Kamen Shooter Super Rider & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Takashi Sasaki & Tanomusaku Toba

[9.0] "DDT in the early 2000s feels like the coolest promotion ever. This match is another classic in the catalogue of hidden gems found in DDT's archive."

[9.0] "4 very different guys put together and having a god damn heater. Super Rider is so aggressive and precise with his mat work and throws some mean strikes when he needs to. Ishii ready to crush dudes with some crazy lariats and Toba's nutty boxing strikes make for just beautiful violence. The little stuff like Ishii ragdolling Toba to the corner for a tag or launching him over the top to get him out of the ring is so great while Super Rider goes through a ton of transitions into kneebars which eventually gets the tap on Sasaki - ****1/2"

[8.0] "Once upon a time Takashi Sasaki was a 'normal' wrestler, him going against Ishii was really fun to watch - they set the tone for a 'serious' match in a way where Toba and Rider with their ridiculous gimmicks surprisingly fit in. Somehow they found a way to keep this serious tone for an entire match, which was all about who's going to win."

[9.0] "This has to be contender for "most random MOTYC" of all time. You got baby Ishii with hair alongside pre-deathmatch Sasaki with a wannabe kickboxer and Super Rider doing his best Seikendo-style impression by wearing a full suit to wrestle like the big nerd he is. These four combined would cause most normal people to scratch their heads, but it somehow turns out to be a pretty great match that's immensely grounded in lots of mat work and sick strikes. Rider turns out to be a pretty great wrestler when he's not trying to do dodgy Irish Whips and pro-style nonsense, instead focusing on really smooth transitions and Seikendo-style sharp kicks as his best weapons. Seeing a very young Ishii do his usual nasty violence with chops and elbows but also throwing in surprisingly heavy strikes via his kickpads makes me sad we don't have more from around this time from him, because he clearly had a completely different way of doing things that honestly could've been as good as his later NJPW material. There's the occasional sloppy moment where Toba flubs a strike and Ishii has to sorta wait for him to throw something else a bit too long, but other than that the two work real well with each other and Toba is just his usual crazy self with wacky bumping and eating insane punishment. Ishii probably has the most intense strike exchanges I've seen in a while as he beats the piss out of both men, it's really top-notch stuff. Rider is more conventional with his work, focusing on takedowns, ground and pound, and some solid submissions. Him and Toba also have a enjoyable striker/grappler dynamic that was short but sweet, based around Toba hurling himself around for Rider's fancy martial arts stuff. The last five minutes are especially fun as everyone gets to throw their big bombs, but we get a laser-focus on Sasaki and Rider scrapping it out with some great near-fall submissions, but Sasaki makes the mistake of catching the leg of one of Tiger Mask's biggest fanboys and gets the famous inverted kneebar transition counter that Sayama used himself, allowing for a tap-out win. It's a super low-key match that barely goes over 15 minutes, but said 15 minutes have next to no filler, actually build well to the bigger bombs, and (gasp) actually didn't need 10+ minutes of "feeling out" padding to get really good! What a shocker. Anyway this match rules, legit really great outing with tons of moments to get you interested."