Satoshi Kojima vs. Shinya Hashimoto

[9.0] "Wonderful match. Brute force vs. brave underdog. Kojima is not afraid of Hashimoto at all and speaks his language. However, the moment where Kojima jumps on Hashimoto and then stands up, only for Hashimoto to appear behind him unaffected and drop him, perfectly reflects the entire dynamic of the match. Kojima stubbornly resists Hashimoto's deadly attacks and makes the crowd chant his name. He can even land attacks that stagger Hashimoto and targets his knee to neutralize the kicks, but Hashimoto's arm-attacking response is completely ruthless. ****"

[9.0] "I knew this would be a good match due to the wrestlers involved but it actually blew me away and exceeded my expectations. Kojima put on a fire performance here, displaying great will to take down Hashimoto and refusing to quit. The crowd was completely behind him. Hashimoto was getting pissed and attacking harder when Kojima was coming at him and not getting down. Kojima attacked the leg of Hashimoto and worked over it with submissions. Kojima's lariarts were awesome and the visuals of Hashimoto's sweat flying off his body from each lariat were amazing. Hashimoto had enough of it and brutally chopped Kojima's arm. Kojima showed incredible fighting spirit and survived Hashimoto big moves but had to give up due to the arm bar. Great storytelling and selling."

[9.0] "Utterly underrated, Shinya & Kojima both work to their best abilities & end up having one of the most mesmerizing strong style match."

[9.0] "Kojima/Hashimoto: This was SO awesome! Hashimoto was perfect at being who Hashimoto should be and how he should wrestle. This was so great. Kojima was good, but this really was the Hashimoto show. ****1/2."

[8.0] "An awesome underdog story where Kojima was beaten for most of the match. Hashimoto beating on him in the first parts of the match causing the crowd to rally behind Kojima despite Hashimoto being a crowd favourite (shout out to the skinny bloke in the crowd btw). Kojima shows loads of fight nailing Hashimoto with some lariats before Hashi started to brutally attack the arm which lead to some great selling btw. The ending wasn't the most hottest but it made sense enough. ***3/4"

[9.0] "This was a great match. Young Kojima trying to beat Hashimoto and tried everything to do so. From the stiffness to switching to Hashimoto's leg. What a performance by Kojima. Hashimoto was great in his role as always. ****"

[6.0] "This was an okay match but often felt underwhelming. What really held the match back is that Kojima is barely any challenge for Hashimoto for the first match of the match. Hashimoto constantly knocks him down to the ground, which constantly deflated both myself and the live audience. It feels rather unspectacular to watch a wrestling match where one wrestler is just so much more dominant than the other for so long. Even when Kojima gets his first comeback in the match just after the mid-way point, Hashimoto messes it up by taking Kojima's Koji Cutter incorrectly, landing on his back and making it look like a swinging neckbreaker. Kojima's arrogant attitude was definitely one of the few things that stood out for me in the match, as he really seems desperate to win. By contrast Hashimoto is actually pretty boring. I don't really get a sense of his personality in this match. There was some nice limb-work as Kojima works over Hashimoto's leg, so as to hinder his kicks, while Hashimoto works over Kojima's arm, so as to hinder his lariats. This limb-work never felt too important to the match narrative, however, so it felt only utilised to half its potential. The lariat/chop segment between the two was pretty fun, but then it led into a repetitive sequence of Kojima getting constantly ddt-ed and becoming as weak as he was in the first half of the match. A few impressive things made this an alright match, but quite a lot of things stopped it from being better. ***"