NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 15: NIGHT ONE
KENTA vs. Satoshi Kojima
This was a textbook two out-of-their-prime veterans having a rock solid bout, match. Nothing extremely memorable, but a good little match. ***
Great-O-Khan vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
I enjoyed this quite a lot. Was my first time seeing The Great-O-Khan (at least with this gimmick), and I really liked a lot of the stuff he did here; the beginning with him trying to take things to the mat ruled, and then later on he brought a nice amount of struggle in some of the bigger bombs he busted out, such as the reverse suplex thingy. Masterful performance from Big Match Tana as well all around with his awesome comebacks, great selling & charisma. One negative about this is that it did drag -- they most definitely shouldn't have gone 15+ minutes; with some trimming it could've been even better than it was, and it already was really, really good. ***1/4
Kazuchika Okada vs. Will Ospreay
I really liked the match they had during G1 where Ospreay turned heel, so I was somewhat hopeful about this one, but yea, this wasn't really for me. Went over 35 minutes & certainly every single second of that long duration was felt -- there was nothing outright 'bad' or annoying about this, but it was just so unremarkable and forgettable for the absolute majority of it, save for a singular spot here n' there. Not a bad match, but very forgettable other than the fact that it happened in the Tokyo Dome. **
Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito
These two have had some crazy-ass, legitimately great matches in the past, and while this one didn't reach the peaks & heights of those, I thought it was still a very good, consistent match. They fill the 30+ minutes nicely. Usual neckwork by Naito, and he's pretty mean with it at points, making it a pretty sweet deal to watch unfold. It's not a total Tokyo Dome main event level epic spectacle overall, but a good enough match which I did enjoy watching. ***1/4
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