Daisuke Masaoka vs. Jun Kasai

[10.0] "Fucking god where do I even begin with with that. This match had THREE scaffold spots, 3 kickouts at one, 2 Double Underhook Pilerdriver and a kick-out to Kasai's ultimate Pilerdriver that lead to him using a new version of it he probably never executed. That was just so over the top in the FREEDOMS-est way possible, absolutely must watch for very single Deathmatch fan right here. The dripping spot of blood on the corner after the Reverse Tiger Destroyer was the most disgusting thing happened in a Deathmatch this year. *****"

[6.0] "I wanted to like this more, there was some actual emotion for this with Masaoka taking a step back into part time status in 2025. I just feel like Ive seen this match from them before, Kasais million finishers started early in the match and Ive seen the same glass spots a hundred times with Kasai that they just do not elicit a response from me anymore. The moves off the scaffold meant nothing because they had no real effect on the flow of the match. I miss when the weapons felt like big momentum shifts in a death match. They showed a video package before the match that had a few of the same exact moves from previous scaffold matches, its been done and I just do not get into these Kasai matches anymore. The work was still good overall but I cannot give this more than three and a quarter."

[9.0] "If you're going to get stupid with your death matches, you might as well go all out super-fucking-dumbo. I don't even know where to begin with this one. There was loads of random no-selling and self-inflicted punishment powerups, which of course make the actual selling look proper goofy. There were obligatory one counts off of what should be killer moves. Kasai was busting out his traditional finishers halfway through to no avail. The first spectacular scaffold spot made ZERO sense. And yet they managed to throw all of this mayhem into the blender with a bunch of shoot headbutts & broken glass and still come away with something ludicrously exhilarating ****1/4"

[9.0] "Masaoka is going part-time in 2025, so if this is his last singles with Kasai, he's going out with a banger. Total bloodbath. Insane stuff."

[8.0] "Another wild and crazy death match in the books for Jun Kasai. Kasai did his signature dive off the scaffold here which for me definitely should've been the finish but they continued for another while after that without ever being able to top that moment."

[8.0] "So Im having a hard time getting to a rating on this one. I thought the opening segment of mat based wrestling was a waste of time. Thankfully it only lasted a minute or two. I thought the next 20+ minutes was brutal fun. Im not sure Masaoka had an inch of clean skin on his body. He was soaked in blood. Every time he got his with a lariat, a mist of blood would fly off his head. Incredible visuals. Some very exciting spots with the scaffolding as well. I thought it got a little long in the tooth with the kick-outs and then they went ahead and had about three more. Their efforts here were 10 for sure though."

[9.0] "A great match that could have been even better I reckon. Loved the scaffolding part of this match. Jun Kasai is just so good and brings such gnarly intensity to his work, I can't wait to dive into some of his historic past matches. This one though had a bit too much repeat light tubes in the first half which hampered this, but the second half picked it up and the kick outs flowed with the energy of the crowd. ****1/4"