Takuya Sugawara & Yusaku Obata vs. Osamu Namiguchi & Yuzuru Saito 12:23
Ikuto Hidaka & Minoru Fujita vs. Minoru & Munenori Sawa 21:23
Manabu Nakanishi vs. Kohei Sato 14:56
Hikaru & KAORU vs. Saki Maemura & Toshie Uematsu 12:09
Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs. Gedo & Jado & Masato Tanaka 20:34
Mineo Fujita & Yusaku Obata vs. Shito Ueda & Yuzuru Saito
Kohei Sato vs. Kamikaze
Minoru Fujita vs. Takuya Sugawara
Hikaru & Mio Shirai vs. Saki Maemura & Io Shirai
Daisuke Sekimoto & Osamu Namiguchi vs. Ikuto Hidaka & Munenori Sawa
Shinjiro Otani & Masato Tanaka vs. Yuji Nagata & Wataru Inoue
Osamu Namiguchi & Yuzuru Saito vs. Munenori Sawa & Yusaku Obata
Mr. Wrestling III vs. Shito Ueda
Minoru & Ikuto Hidaka & Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Masato Tanaka & Minoru Fujita & Takuya Sugawara
Ryoji Sai & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Kohei Sato & Shingo Takagi
World Heavyweight Title: Shinjiro Otani vs. Yuji Nagata
World Heavyweight Title: Shinjiro Otani vs. Steve Corino
Kohei Sato & Yusaku Obata vs. Shito Ueda & Yuzuru Saito 12:10
Shinobu Takano vs. Katsuya ID Nomura 3:45
Masato Tanaka & Minoru vs. Minoru Fujita & Takuya Sugawara 14:11
NWA Intercontinental Tag Title Decision Match: Osamu Namiguchi & Ryoji Sai vs. Mr. Wrestling 3 & Steve Corino 21:01
ZERO1 International Junior Heavyweight Title: Ikuto Hidaka vs. Sonjay Dutt 18:12
ZERO1 World Heavyweight Title: Shinjiro Otani vs. Orlando Colon 13:54
Shito Ueda & Kuniyoshi Wada & Shinya Ishikawa vs. Yusaku Obata & Yuzuru Saito & Yuji Okabayashi
Minoru vs. Ikuto Hidaka 14:45. These are two great wrestlers who are capable of having a major match together, and in fact did only a few months earlier on 10/30/08, but today they wrestled to the 2nd match on the show standard, working a light and uninspired style. Tanaka worked Hidaka arm and Hidaka worked Minoru's leg, but they weren't developing the sequences and counters the way they were on 10/30, and Hidaka was barely even hitting hard enough to be believable. They picked it up in the 2nd half, but it was still never to their capability, and obviously being on the short side didn't help. I enjoyed the match because there was enough talent involved to still keep it interesting, but it frustrated me because most of that talent was wasted despite a matchup where their styles mesh perfectly. **3/4
Street Fight: Masato Tanaka & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Minoru Fujita & Takuya Sugawara
All Japan Kickboxing Offer Exhibition Match: Shinko Yamamoto vs. Hisanori Maeda
Akebono vs. Kohei Sato
World Heavyweight Title: Shinjiro Otani vs. Ryoji Sai
Shinya Ishikawa & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Shito Ueda & Yuzuru Saito 14:02
Minoru Fujita & Yusaku Obata vs. Keita Yano & Yuki Ishikawa 13:07
Takuya Sugawara & Toru Owashi vs. Kohei Sato & Osamu Namiguchi 12:45
Masato Tanaka vs. Shinjiro Otani 19:34
NWA International Lightweight Tag Title: Ikuto Hidaka & Munenori Sawa vs. Katsumi Usuda & Minoru 13:49
ZERO1 World Heavyweight Title: Ryoji Sai vs. Daisuke Sekimoto 24:37
Shito Ueda & Yuzuru Saito vs. Ryuichi Kawakami & Shinya Ishikawa 10:12
Katsumi Usuda vs. Munenori Sawa 14:12
Kohei Sato vs. KAMIKAZE 14:00
Shinjiro Otani vs. Minoru Fujita 16:12
NWA Intercontinental Tag Title: Osamu Namiguchi & Ryoji Sai vs. Takuya Sugawara & Toru Owashi 19:10
Masato Tanaka vs. Ikuto Hidaka 21:01
Magnitude Kishiwada & Rikiya Fudo & Yusaku Obata vs. KAMIKAZE & Shito Ueda & Yuzuru Saito 11:36
Minoru Fujita & Takuya Sugawara vs. Munenori Sawa & Osamu Namiguchi 11:16
Fire Festival 2009 Block A: Kohei Sato [2] vs. Ikuto Hidaka [0] 15:12
Fire Festival 2009 Block B: Masato Tanaka [2] vs. Tetsuhiro Kuroda [0] 16:12
Fire Festival 2009 Block A: Shinjiro Otani [2] vs. Akebono [0] 16:20
Fire Festival 2009 Block B: Daisuke Sekimoto [2] vs. Ryoji Sai [0] 20:33
Shito Ueda vs. Rikiya Fudo 10:55
Fire Festival 2009 Block B Finalist Decision Match: Ryoji Sai vs. Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Masato Tanaka 7:58
Fire Festival 2009 Block A Finalist Decision Match: Kohei Sato vs. Akebono vs. Ikuto Hidaka vs. Shinjiro Otani 9:58
Takuya Sugawara & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Yusaku Obata vs. KAMIKAZE & Osamu Namiguchi & Yuzuru Saito 14:28
Magnitude Kishiwada & Munenori Sawa vs. Minoru & Minoru Fujita 16:18
Fire Festival 2009 Final: Ryoji Sai vs. Kohei Sato 24:14
Katsumi Usuda vs. Yuzuru Saito 7:13
Kohei Sato & Osamu Namiguchi & Shito Ueda vs. Keita Yano & Rikiya Fudo & Yusaku Obata 14:55
Minoru vs. KAMIKAZE 13:32
Akebono & Shinjiro Otani vs. Daisuke Sekimoto & Masato Tanaka 15:31
NWA International Lightweight Tag Title: Ikuto Hidaka & Munenori Sawa vs. Minoru Fujita & Takuya Sugawara 25:44
Togi Makabe vs. Ryoji Sai 19:29
Akio Kobayashi & Ikuto Hidaka & Minoru Fujita vs. Alexander Otsuka & Kuroge Wagyuta & Tengu Kaiser 12:35
Don Arakawa vs. Kikufuji Kikutaro 5:36
Shinsuke Wakataka & Wataru Sakata vs. Osamu Namiguchi & Ryoji Sai 16:25
Kickboxing Exhibition: Daichi Hashimoto vs. Satoshi Kobayashi R2 2:00
Masato Tanaka & Shinjiro Otani vs. Kohei Sato & Toshiaki Kawada 16:20
Rikiya Fudo vs. Shito Ueda 8:17
Osamu Namiguchi Retirement Match: Kintaro Kanemura vs. Osamu Namiguchi 16:03
Minoru Fujita & Takuya Sugawara vs. Fujita Hayato & Shota Takanishi 15:25
Kenta Kakinuma Debut Match: Daisuke Sekimoto & Ryoji Sai vs. Kenta Kakinuma & Shinjiro Otani 17:38
NWA Intercontinental Tag Title Match: KAMIKAZE & Kohei Sato vs. Ikuto Hidaka & Munenori Sawa
ZERO1 World Heavyweight Title Match: Masato Tanaka vs. Toshiaki Kawada 14:20. Good match, but mostly for Tanaka. Tanaka was at the top of his game, giving an explosive performance, but this wasn't the energized Kawada & he seemed to be struggling with an injury that was limiting his flexibility (back or hip). Kawada knew the match he wanted to do, but he was inconsistent executing it to the level you'd expect from him. There was nothing embarassing & some of the exchanges were as impressive as you'd expect, but Kawada seemed to be laboring & didn't always have the zip & impact on his blows. **3/4
Tenka-Ichi Junior Tournament Round 1: Takuya Sugawara vs. Prince Devitt 6:27 of 7:24
Tenka-Ichi Junior Tournament Round 1: Sonjay Dutt vs. Minoru Fujita 7:14 of 11:02
Tenka-Ichi Junior Tournament Round 1: Fujita "Jr" Hayato vs. Hajime Ohara 10:24. Hayato was energized and explosive, but since he was going over he mainly sold for Ohara. Ohara seemed molded after Tajiri's heel style, so it's no surprise he ended up in SMASH early the next year. He played to the crowd before most of his offense to get them interested, except most of it wasn't interesting. He did a couple decent rolling cradle type pin attempts, but that was about it. The match was good when Hayato was blistering him with kicks, but you just felt like Hayato should run through this chump and move on to the opposition that had something to offer. *3/4
Tenka-Ichi Junior Tournament Round 1: Magnitude Kishiwada vs. Ikuto Hidaka 10:40 of 11:02. Hidaka pulled a more than adequate match out of a subpar Kishiwada who lumbering around without much flexibility. Hidaka didn't bother trying to do any mat wrestling or really even sequences, he pretty much just jumped at Kishiwada then went for cradles because these were the easiest things for Kishiwada to handle. Kishiwada wasn't nearly as dominant as usual, and didn't seem particularly motivated either, but he's always okay on offense doing his tried and true routine and being a live body was pretty much enough for Hidaka to come up with something worthwhile. **1/4
Tenka-Ichi Junior Tournament Semifinal: Prince Devitt vs. Sonjay Dutt 11:07 of 11:37
Tenka-Ichi Junior Tournament Semifinal: Fujita "Jr" Hayato vs. Ikuto Hidaka 13:21 of 13:25. A hell of a short match. These two brought it from start to finish, never allowing the intensity to waver. It was a well developed match with both men beautifully countering each other in all aspects. It wasn't as spectacular as Hidaka vs. Devitt, but they arguably put their speed and athleticism to more practical use as it was the basis for their ability to go back and forth so impressively, and inarguably were able to make up for it with a more well rounded and desperate contest. It started in Fujita's striking style, with Hidaka managing to generate enough impact to be credible (some of his kicks in the Devitt match were soft). The match turned when Hayato ran the apron to kick Hidaka, who was standing on the floor, but Hidaka caught his knee. Hayato held onto the top rope to keep from being dragged to the floor, but that probably made Hidaka's Dragon screw more deadly. Hidaka worked the knee for the rest of the match, but Hayato was able to counter him, and if you gave him any space, he'd find a way to get a nasty kick or stomp in. This of course built up to Hidaka's Shawn capture, but Hayato countered it with his KID. Hayato was unable to pull guard though, and Hidaka went into the kneebar, but Hidaka got to a leg and jumped into a second K.I.D for a great near finish. I don't know that I really liked the finish of Hidaka knocking Hayato out, but Hayato is one of those wrestlers who will keep coming until you incapacitate him. ***3/4
Tenka-Ichi Junior Tournament Final: Prince Devitt vs. Ikuto Hidaka 20:08 of 20:17. An important match for Hidaka, showing he was superior to NJPW's junior ace. And boy was that apparent as Hidaka could do Devitt's match, but Devitt could not do Hidaka's. When Hidaka did his knee work, Devitt offered nothing. He could sell, but that was absolutely it. If the sovereign doesn't lack the ability to counter, he was certainly saving it for when the rest of the royal family was in attendance. So there were no sequences on the mat or in or around Hidaka's usual knee work, and thus the match lacked the development and intensity of Hidaka's semifinal with Fujita. On the other hand, when they were doing high spots, it was quite dynamic, with all sorts of great counters resulting in the wrestle who attempted the big spot coming out on the wrong end at least as often. Still, the best stuff was mostly from Hidaka, who pulled a nice Frankensteiner out when Devitt pressed him in the air and turned Devitt's avalanche style backdrop into his misty flip. I'm picking on Devitt, but Hidaka is diverse enough to allow Devitt to be Devitt, and as such there was ample opportunity for him to hit his flashy highspots. It was an exciting match, with a few more spectacular moves, but nowhere near the all around match that Hidaka had with well rounded Minoru in the first round of last year's Tenka-Ichi on 10/30/08. ***1/2
Furinkazan Block A: Akebono & Shinjiro Otani [6] vs. Kintaro Kanemura & Steve Corino [3] 13:31
Furinkazan Block B: Hercules Senga & Tsutomu Osugi [2] vs. Hajime Ohara & Shiro Koshinaka [5] 11:58
Furinkazan Block A: Mr. X & Mr. XX [4] vs. Ikuto Hidaka & Munenori Sawa [5] 13:18
Furinkazan Block B: Masaaki Mochizuki & Masato Tanaka [6] vs. KAMIKAZE & Kohei Sato [5] 12:44
Rikiya Fudo & Shito Ueda vs. Akito & Shigehiro Irie 12:19
Ryoji Sai vs. Kenta Kakinuma 7:12
Furinkazan Final: Akebono & Shinjiro Otani vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & Masato Tanaka 17:34