Night 2 is here, it came so fast. The final isn’t until the 31st so make sure to get your fill while you can.  I said in the previous night’s review ‘. I’ll be only covering the tournament matches, not the other doubts on the car, unless I want to.’ well i want to so here’s three quick matchreviews. 

Daisuke Sasaki, MJ Paul & Ilusion vs. Kumadori, Masami Inahata & Hinata Kasai 

Kumadori has a tendency to go viral due to his breakdancing-style offense, and while those moves are fun, he clearly is not quite there yet as a wrestler. His timing can be off, and he is often caught just standing around, waiting for what he needs to do next. He produces great five-second clips, and that’s fine for now; he’s got time to grow.

The real standout in this match was Hinata Kasia, who showed some real fire. This was broadly fine, but nothing notable happened.

Rating: **¼

Yuya Koroku, Daichi Sato & Yuki Ishida Vs Kazuki Hirata, Antonio Honda & Yuni 

Hirata, Honda, and Yuni are kind of the perfect trio for me. Yuni perfectly complements the comedic styling; his flashy, high-content offense really punctuates how ridiculous all of Honda’s moveset is. There is a two-minute stretch where Yuni and Honda operate as a tag team, and it’s great. I hope DDT does more with them as a pairing.

This match has all the stuff: Honda tripping, which breaks up a pinfall; a dance break that their opponents join in with. It’s hard to review these sorts of matches without just listing off bits, but this match was great, trust me. A perfect match. Spiritually, it’s five-stars but actually…

Rating: ***3/4

Yuki Ueno, Shunma Katsumata & To-y Vs Kazuma Sumi, Junta Miyawaki & Rukiya Vs KANON, Yukio Naya & Viento Maligno 

DDT trucks out their non-threatening boys, and also Yukio Naya, to have a fine but not particularly memorable match. Everyone gets their stuff in; Naya and To-y are the standouts.

It’s maybe a bit of an indictment on Ueno that you’re the KO-D Champion and you really just blend into the pack. It’s an undercard tag; it’s fine, it’s fun, it’s breezy.

Rating: **1/2

Now time for the tournament bouts

Match 1 Mao vs. Hideki Okatani

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This is one of the best MAO performances I’ve seen in a while and I give a lot of that to Okatani. His heel work really grounds MAO, which makes his big moves feel a lot more impactful. The match’s greatest achievement is doing a good count-out spot. Mere minutes into the match, MAO and Okatani have brawled to the outside. Okatani drops MAO on a long table. Okatani then rolls into the ring and the count is already seventeen. I honestly believed the match was over and DDT was doing a shock quick match like HARASHIMA vs Chris Brookes from last year’s tournament. But MAO gets on the table and jumps back into the ring. It’s creative, it’s cool, it’s sick. Spot of the night.

I can’t praise Okatani’s performance enough, not just in this match but his recent work in general. He’s by far DDT’s best heel and a top seven or so guy in the company. Great at grinding down his opponent and scuffing at the wacky elements of DDT, but also so fun to watch work.

This match has other fun stuff with both men getting skewers driven into their heads that stay stuck there for a comically long time. The main downside is the multiple Takayama-Frye forearm exchanges that these two just can’t pull off.

MAO picks up the win. This was very good, even if you’re a MAO hater like I sometimes am, I’d recommend this.

Rating: ***½

Match 2 Takeshi Masada vs. Danshoku Dieno

The dream is still alive people. Dienomania is running wild baby!

If Dieno wasn’t one of my favourite wrestlers of all time I would not care for this match as much as I do. But he is and I loved it.

I didn’t think Dieno would win this match. Masada is a young guy there trying to push plus its King of DDT historically the comedy guys don’t do well here. Sure Dieno can beat Hirata but that’s only because Hirata is another comedy guy. But then he did and it was transcendent.

My one criticism is unlike the Hirata match it doesn’t start great, it feels like a normal Dieno comedy match, which is fine I like those but it doesn’t feel elevated. But after a test of strength between Masada’s fingers and Dieno’s ass it’s all near falls and I bite on every single one. Dieno hits a piledriver, kicks out, so he goes to just a thong and hits another piledriver, kickout, so he takes his thong off to reveal a second thong! A second thong has hit the King of DDT. I was so sure Dieno was losing and popped for every kickout. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire second half of this match. Dieno eventually wins with an out of nowhere roll up. This match was great, Danshoku Dieno is better than your favourite wrestler.

Rating: ****

Match 3 Chris Brookes vs. Minoru Suzuki

This was fine.

The whole match is built around Suzuki targeting Brookes’ knee. This starts with the two crowd brawling which leads to Suzuki, for an extended time, hitting Brookes’ knee with various chairs, this knee work eventually makes its way to and is continued in the ring. A kind man could call this match focused, a meaner but also truthful man could call it boring. Suzuki is Suzuki, he’s so charismatic. It’s always a bit fun to watch. I enjoy how little he cares for the audience members while he’s grabbing chairs. This isn’t a bad match, but it’s another example of Suzuki DDT matches being too long. It’s 20 minutes, the longest match on the show, and it really doesn’t need to be.

Brookes is serviceable in his role, fighting from underneath, getting some good moments but never feeling like he’s on top. As someone who doesn’t really care for Brookes and loves Suzuki, I do find enjoyment in just watching Suzuki bitch Brookes out for 20 minutes.

It’s okay, but a more compact version of this is probably really good.

Rating: ** 3/4

Match 4 Shinya Aoki vs. HARASHIMA

My nitpick with Aoki still remains. It’s not even a criticism of Aoki but more his matches, that whenever someone wrestles Aoki it feels like they lose their individuality and morph into a wrestler-shaped blob called ‘Aoki opponent’.

However, this match ruled. Most great wrestlers’ matches are formulaic; when you have a formula that works, use it! And there is something to all these different wrestlers thinking they can beat Aoki at his own game.

God, there’s a three-minute stretch where they both have a hold of each other’s leg and the way they work it, good lord. I am not immune to the temptation of a grapple fuck. Like most Aoki matches, there is a slow build-up from the grappling to start incorporating bigger moves, but it never fully loses the grappling it is a constant factor to the match. Aoki even breaks his style with a dive and a top-rope something. Then you get it all the elaborate pin attempts being just top notch. And the occasional big move feels momentous; it’s just terrific stuff.

HARASHIMA puts up a worthy challenge, but you can’t out-Aoki Aoki. I want to have a contrarian take on Aoki. I can sort of feel it bubbling up inside of me, but not just yet, he’s just too sick. This match was great.

Rating: ****

Overall thoughts on the show

This right here is a show of the year contender. Two classics in Dieno vs Masada and Aoki vs HARASHIMA. A really fun match in MAO vs Okatani, and while I didn’t love Brookes vs Suzuki, it was ok. The really fun undercard tags make up for it. I cannot recommend you watch this show enough.

My prediction for night three? Suzuki beats Aoki, Dieno beats MAO, then a Dieno final win. Then really annoying people who claim they watch DDT will complain about it on twitter. And they can go bite me! See you in about three weeks.