Just finished Wrestle Kingdom. Those were some well spent hours.
Thought the junior tag match was better than last year's -- the addition of Matt Sydal and Ricochet gave the usual match a burst of energy. Super fun match. Six-man NEVER match was fine. I have a soft spot for Toru Yano's shenanigans. I don't watch much ROH, so I didn't care about the title match much, though it was fun to see how much the crowd loves Michael Elgin. Omega vs. KUSHIDA probably would've been better if KUSHIDA hadn't been jerked around with weird booking the past few months. That those two won the crowd over despite that is amazing.
IWGP tag title match was way more fun than expected considering how stale that Bullet Club team has been for a long ass time. Goto/Naito was maybe the one match that disappointed me. Was hoping for a bit more fire and hate, especially considering what an absolute dickhead Naito's character is right now. Ishii/Shibata is exactly the match you'd expect from those two, and then some. Christ almighty. I swear those two are going to headbutt each other and explode Scanners-style one day.
Nakamura/Styles built perfectly -- the final few minutes are absolutely ridiculous. I went nuts for Styles kneeing Nakamura in the face ala Sakuraba a few years back. I was curious how well those two would mesh; they delivered on sky high expectations. And Okada/Tanahashi ... I'm not sure if it was as good as last year's, but it was close. The story from my point of view is that Okada has come in much stronger -- super confident, but it's a confidence he's earned by vanquishing his demons. The match is built with him as Tanahashi's superior now. He's taking Tana's shots and throwing them back. Even the strategy Tanahashi employed last year -- going after Okada's legs -- doesn't work until Tana really goes the extra mile to wreck them. But Okada is still fighting through, because nothing is going to deny him that spot on top. Okada's carrying himself like an ace: he's fatigued, and his legs are hurting, but he's keeping his cool and refusing to let the pain overwhelm him. Your mileage may vary on how well that story was executed, of course, but it worked for me due to the key moments where Okada is clearly hanging on purely by his desire to be The Man once and for all. They both unload every shot they've got, but it's Okada who refuses to let go and puts Tanahashi down.
It's such a great conclusion to that years-spanning feud. Every match has built on the previous and brought us to this point. That Okada and Tanahashi can STILL introduce new wrinkles is wild to me. Those two are just perfect opponents for each other.
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