ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
REAL WORLD TAG LEAGUE 2020 NIGHT 3
NOVEMBER 22, 2020
KASUKABE TOUCH CUBE
KASUKABE, JAPAN

Watch: AJPW.TV

NON-TOURNAMENT MATCHES

  • HIKARU SATO & DAN TAMURA DEF. YUSUKE OKADA & TAKAYUKI UEKI (7:37)
  • TAKAO OMORI, BLACK MENSO~RE & KOJI IWAMOTO DEF. ATSUKI AOYAGI, RISING HAYATO & RYUKI HONDA (8:43)
  • PURPLE HAZE (UTAMARO & IZANAGI) DEF. ENFANTS TERRIBLE (KOJI DOI & HOKUTO OMORI) (6:08)
  • JAKE LEE DEF. FRANCESCO AKIRA (4:31)

REAL WORLD TAG LEAGUE 2020
DAISUKE SEKIMOTO & ABDULLAH KOBAYASHI [6] DEF. TEAM ECW (MASATO TANAKA & TAJIRI) [2] (9:05)

Some stalling from Kobayashi and TAJIRI to start but they wisely tagged out to their partners. The Sekimoto versus Tanaka stuff was predictably great. Tanaka, one of my all time faves, also knew how to work well with Kobayashi which was a nice touch to this match. Team ECW worked over Kobayashi’s legs for a bit which is a much better use of time than just having Kobayashi plod around. There was a ref bump and TAJIRI and Kobayashi went to use weapons on each other. While TAJIRI went for a kendo stick shot on Kobayashi, it was avoided and Kobayashi cradled TAJIRI for the win. This went the perfect length given that each team has a weak link and it was what I was hoping for from the Big Japan duo as the tournament continued. Tanaka and Sekimoto of course made this match into anything at all. ***

REAL WORLD TAG LEAGUE 2020
YOSHITATSU & RYOUJI SAI [2] DEF. VIOLENT GIANTS (SUWAMA & SHUJI ISHIKAWA) [2] (17:59)

Ishikawa and Sai started with some mat wrestling. Yoshitatsu then got worked over for a while. It was not particularly dynamic but Yoshitatsu works well at getting sympathy when getting beaten down enough to prevent it from becoming a snore-fest. The eventual Sai hot tag did not exactly yield a hot match. After lots of action that was not particularly interesting, this eventually came down to SUWAMA versus Yoshitatsu. After some fun trading of suplexes, Yoshitatsu locked in the Yoshitatsu Fantasy on SUWAMA for the referee stoppage. This was the weakest match of the tournament so far I thought. While there was some okay stuff here and there it never really heated up to a level that put me on the edge of my seat. **3/4

REAL WORLD TAG LEAGUE 2020
ENFANTS TERRIBLES (SHOTARO ASHINO & KUMA ARASHI) [4] DEF. NEXTREAM (KENTO MIYAHARA & YUMA AOYAGI) [0] (17:09)

You could feel the hate between the two teams before the match started. Aoyagi got worked over by Enfants Terribles with some cheating thrown in too. Miyahara would eventually make a big entrance on a hot tag only to get it cut down. Ashino and Miyahara had some great sequences. Ashino looked a lot more credible here against Miyahara than he did in their Champion Carnival match. The match came down to Aoyagi and Arashi. The closing stretch managed to kick the match up a notch, with some back-and-forth action. Arashi would get the pin with the top-rope Senton Splash. This turned into something pretty good, but I felt the first half of the match was a little lacking, with Enfants Terribles taking too much of the match. ***1/2

FINAL THOUGHTS

Another good show, but I thought the tournament matches, while good, did not peak as high as the first two nights. The undercard was fine but nothing worth going out of your way for except the Jake Lee versus Francesco Akira match which I thought was a lot of fun and they intelligently worked in the big height difference between them into the match.