Atsushi Kotoge vs. Daisuke Harada

[5.0] "Solid 3 star match. A tad listless at times. The crowd is dead for a lot of it, which makes it tough to get into."

[8.0] "A lot of intensity and brutality here, with many good sequences. We have seen these two go at it many times and they never disappoint."

[4.0] "I liked Kotoge as a heavyweight but it was stuck in that underdog role and his stuff looked so pillow weight against the others, so the uniors was the right place for him. And him going against his former partner (and rival) in Harada is a great re-introduction to the Juniors. The match excellened when the two were going back and forth, exchanging with each other and doing some great sequences but there was way too much dead air in between those parts of the match. At least in the first half of the match. It was very stop-start, with not much flow or momentum. The match got better in the second half but yeah, this still failed to hit with me. **1/4"

[6.0] "This started off rather pedestrian but picked up in the second half. Both men showed great attitudes as they constantly got in each other's faces, making this match feel quite personal, which made sense give these two used to be tag-team partners. We got a good series of impactful strikes to bring interest to the first half, and there was a fantastic fireman's carry powerslam on the apron from Harada which was the moment where the match finally started picking up. The second half saw a good series of rapid strike exchanges based around elbows, knees, and kicks, with some decent power moves sprinkled in as well. Kotoge fired off some especially cool moves in the finishing stretch, with his match-winning OverKillswitch looking especially sick. ***1/4"