Takeo Otsuka

And we move on to the main event of this first show.

It is a Kai and Tai Deluxe versus Seki Gun match, and it's kind of the, with the exception of Shiryu, no, I would say because of like this, you kind of, this is like the top pairings that you would have on both sides because you have Togo, Teho, and Shiryu, the classic Kai and Tai Deluxe trio versus the great Sasuke, Super Dolphin, and Grand Hanmada in the main event in a wild match.

1997 started off with a bang.

This is absolutely phenomenal.

Yeah, and I feel like that you get to see aspects of the feud that you don't necessarily have gotten to see in 1996.

Like, they basically immediately start doing a wild brawl.

And the way that Tejo and Hamada start brawling at ringside and then they cut to... uh delphin and togo and then suddenly you hear a whole bunch of screaming and suddenly spotlight shows sasuke dangling over the balcony and shiryu trying to throw him over and it's a packed audience and it's it's different it is a different kind of match like they are going a lot more towards a physical uh brawl style that you just Even with the way that Kai and Tai Deluxe works, and we've seen some big brawls from them, this one, they led off with the brawl, and then from there, it never took the foot off the gas.

This is, I think, probably the closest we've seen to a Dragon System multi-man match so far.

I did not track down this full show, nor did I track down specifically the Ultimo Dragon versus Gran Nawa match, which was said to be just okay.

The thing of note here is the 10-man Michinoku Pro tag team match that is Dick Togo, Men's Teioh, Shiryu, Shoichi Funaki, and Takami Chinoku versus Hamada, Yakushiji, Hoshikawa, Delfin, and Sasuke.

This is a really interesting match.

It reminds me a little bit of when M2K would go to All Japan and the immediate aftermath of the Masawa split when they just needed guys to fill those cards.

So Togo gets, uh, posted really kind of bad in, like, the first few moments, and Shiryu just goes like, "Whoa, shit," when he, when he sees this.

And the way that he reacts to that, I thought that that was kind of wild with it.

Uh, the, the, the, the fact that, like, Men's Teioh is the one that's, like, throwing chairs.

L- like I-- In previous viewings, I never picked up on who was the person who threw the chair at Togo and Sasuke on the corner.