Alex Coughlin & Gabriel Kidd vs. Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste

[7.0] "A great start to the tournament where it was long, unpredictable and brutal. How I liked the team of Alex Coughlin & Gabriel Kidd, they resisted smartly and found common threads of the narrative, although sometimes they were very critically mistaken. TMDK relied on their experience and confused rivals with their combinations. In general, this is what you need for such tournaments!"

[6.0] "***Π- I definitely thought this match should and could have been so much more. Felt like it took way too long before it got good. At least tmdk won"

[6.0] "A real shame, should have been an 8 or 9. The match was really fun, had excellent heat. TMDK looked like jackals. However, Haste seemed to hurt his calf, and Mikey may have got his bell rung, resulting in the most audible/visible comms I've ever seen. Mikey had to ask what they were doing next, and Shane had to audible his way to the finish with his opponents."

[7.0] "It was a fine match, but Chris and Zayne praised Kidd a lot and the match didn't give him much chance to shine."

[7.0] "Love TMDK stoked to see them back in Japan, first time seeing Thunder Valley in a while, Coughlin & Kidd impressed as well. 3.5 stars"

[7.0] "The first match of the tourney is a hell of a fight and super interesting already. Good striking, fast pacing action, great strong style! Pure New Japan style honored in this bout, very very good beginning."