Well I'll tell you one thing - this couldn't have started much better. Straight from the bell Tenryu comes charging out the corner and wellies Tenzan with a koppu kick, then he immediately picks him up and starts biting his freshly split open forehead. At points of this Tenryu was covered in blood and none of it was his own; his mouth where he'd been biting Tenzan like a rabid old psychopath, his hands where he'd been punching the cut, his chest and stomach where Tenzan had tried to throw gut shot headbutts, his boots where he'd been punting Tenzan in the face. It was Tenryu working over a cut and it ruled like you'd expect it to. Tenzan was largely a punching bag for about two thirds of this, and he did it well and tried to fire back in plausible ways and he took a screwball brainbuster from the apron to the floor. His comeback attempts were pretty strike-heavy, which in turn led to strike exchanges, but I don't think they felt rote. The facial expressions were always strong and Tenzan was pretty good at selling the blood loss, so I never got the impression they were doing them just to do them. Tenzan's comeback felt well enough earned to me as well, even though it only really took one big lariat to properly swing the tide, or at least put things on level footing. I guess you could argue he should've worked a little harder for it, but he was coming off a recent IWGP title reign, was clearly in that Company Ace category, and Tenryu was 54 at this point. Sometimes the old dog isn't able to bite like he once could. Sometimes he can't take a hit like he once could either.
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