Minoru Suzuki & Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Shinjiro Otani & Tadao Yasuda

[6.0] "This is a LOT better because of the talent involved and the fact that Yasuda was always much better in tag matches than having to hold his own. Him and Taka have some good big man sequences between the two as they push and shove for dominance. Otani and Suzuki also have some fun exchanges between shoot-style work and then reverting to slapping each other up. We get some shortcuts as Yasuda is knocked around Korakuen in a one-sided brawl with Taka before getting wrecked for the middle portion of this during the heat segment, with Suzuki landing nasty kicks and knees alongside his partner. Even Otani boots him when breaking up a cross armbreaker, albeit this is used to try to wake him up for the comeback. He does so eventually, albeit a bit clumsy. Otani turns this into his usual shtick with the top rope dropkick, corner face wash shit, etc etc. Like if you know how his matches generally function then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Suzuki leans into this as well but thankfully we also get some good build as Yasuda finally gets to tag in and show that he isn't dead weight in this match, throwing his Butterfly Suplex, Baba-style neckbreaker and even a kneeling dropkick. We get some surprisingly shoddy strikes from Taka and Otani before interference sticks Yasuda on the backend again. He endures some real nasty kicks from the duo, as well as a disgusting spot where Yasuda is trying to get up and he's just getting plastered with Suzuki full-force slaps, Otani is trying to get in and Yasuda's shooing him off, great melodrama. Yasuda's pride is ultimately his downfall as he just can't handle the two despite some spirited near fall escapes, and Suzuki finishes him off with the Gotch-style piledriver. Obviously this isn't amazing workrate or anything, but the emotional struggle of Yasuda trying to give it his all despite his age and wear and tear was pretty well-done as a whole, and Suzuki and Taka play perfect bullies to just break down any chance of that happening. Otani does his usual shtick for a B-show and it's fine for what it is, he's more here just to add some crowd-popping stuff though. Get past the middling start and this gets real good near the end."