I wasn't super into this for the first half, but when they kicked things into gear they did so in a big way and I was pretty well in on it after that. Takada and Maeda are a pair of total wrecking balls here, especially Maeda who was a force of nature. This was proper Big Dog on Campus Maeda as he would assertively shut down any offence from Mutoh or Koshinaka, usually by fucking murdering them with kicks. He also threw about four suplexes that were beautiful and lethal in equal measure, just the prettiest technique while dropping guys in the way that you would least enjoy being dropped. Takada was full steam ahead and he clearly wasn't over the feud with Koshinaka because that boy was getting walloped at every opportunity. The German suplex counter to Koshinaka's hip attack ruled and I loved that any time Takada came in while Kosh was already there, usually after being left on his butt by Maeda, Takada would pick him up and slap the stubble off him or kick him in the liver. The longer it goes the less chance you feel Mutoh and Koshinaka have of actually winning. Like, that first half was probably 50-50, but you felt the UWF guys had three or four more gears to go up while the New Japan pair were struggling to even hold serve. Then 50-50 started veering more towards 60-40, then 70-30, and it wasn't in favour of Mutoh and Koshinaka. The UWF pair were sustaining runs of offence and tags were getting harder to come by for team New Japan. Mutoh would need to break up consecutive pin attempts on Koshinaka and if he wasn't around you get the sense it would've been over. Even when it looked like Koshinaka might string together some offence on Maeda - after Maeda took a wild missed wheel kick bump into the corner - Takada would immediately come in and shut him down. By the end Koshinaka was on his last legs, getting peppered from all angles, and baby Mutoh's energy was only going to take him so far. For what it's worth I thought Mutoh was really fun in this. His selling was a wee bit iffy once or twice, but lazy old red mist Muta sometimes makes it easy to forget how quick he could move back when he still had knees, and holy smokes was his moonsault a thing of beauty. The finish is great. Koshinaka basically has no chance of fighting his way back into the match, so instead he tries to use the element of surprise. He rolls up Takada with a super tight cradle that Maeda has to break, then he almost catches Maeda himself with one of the slickest backslides you've ever seen. He clearly figures this is his best shot, and persistence pays off when he graba a small package on Takada (and this was a perfect looking small package) while Mutoh holds Maeda at bay on the apron. Those last five minutes were awesome, Korakuen Hall is in raptures, grown men weep, the world is good. Yeah this was pretty great.
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