Atsuki Aoyagi & Jun Akiyama vs. Dan Tamura & Yusuke Okada - 4/10

Old man Akiyama gets to play around with the kids tonight, and in a pairing I hadn't seen so far, Okada and Tamura are together. There wasn't much to the match, Akiyama did like 5 moves altogether on Okada, mostly outside the ring. Tamura and Aoyagi did most of the in-ring work and surprisingly, it was Aoyagi's turn to submit Tamura.



Gianni Valletta, Joe Doering, & Joel Redman vs. Hikaru Sato & Violent Giants - 5.5/10

Redman and Suwama started together and here I was hoping I'd get to see a different, more technical side of Suwama, but as soon as he couldn't hang, he just kicked Redman. Foreigners worked over Suwama for a bit, Ishikawa came in with the hot tag against Doering, which was cool. At the end, Doering pinned Sato with an awesome Crossbody. Ok match.



Champion Carnival 2019 Block A Match

Dylan James (4) vs. Yuma Aoyagi (4) - 7/10

Story of the match was that Yuma came in at 60mph, trying to run all over the place, trying to get quick attacks and roll ups to overcome Dylan, but if the monster got hold of him, he would get his ass kicked easily, and such was his faith when Dylan pinned him after a chokeslam. This was a short match, but the action was great and given the story, it didn't need to go long.



Post-match - James cut a backstage promo putting over Aoyagi. They're all so nice in AJPW.



Atsushi Maruyama, Jake Lee, & Koji Iwamoto vs. Black Menso-re, Kento Miyahara, & Takao Omori - 6.5/10

We unfortunately don't get this match in the tournament, but at least for now, we got the Top of the Class nerd vs the Clas Clown that everyone loves squaring off. Every time they were there together, it was awesome. The other stuff was mostly Menso-re being worked on by Iwamoto and Lee. Eventually, Maruyama asked for the tag and got killed by Miyahara with a V-Trigger, but not before taking out Black Menso-re for good measure.



This is a match that if you look closely at both Lee and Kento, you see the little things they do, both accidentally and in purpose, you don't just appreciate Miyahara a lot more, but also realize that Jake Lee is the perfect anti-thesis of Miyahara and should be groomed as such. They approach wrestling from completely different sides and thus complement each other, because one's style is what can break the other's.



Champion Carnival 2019 Block B Match

Sam Adonis (4) vs. Takashi Yoshida (4) - 6.5/10

When I finished my first review of the tournament, I was warned that this match would eventually come. I have to say, this was not that bad, I'd even say it was really good. It was straight up a wrestling match with Adonis being the heel and Yoshida being more or less, a babyface after Adonis disrespected him. I liked the finish with Adonis going for a chair, only to have the ref struggle with him to take it away, Adonis winning that war with the ref, but sling-shooting it straight to his face, giving Yoshida the opening to take him out with a lariat.



Champion Carnival 2019 Block A Match

Atsushi Aoki (0) vs. Zeus (6) - 6/10

What could had been a good chance to show that technique can truimph over power, but instead Zeus pretty much beat the shit out of Aoki with lariats until he couldn't kick out anymore. Initially, it seemed like Aoki would be able to wrestle his way into his first win, but Zeus cut him off quickly. Underwhelming match given the two involved, I was really looking forward to this one. Zeus reaches 8, while Aoki remains with zero points unfortunately.



Champion Carnival 2019 Block B Match

Naoya Nomura (6) vs. Yoshitatsu (4) - 9/10

Great match, back and forward action for the most part. Yoshitatsu went after Nomura's leg early on, but would later just drop it as they started to just go all out with everything they could pull off. Nomura showed a lot of fighting spirit, while Yoshitatsu's execution of it was a bit lacking, but I don't want to take anything away from Yoshitatsu who was great in this match, he kept up with Nomura spot-by-spot.



There was a great near fall with Yoshitatsu locking in the Koji Clutch and pining Nomura when it seemed Nomura was done. Nomura would make a nice short comeback and take the win Maximum. Easily the match of the night.



Post-match - Nomura cut the closing promo, great babyface fire.



OVERALL THOUGHTS

The show was somewhat weak when it comes to the tournament, the main event being the only one that I'd say you need to go check out.

