Koji Iwamoto & Hokuto Omori vs Yusuke Okada & Dan Tamura - 5.5/10

Good young boy wrestling as always. Everyone paired up with everyone nicely, at the end Okada submitted Hokuto with his great application of the Boston Crab. Iwamoto and Okada once again got face to face at the end, hinting an imminent Jr title shot.



Atsushi Maruyama, Jun Akiyama, Naoya Nomura & Zeus vs. Black Menso-re, Dylan James, Gianni Valletta & Takao Omori - 5/10

Zeus and James paired up for a short nice test of strength. Omori and Nomura paired up and now I can't unsee Omori speed walking when hitting the ropes. Akiyama beat up Menso-re, who later did comedy with Maruyama, who got pinned by Valletta who only did two moves all match.



Champion Carnival 2019 Block B Match

Joe Doering (6) vs. Joel Redman (6) - 7/10

Good match, but I wish Redman had more offense. Doering dominated for the most part except during the start when he and Redman did a couple of chain wrestling and Redman had the technical advantage, but once Doering got control thanks to his size, he never let go and ended up winning with a Crossbody.



Champion Carnival 2019 Block B Match

Jake Lee (6) vs. Sam Adonis (4) - 7.5/10

Good back and forward match, Adonis kept his sexy guy shenanigans off the match and put his working boots on. Lee was starting to show so fire towards the end. Lee won with the Giant Killing. I knew that Lee needed to rank up two more points to contend as block winner, so I never really saw Adonis stealing the win here, making the wrestling enjoyable, but no drama to it.



After the match, Adonis raised Jake Lee's hand.



Champion Carnival 2019 Block A Match

Atsushi Aoki (4) vs. Yuji Okabayashi (7) - 7/10

Another predictable match, but good nonetheless. Okayabashi tossed and tortured Aoki around, while the smaller Aoki used his speed and technical proficiency to get some offense in and try to steal the win. Yuji won with a Torture Rack.



Violent Giants (Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama) vs. Yoshitatsu & Yuma Aoyagi - 8.5/10

Finally a Suwama match that I enjoyed! This was great, especially the last minutes when I thought Yoshitatsu and Yuma were getting themselves a shot at the tag titles. Speed vs power match with Violent Giants cutting the ring in half on Yuma and working over him. When Yoshitatsu got the hot tag, he botched a spot and in kinda just ended up being Yuma doing his own babyface in peril and hot tag.



There was a great near fall when Yoshitatsu locked in his Fantasy lock and almost submitted Suwama, but he made a comeback and submitted Yoshitatsu instead.



Champion Carnival 2019 Block A Match

Kento Miyahara (6) vs. Ryouji Sai (7) - 9/10

Man, Sai is soo good, just has to find the right partners and not everyone in the CC was that for him, but Miyahara was and this match was great. Sai worked over Kento's arm for a long while until Kento's explosiveness came out and finally got some offense in to turn the match around. Kento went to focus on Sai's head as he chased the Shutdown German. In addition, there was the little thing that both Kento and Sai have the running knee as part of their arsenal, but Sai would hit the shoulder while Kento the head.



The final minutes of the match got a bit slow as Kento started just shooting all his moves with Sai kicking out until he managed to finally lock in the Shutdown German Bridge and pin Sai for the win and stay alive in the tournament.



Post-match - Kento cut a babyface promo and closed the show.



OVERALL THOUGHTS

All matches tonight were set up to make sure that the winners became contenders to the Block finals, so they all had predictable winners, so as I mentioned in the Jake Lee match, I enjoyed the wrestling, but there was barely any drama left.



Next show is Block A finals. Miyahara can only win if both James and Zeus lose and he defeats Okabayashi. Zeus can win if he defeats Ishikawa and both James and Okabayashi lose, since he has a win over Kento. Dylan James can win straight if he wins and Okabayashi loses, if Okabayashi wins, he ties with him. It's up for Aoki to play spoiler on Dylan James.