Featured image by Hal Grayson
This review was commissioned by Hippoboy281 over on my Ko-fi account.
A perfectly decent first round bout to kick off Takeda’s run in the tournament here. One gets the sense that Takeda’s smart enough to understand that he’s got a whole night of action ahead of him so a lot of the gnarlier punishment here gets absorbed by Eric Ryan. Small note but it’s funny too that Takeda doesn’t have his signature comically large scissors with him, probably hell to pack to get to America, so he’s working with just a standard old pair that really emphasizes how much of his stuff with that is worked.
Commentary makes a note that as a member of 440H!, Eric Ryan might have some goons interfere on his behalf tonight, so they’re pretty grateful when things stay a mostly one-on-one bout. The action seems to follow this idea of a more honorable approach to the tournament as towards the end, the match actually becomes more of a test of Ryan’s endurance than Takeda’s. Ryan’s the one getting a few big nearfalls at the end, whereas Takeda never really feels like he’s in significant danger at any point in this.
Pretty standard deathmatch fare here, nothing much to get excited about.
Rating: ***
