Kensuke Sasaki vs Osamu Nishimura-NJPW 20.3.2001.

Most of the match is worked in Nishimura's style, lots of matwork and spots you're used to seeing in his matches like the neck bridge test of strength and so on, Sasaki mostly plays along and occasionally utilizes his strength to escape Nishimura's holds, which is the only thing setting it apart from the usual Nishimura sequences. The finish leans more towards Kensuke's style, as he takes the initiative and starts rocking Nishimura with bigger moves while Nishimura tries to avoid them and utilize his throwback techniques like Cobra Cluthes, the Octopus Stretch, Inoki's low kicks from the Ali fight and so on to fight back. Both guys are good at whey to but it felt like they needed a few more years of seasoning to really mesh in a way that could produce greatness. ***1/4

Shinya Hashimoto vs Kensuke Sasaki-NJPW 9.4.2001.

I remember hearing about this match, I think I read an old article from SSS Stuart which depicted it as a disaster and shit on the booking and the Inokiism in it. Luckily I'm way too into absurdism to care about who wins in pro wrestling (especially in a fifteen year old match) and the way it was described really made me want to see it. Honestly this might be the best Hashimoto-Kensuke Sasaki match. I'm not sure how many matches they've had against each other but of the top off my head I can think of a Hash IWGP Title defence vs. Power Warrior, one in the Dome and a G1 match and I would have this one above all of them. It's billed as a "no rules deathmatch", that doesn't mean you're going to get garbage spots and heavily gimmicked stuff, just more punches to the face and also a very clever submission spot built around the stipulation. Hashimoto comes out wearing boxing gloves and man do these two beat on one another, they throw a lot of nasty shots in close range and while clinching before the match evolves into ridiculous bomb throwing. I could see the uniqueness of the pacing and (somewhat of) the finish throwing some folks off but I really appreciated them. It's esentially a proto-Futen match. ****

Kazunari Murakami vs Hiroshi Tanahashi-NJPW 28.10.2001.

A bizarre and awesome match, probably the closest we ever got to Tanahashi doing shoot style. You'd get tricked into thinking he is a good wrestler by watching this, he put his amateur wrestling skills to use and did some really nice takedowns and matwork. Eventually he tries to trade strikes with Murakami and dies via face punching. Super fun match, I doubt anything from this year's G1 will endear itself to me as much as this little bout did. Inoki come back. ***-***1/4

Kazuyuki Fujita vs Kensuke Sasaki-NJPW 8.10.2001.

Ah, the glorious period of New Japan when wrestlers were forced to shave their heads and wear gloves. It is always interesting to see what conclusions workers came to when doing matches like these. Kensuke's Lariats and Strangle Holds aren't exactly shooty, but they don't feel *that* out of place in these hybrid matches either, and certainly give the match a unique flair. There's a lot of face punching, which is enjoyable on its own but these two find smart ways to incorporate them into transitions as well as make it look like a struggle-you'll see dodging, shoving, blocking and so on. Kensuke's great timing maximized the value of his flash attacks and hearing the echo of the Dome crowd is always a special feeling. Fujita's side mount knees were a nice callback to what he was doing in PRIDE at the time and the TKO finish was worked about as well as it gets. ***1/2

Alexander Otsuka vs Takashi Sugiura-ZERO-1 18.4.2001.

What a match. It's always neat to see amateur wrestling stuff incorporated into prowres, and these two did a really neat version of that while simultaneously gradually increasing the intensity, with it just exploding in the finishing stretch. That damned Headbutt may be the most a wrestler's ever bled from one, talk about a spot that insantly completely changes the flow of the match. Of course the Suplexes were just beautiful, but they also smartly build the nearfalls playing off previous spots, and the execution was amazing, you don't see anyone else do a gutwrench suplex counter into a leglock, let alone done as smoothly as here. ****1/4



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