The final contest in their trilogy of matches, and quite possibly, the best of the bunch. Maybe. I don't know. Tanahashi and Naito have such good chemistry together, and it really worked here, with the Sumo Hall pro-Naito and Tanahashi turning the crowd early with a couple of bad boy slaps to Naito's face in the ropes. Kiss that ace guitar bye-bye. Then he attacks Naito during his tranquilo pose and it's on, with nasty open hands exchanged in the corner and Naito taking the first seat behind the wheel with an awesome basement dropkick counter to Tanahashi's rounding body press. It's dueling limbwork, which I can totally get behind given it's done well and thankfully, these two make it work. Tanahashi's torn bicep has been the story of his G1 run and Naito being Naito exploits that injury.
On the other side, Tanahashi is looking to submit Naito with the cloverleaf hold he used to win the IC title back at Dominion, using his variety of dragon screws. There were some neat counters, like the legwhip off the slingshot dropkick and then the frakensteiner roll through into the legwhip. After he delivers a big top rope dragon screw, Tanahashi locks in the cloverleaf hold and essentially sits on Naito's head, bending exerting a ton of pressure in the most memorable part of the match. Naito's able to escape to the relief of Sumo Hall and after going back the arm, he hits a few swinging DDTs to set-up the Destino but Tanahashi counters with three consecutive whiplashes! But when he tries for the slingblade, Naito hits the Destino counter into the Destino to finish off the old ace. A simple story told exceptionally without the need to drift into the usual NJPW main event overkill territory. Great stuff.
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