Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tetsuya Naito

[7.0] "Good match between them but nothing to be writing home about, given you have two of the most charismatic wrestlers involved here, so there will be certain quality. They pretty much did their basic stuff and moved on."

[6.0] "I appreciated the short time and will say again that New Japan desperately needs more of this.. These two just know how to work together. Tanahashi played into the character stuff early, mocking Naito's tranquilo pose, which of course led to Naito doing it back and holding it while in a submission. By the time the announcement of 10 minutes came, I was shocked because they made that time fly by. However, it wasn't one of their better matches but that's only because they're pretty consistently top notch."

[6.0] "This was a competently worked match between two of the greats. I don't expect them to have anything less than a good match together. They didn't try to reinvent the wheel here. They've wrestled many times and they'll never recapture the story, emotion, and magic their greatest matches had. But you could always depend on them to work well together and play the hits, and those hits are better than most. ***1/4"

[8.0] "nother emotional main event from these future legends. The match achieved the expectations over it, bringing a very strong Tanahashi Versus a speedy Naito. The end looked very surprising for me, and let a good impression, since none of them seems weak with this end. Nice match, the winner wil be for sure on the finals of the tournament. [****1/4]"

[8.0] "Naito and Tana have had many classics by now, so this is obviously in the shadow of those matches but it's still really good."

[7.0] "Two of the all time greats. Tetsuya Naito and Hiroshi Tanahashi entered this match with a perfectly even head-to-head record at 7-7-1. 15 matches later, they knew each other as well as possible. And thus, a story about avoiding mistakes began. Two elite counter-wrestlers showing why they are who they are. 3.5 stars, 7 out of 10."

[8.0] "I mean, I put an 8 but it's the lowest I can put to these two motherfuckers. Everybody remembered their famous trilogy in 2017 or just their Climax bout in 2020, so when it's going to a lowest bout, you found it like bad, but that was good. Tana and Naito know each other very well, one error and you're fucked. That's the story of the match. I felt just they don't took all the risks. Ref bump sucked by the way. At the end of it, this had a good final stretch."

[7.0] "Classic fighters in the ring! Tetsuya Naito and Hiroshi Tanahashi have made a huge contribution to the development of NJPW. When such wrestlers meet in the same ring, we understand that the company is a favorite in Japan. Big stars that carry the flag of Japanese wrestling. The fighters decided to hold a quick match. It can be seen that speed and skills in the ring are a priority for veterans. Of course, there is nothing to surprise, they fought a huge number of times, but I still enjoyed watching the fight."

[8.0] "Good match between Naito and Tanahashi as always with them as they're incapable of putting out bad content together, it was nowhere near the level of the classics that they have had in the past but it was still something solid as I predicted as it was pretty obvious that this match would be something very enjoyable to watch. It wasn't Naito's best performance, I thought he was pretty average but on the other side the star here was Tanahashi who's always a real gem to watch in action. The two have a natural chemistry together and the action between them was really fluid, you had the typical sequences we always see between Naito & Tanahashi and the crowd was into it. It's pretty crazy to see Tanahashi still being so excellent, he's aging like a fine wine and I like to point that out every time. All that's disturbing here is the ending, just like the match between Suzuki & Takahashi it's a great contest that ends with an unnecessary roll-up."

[6.0] "A rare off night for both men, in between good action were several clunky/botched spots, these two have definitely had better matches."

[9.0] "It was interesting to see what kind of a match Naito and Tanahashi would have in these circumstances, and it was an interesting one - both considering the current state of New Japan, where both wrestlers are today, and in the context of their history/rivalry. Even though the stakes were as not high as they were in matches that most people would associate their rivalry with, both wrestlers really wanted to win, there was a lot of big moves (with some unique/different twists on familiar spots too), momentum shifted a surprising amount of times and emotions were running high - Tanahashi hit Naito with some body blows at one point, and Naito shoved the ref into ropes to stop Tanahashi's High Fly Flow, and with all that, they kept me guessing about who's gonna win until the very end. ****"

[7.0] "I really liked this one, but it almost feels like the ref bump disrupted the rhythm of the match. Tanahashi has now lost twice to rollups after a dodged High Fly Flow recently, so I wonder if they're telling a story with this or if they're just lazily protecting Tanahashi."

[6.0] "A fine match but very disappointing because the two wrestlers involved, Tanahashi is out of his days of glory"

[5.0] "The match is low profile, of course it's a very good one but from both of them you have to expect more."

[7.0] "A bit disappointing. Not the banger you'd hope to see but still a good match. The ending came off very lackluster for a matchup of this caliber. Protecting Tanahashi is fine but not particularly necessary at his age. ***3/4"

[8.0] "This match was pretty good, but compared to what these men are capable of as well as other matches in this tournament it wasn't amazing by any means. The attacking of Naito's knee was exciting and the finish was really cool to watch and was good to not devalue Tanahashi. ***3/4"

[8.0] "It was still a great match but as it was reaching the next level, it simply ended. It was weird. If this had gone 25 minutes instead of 18 it would've probably been incredible, in this case it was simply great. 4 stars."

[7.0] "A bit disappointing since I expected at least a ****1/2, but still a good match. Slow-paced with a lot of good looking counters and cool sequences. The final sprint is nice to watch, but I think the finish was a bit anticlimactic, it could've been better. ****"

[8.0] "ok match for the calibre of these two wrestlers. pretty basic and short but all the moves were pulled off perfectly and the ending was a nice little sprint. I did expect more however. Still a good match, but not a must see Naito/Tana match like all the others."

[8.0] "This was a good match, you expect more because of those involved and the fact it went under 20 mins with a random ref bump that made very little sense"

[6.0] "This is the worst match I have seen between these two, and I have seen all of their matches from 2013 onwards, along with a couple matches before then. I wouldn't call it a bad match, but it wasn't paced particularity well, the ref bump was completely unnecessary and stupid (seriously, it would have taken Naito considerably less effort to just jounce the top rope himself), and the finish was underwhelming. *** or ***1/4"