This was short but every minute felt like a ragged, nasty fight. Zangiev was probably the best of the Russians on the mat and a pretty damn good seller. Hash, of course, brought all kinds of fire, and had the crowd deeply into it. In one great sequence, he battled out of an armbar into a headscissors only for Zangiev to kip up out of the headscissors. The crowd popped huge for that. It would have been even better if Hash had rocked him with a few more kicks, but I enjoyed it too much not to nominate it. I also like the idea of including both semis and the final from the IWGP title tourney on this show (the others are the Vader/Fujinami and Vader/Hash matches.)

 

New Japan Classics 340

Zangiev is clearly in control early on, using his throws and suplexes to set Hash up for some ground holds. Every time, they lock up, Zangiev is flipping Hash over one way or another, ripping his arm out. Zangiev does his spider head spin and that pops the crowd and me too. Still, Zangiev should have weakened the legs because Hash knocks him silly with the spin kick to set up a figure-four submission. I liked this much more than the other Zangiev match I watched and have no problem moving this along. Not a slam dunk but a super match.

I think I liked this even more then you guys did. Zangiev was amazing here, I loved his facial selling the whole match. The look of disgust when Hash spits on him, the smug look when he hits his spin kip up, and then the look of agony when stuck in the figure four. I would have loved to see him against Fujiwara. Hash was great here too, Slam Dunk for me.