Posted February 1, 200916 yr comment_5436984 DVD#5 ---------------------------------------------------- March 19th: Korakuen hall Takano, Kimura, Fujinami vs SS Machine, Saito, Choshu - JIP. Good action but nothing too memorable. IWGP Jr Heavyweight Championship / Hase vs Koshinaka - This was better than their February match. Koshinaka clearly tried to slow Hase down. And it had a nice finish, with Koshinaka attempting his butt thrust off the top rope only for Hase to catch him and hit a dragon suplex for the pin. But the match still came off as less than the sum of its parts. I got no sense that either guy was emotionally invested or that one moment meant more than any other. I don't know, this match-up is just leaving me cold. Inoki vs Gasper - This pretty well sucked. April 11th: Korakuen Hall Funaki, Fujinami vs Casey, Ferrnandez - Good to see the Bull, but this wasn't much of a match. Sakaguchi vs Vader - Vader went over way too easily. I wanted to see these guys blast each other for at least 10 minutes. Shiro Koshinaka, Antonio Inoki vs Hiroshi Hase, Riki Choshu - The Hase-Koshinaka rivalry picked up here. First 10 minutes were fine but a little bland. Then, Choshu just annihalated Koshinaka, slamming him on his face and bloodying him on the outside. That set up a great face-in-peril section and got the crowd buzzing. Hase and Choshu brought some nasty double-team offense and Koshinaka sold/teased comebacks perfectly. The crowd popped big for Inoki's hot tag. I'll take this over the bloodless junior shit any day.
