This match ruled! It was easily the best match on an otherwise decent
Death Vegas card and it may be my favorite Japanese tag match of the year but
perhaps more importantly, it served a great platform for Takuya Nomura to showcase
what he’s learned over the past year. His selling was fantastic for his
experience level, from his facials to the desperation in his strikes. And he gets
so excited from kicking, he sometimes slips and falls. Suzuki wasn’t phoning it
in either, coming in for some suplex saves. One of the things I like about
Suzuki, and it showed in his early touch-and-go with Ishikawa, is the way he’s continually
moving, not allowing Ishikawa a solid grip, but shifting and feeling for a
weakness or an opening. Of course, Twin Towers were brutal as always and held
nothing back in their exchanges with the spunky Nomura. Sato throws the best
elbows in pro-wrestling and Ishikawa and Nomura working themselves into a “shoot”
was awesome. Loved Ishikawa turning one of Nomura’s kicks into a stretch
muffler airplane spin.
The final confrontation between Nomura and Sato was the
icing on the cake. Nomura unloads on Sato with everything he has, kicking him
harder and harder, his eyes wild as he’s thinking “damn, how hard do I have to
kick?!” before Sato finally collapses with his spasmodic selling. Again, Nomura
shows the little things he’s picked up along the way, like when he has Sato in
the cross armbreaker and he grabs the leg as Sato struggles, turning it into a
pin attempt. Suzuki makes a great save after Sato hits a nasty elbow and while
Nomura survives the Falcon Arrow, the follow-up piledriver is enough to put the
rookie phenom down for good. Post-match, Nomura says “fuck your handshake” to
Ishikawa. Awesome stuff.
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