I thought this was way better then the Yamada v. Hase match, this is my favorite junior v. junior match up, and these guys break out another super match. Lots of cool spots during the build, Takada wheel kicking Koshinaka in the back of the head, Koshinaka nailing a leg sweep, Takada kicking the post. Then you have this great finish run, where each guy kept countering the other guys big move with a roll up, until you finally have a both guys too exhausted to continue. It felt like the third time division rivals in football meet in the playoffs, they already know the playbook, so someone is going to have to try something new. Great match, shocked it hasn't been nominated yet.

 

Sky A 95

I thought it was the least of their matches and given that we've nominated three others... Anyway, here were my original thoughts:

 

 

They spent a lot of the match working holds, which wasn't a strong suit for either guy. The crowd just died whenever they went to the mat. Takada had a good sense of when to hit flurries of kicks to pick up the intensity. And they worked a good sequence where Takada missed a kick and got his leg caught on the ropes, allowing Koshinaka to work over his knee. But I wasn't so wild about their exchange of roll-up attempts near the end. They went to a 20-minute draw. This was one of their lesser matches and doesn't belong on the set.

Lots of cool shit early on like the Irish Whip reverse into the slap and the spots Phil mentioned above. However, Childs is right that the crowd was absolutely dead during those mat sections. I liked the end run more than Childs and they finally brought the crowd abck into it. I also thought it was wierd that Takada would work over Koshinaka's arm but Kosh didn't even tough the fingers. I know it was a year later but still. Low level nomination and I think I liked the Yamada match more.