KUSHIDA vs. Mike Bailey

[6.0] "This might be the hardest match I've rated in a while. On one hand, inconsistent and patchy selling aside, this was the best Mike Bailey performance I've seen in years. He felt like a hyena always going after Kushida's arm but one the other hand Kushida just looked like he didn't care. The whole armbar sequence with Kushida just no selling the full extension was pretty stupid."

[7.0] "Two of the best in the business going at it in a damn good technical wrestling match turned all-out fight. KUSHIDA has been killing it since leaving WWE and Mike Bailey is finally out of the shadows and into the spotlight. This was precise in the strategy and vicious in the execution, with both wrestlers flirting with victory throughout. Start to finish, a damn good match worth checking out. 3.75 stars, 7.5 out of 10."

[8.0] "The best haircut in wrestling vs. whatever the fuck happened to Kushida's skull. Really intense grappling & limb targeting here with especially great work from Kushida. Of course you have to forgive Speedball his patchy selling, but that's par for the course ***3/4"

[10.0] "Main event caliber match. A definite classic. An incredible athletic showcase put on by these two great athletes. An incredible clash of styles pitting Bailey's striking vs Kushida's technique. Some incredible combinations by these two X-Division stars. An incredible battle between a former X-Division champion and one who could be the next X-Division champion."

[8.0] "Mike Bailey has been without a doubt Impact's most consistent performer after Josh's injury. Here he just put a great match with Kushida. Also, Kushida has been booked better in North America than in Japan and the objective of this match was to make him look good as his match with Rush approaches. (***3/4)"

[7.0] "This was better than their previous meeting in the Best Of the Super Jr Tournament ! this was a PPV quality match on weekly tv with two great wrestler. Hope to see more of them together in the future.KUSHIDA seems better in the USA than in Japan recently. 7, 5"

[8.0] "It was just great. It's been a long time since I've seen matches of this caliber since the regular edition of Impact. Two really masters of their craft gave out just an amazing cut with an increasing pace. I was very involved, which hasn't happened to me for a long time during the releases of Impact. With every minute, the intensity rose and the sequences became more and more spectacular. The last third of the fight went on with a bunch of cool reversals and dangerous moments, which caused me quite a few emotions. My respect to these guys."

[9.0] "It's good to see KUSHIDA again being presented as a serious threat, wrestling really good matches and winning. Also, if this match would have some kind of a stipulation to get extra attention, it would get buzz it really deserves - imo a lot of fans these days very rarely rate matches in 2-2 3/4 star range for whatever reason, unfortunately only makes matches like this stand out less because there is a mentality that 'everything is good', which means there's little to no average matches and in reality that's not the case. Sometimes just two great pro-wrestlers have a great pro-wrestling match, and that's what this match was. I agree with the previous comment, this one was better than their BOSJ'23 match. ****"

[8.0] "Very good match between KUSHIDA and Speedball right here which was everything you'd expect from them with clean, effective, well executed sequences with also countering, submissions, kicks and everything they did was great, they clicked very well together. Better than their BOSJ match."