2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Togo/Speedball v. DAMNATION
28. Dick Togo/Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Daisuke Sasaki/Tetsuya Endo DDT 8/28
PAS: Nifty juniors tag with Dick Togo looking fully back and fully awesome. Whole match worked at double speed, this is one of the biggest crowds Speedball has ever worked (Sumo Hall so probably 10,000+) and he is going bonkers. He has a nutso kung fu sequence with Sasaki, hits all of his crazy big spots and even gets busted open. Togo looked spectacular, he hits a crazy tope con hilo, has an awesome punch exchange with Endo and does some really great counter submission wrestling rolling around for a crossface. For a spotfest tag this is about as good as it gets. I would love to see the Togo/Speedball tag team some more, they just gel.
ER: I thought this was a little scattered, and I thought Bailey was off a bit from all the other times I've seen him, thought we got some too long move set ups, but what made this for me was just nearing 50 Dick Togo still being an incredible wrestling force. But there's more meat to the match than "great wrestler still improbably great after long layoff", we get a bunch of fun spots and a go go pace. I didn't get a big feel of DAMNATION during this, couldn't tell if they were heel or face, but when they weren't brushing hair out of their eyes they were great receivers of Togo/Speedball offense. The big flying moments were wild (Togo hits one of the topes of the year, and Bailey follows it up with a shooting star to the floor) and we get some fun strike exchanges that took me back to Low Ki/Amazing Red. But really this is all about Togo and the Togo is great. Everything he does looks fresh and has great energy, those crossfaces and STFs look brutal, his dropkicks are among the best in wrestling, and he really just looked like a guy who hasn't missed a beat while being away. His presence is still one of my favorite things in wrestling. Though I hope he bought Speedball something nice after accidentally braining him with a chair while breaking up a pin. It's gotta be a bummer to get busted open by friendly fire.
2016 MOTY MASTER LIST
COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO
Labels: 2016 MOTY, Daisuke Sasaki, DDT, Dick Togo, Mike Bailey, Tetsuya Endo
posted by Phil @ 11:52 AM
2 Comments:
There was a photo together of them after Bailey got stitched up, and neither came out for the end of show-angle with DAMNATION (Endo, Sasaki, Shuji Ishikawa, & Masato Shibata who was the tubby dude in the black & purple facepaint) doing the "rule the roost" thing with the rest of the DDT roster. So Togo was being a total dad for Speedball which rules, of course.
The attendance was only 5,394 fans for this show which is still a good number for a puro show these days, but far from 10,000+
Post a Comment
<< Home