Kaz Hayashi vs. Naomichi Marufuji

[8.0] "I thought this was pretty good. Most of the match was Marufuji doing his thing, well I might add, with Hayashi coming up with occasional counters and strikes, trying to keep Marufuji at bay. Marufuji was pretty entertaining while on top. He switched his offence from flashy aerial moves to strikes to submissions well. I thought he did a good job of building his offence up with Hayashi just avoiding his signature moves such as the corner kicks making them feel big when he executes them. Hayashi worked well from beneath in terms of selling and he was a good person that the fans could rally behind even against the popular Marufuji. A good finishing stretch closes out a pretty good Junior Heavyweight title match. ***3/4"

[4.0] "Of the three matches from this Maru reign that i have seen, vs Kondo vs KENTA and vs Kaz this was probably the best. But that is really damming with faint praise its still not very good. There is some fun stuff at the very start as there was some very nice mat work with Kaz dominating with the mat work but then after that they just go into boring generic jr match no3. It is way to long there is not much in terms of a story going on it was cut down by five minutes by GAORA it could have done with being cut down another 10 minutes on top of that. Even the finish sequence which if you are going to do a spotfest should at least be very silly and over the top was not. it instead was you do a move I do a move then a WA4 and then it was done. It was just generic and dull. Marufuji at this point was just not good in singles. **1/4"