Although it's missing six or seven minutes of action, this is such a great match with a concise and engaging story, good selling from both guys, and an exceptional performance from Satoshi Kojima. It opens with Kojima hitting a diving elbow drop onto Sasaki, slickly countering a lariat attempt with a Koji Cutter, and then hammering on Sasaki's knee with some grunty legwork, which includes these awesome diving chopblocks. After he delivers an awkward Koji Cutter off the apron, Kojima hangs Sasaki in the tree of woe and lariats the fuck out of his knee. Then he hits a top rope Koji Cutter -- I mean, they're coming from every angle. My favorite moment of the match comes after Sasaki withstands Kojima's lariat and straight up punches him in the face. Chono and crew jump the apron like "What the fuck, ref?!" but Sasaki doesn't care and punches Kojima again. He starts to build some momentum, hitting a frankensteiner and locking on the sasori-gatame but he can't maintain it due to the knee damage. They ragdoll each other with back-and-forth German suplexes and one count lariats. Kojima's able to counter the Northern Lights Bomb with an armbar takedown but when he tries to go back to the leg, he just collapses in exhaustion. So good. He then tries for his own Northern Lights Bomb but can't do it, so Sasaki shows him how it's done and then polishes him off with the short-arm lariat. Recommend!
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