Alpha Wolf & Dragon Bane vs. El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. & Luis Mante

[8.0] "I guess the idea of this 'Monday Magic' concept is to create a unique, fresh atmosphere to hopefully attract an audience that is stuck in their own bubble of habits, and this match was a perfect opener to get my attention - Luis Mante of all people casually showed up and worked very hard to make this a really fun match. One awkward near-fall aside, this match is a blast to watch and imo is a very good way to showcase either of these four wrestlers to anyone who sees them for the first time. ***3/4"

[6.0] "[3.5*] This was a really fun match, I thought what the two tags did here was really incredible, Wagner Jr is not one of my favorite wrestlers but in this Tag Match he did well. The exchanges between the pairs were very cool, Luis Mante was impressive too, his powerbomb on Alpha Wolf to give his pair the victory in the end was very good."

[5.0] "This match made me feel like I was taking crazy pills, and is a really strange way to open a new season of this show. Actually, to be clear: the match itself is fire, and very fun, and if we're just talking ring work alone, this is and 8 or 9. And that's not surprising, right? Everyone here is world class talented. What annoys me about this match is the booking--why are we putting AW/DB, who just had one of the best tag matches of '24 in their by-the-skin-of-thier-teeth loss to GLG, in a losing effort against the non-tag team of Wagner/Mante? Mante's not in NOAH! I get he's a belt holder, but, like, if you want to use him in a guest spot, and if you want to make Wagner look strong, and if you want to build up AW/DB back into #1 contenders, isn't there a much more obvious path? That path being: Wagner v. Mante, Wagner goes over, then AW/DB beats someone else? I actually had this at a 6 when I started writing this, then I moved the rating down to 5 when I realized, oh my God, this was over in 9 minutes, too. You just had one of the best tag teams on the planet, and your previous #1 contenders like a month ago, lose to a non-tag team in under 10 minutes. God. Well, booking aside, Alpha Wolf hits the nastiest crucifix bomb I've seen in a long time in this match, and I think there's a ref botch near the end, so those two things are fun/funny reasons to watch this match, but if you think too much about the booking (like I did) it'll just make you mad."