[5.0] "Another average bigish NJPW show with one stand-out inter-promotional bout in Satoshi Kojima -vs- Hiroshi Tanahashi [*** 1/4] This is a huge match-up by 2006 standards! Kojima, who's been the AJPW ace until recently, against NJPW's new IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Tanahashi is pretty much unproven on top and needs all the rub he can get off of the more experienced top guy like Kojima who had a fairly successful run in AJPW as their Triple Crown Champion. Tanahashi was never going to look surperior to Kojima so this was laid out kind of in a semi-competitive mode and in a way as a test to see how well Tanahashi could stand blow to blow with him. And it worked well. The other G-1 bouts: Hiroyoshi Tenzan -vs- Naofumi Yamamoto [** 1/4] The first 10 minutes was more or less Tenzan beating up the young lion and it wasn't very engaging. Yamamoto kept surviving though and made a big exciting comeback at the end nailing Tenzan with a backdrop suplex and kicks. Koji Kanemoto -vs- Togi Makabe [** 1/4] It was sweet watching Kanemoto with the highest confidence go after Makabe! Manabu Nakanishi -vs- Giant Bernard [**] These two met on this years January 4th Tokyo Dome show in a hilarious clusterfuck. This however was more what that match should have been with them dueling the power wrestling. While it was a better wrestled match, it wasn't necessarily more fun to watch. But for a 2006 Nakanishi singles match it was solid one."