
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