This review was commissioned by ChosenOne over on my Ko-fi account.
There’s barbed wire, explosives, and a baseball bat. Fill in the blanks yourself because Onita and Akebono have no real time for that.
There’s so many fun little shortcuts in this. Where Onita’s FMW deathmatches built upon grandeur and anticipation, he goes for something just way more direct here. A staredown between the two begins with Akebono spewing red mist in Onita’s face–a clever trick to give us the blood-soaked look without actually having to draw blood. One would think they do this just to get out of blading, but then there’s a close up of Onita after taking his first, very early, bump into the exploding barbed wire very obviously blading small cuts into his arm to get over the damage of the wire. Hell fucking yeah, dude, something about that just warms the heart. Yeah, take the shortcut for the face, but make sure to blade the arm so that no one can say the wire is gimmicked.
There’s very little in this seven minutes that isn’t directly related to the stipulation set up. Most of it is either man getting pushed into the wire so that a big boom goes off. There’s little of the same high drama from Onita’s peak days, but the spectacle of the pay off itself remains fairly dazzling, especially now that we’ve seen high level promotions somehow fuck it up. Outside of a pretty limp crowd brawl, it’s perhaps the most fireworks show ass match ever from both a construction and literal perspective.
I had a good time though, and even if you didn’t, what’s seven minutes of your life? Lighten up.
Rating: ***ish
