Great Muta vs. Suwama

[4.0] "It was a typical Great Muta match, but Muta's control sequence in this match was so boring that it felt like Suwama's comeback only because Muta got tired or something, unfortunately Suwama was also kinda gassed. This match didn't work for me at all. Minoru Suzuki choked out Muta after the match, that was fun."

[5.0] "Strangely the pre-match promo for this showcases Muta and Muto as the same person, despite the majority of appearances having both characters be mutually exclusive from each other. This was also apart of the early Suwama experiment, namely seeing how he could do with a main title run, which while we can make plenty of complaints about (namely a lack of credible opponents and going Broadway with Taiyo Kea: as much as I like the guy, he's not THAT good) but it wasn't terrible or anything. Sadly, this is a long time away from when Suwama would start to be properly great, he's still a solid hand but he's clearly not the big AJPW ace at the moment, and this title change to a aged, broken down Muta proves that notion. This starts off with regular Muta antics and filler grappling: Suwama takes Muta down a few times and he spends a good bit of time outside mean mugging children or throwing around rookies at ringside. Muta gets wrecked inside because of Suwama's size and power, but takes over outside due to being able to use the environment, busting him open with a chair shot. Suwama cuts himself pretty hard and gets blood everywhere, it's pretty gross, especially when it mixes with his blonde hair. From then on, we get some pretty standard Muta dominance with choking, a STF attempt and some rest holds, but Suwama is too stubborn to go down and manages to keep getting back up, even after a Shining Wizard in the corner. Suwama countering a Space Rolling Elbow with a German suplex was pretty awesome and there's some nice action here, but there's just way too much stalling and/or nothing going on to get really engaged with Suwama's fight to stay alive. Muta tries bringing in the chair to even the odds, but Suwama manages to block it and a subsequent mist attempt, nailing Muta with a lariat while the chair is prone to his face. Suwama is also fairly gassed by this point, not helped by the blood spilt already, and hits some pretty sloppy moves, like a kick that doesn't do anywhere and a powerbomb that he barely manages to get up properly. Despite being out of it after getting misted proper a second time he manages to squeeze out a frog splash, but a third mist in the face is enough to finally leave him prone for a Shining Wizard and moonsault, which is enough for the win. This is honestly a pretty weak showing for a Triple Crown fight, namely because of the Muta narrative being really, really drawn out here. I get that he was probably not wanting to go full workrate considering he was doing double duty being here and in NJPW, but man, Muta just pushes the brakes down whenever this gets even somewhat interesting, and Suwama definitely isn't carrying his ass when he doesn't want to go. Suwama is fine enough here but I did always find him a bit eh in this era: his babyface work just isn't very compelling yet and he seemed pretty weak in comparison to his opponent. Not very good at all."