Joe Doering & TARU vs. Keiji Muto & Masakatsu Funaki

[5.0] "Mostly a feel-good heel beatdown of VM in front of a willing crowd. Funaki has only came back two months ago but moves really well for a 40 year old guy with a lifetime of Pancrase-induced injuries, bouncing off the ropes and moving really well despite having really random offence like a running elbow drop and top rope crossbody, stuff that feels incredibly out of character for a guy known for his grappling. Doering shockingly does pretty much all of the stooge bumping here against the two despite being the enforcer guy of the group while TARU did his usual cheating antics and barely did much of anything bar eating the finish. VM's actual offence here rather well sucked: Doering was just too green at present to really work his physical advantages the best here and TARU even when on top has only a couple of shoddy spots to work with since he's too banged up and old to really do any of his Toryumon spots. Thankfully this is disguised by the usual heat antics with a ref bump and everyone in VM coming in to do their bit. Funaki + Kaz Hayashi and co come in to help out (including a bad Kaz botch where his shirt hits the middle rope and awkwardly headbutts Hate in the stomach) and gives Muto enough time to recover and hit a Shining Wizard for the quick finish. Super forgettable and basically built to disguise the limitations of Muto (who at this point was really struggling with his mobility). It hit all of the usual stuff you'd expect but didn't really do anything different or unique, playing it extremely safe as a result."