AJPW B-Banquet 4/18/2013

AJPW B-Banquet 4/18/2013

Someone found a live stream of AJPW TV so I'll review it. This is All Japan Pro Wrestling's TV show: B-Banquet.

Akebono and Joe Doering got into it during the opening ceremony and then KENSO and Jun Akiyama had a stare down.

Hiroshi Yamato vs Masayuki Kono

Masayuki Kono won with a diving knee from the top. The match was short but good. Yamato got his nose busted open early and bled alot. I really liked his slaps and he had a good spunky underdog performance here. Rating:***



Kotaro Suzuki, Atsushi Aoki and Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Minoru Tanaka, SUSHI and Koji Kanemoto

Suzuki pinned Minoru here to get the win for this team. The match wasn't bad but didn't have great heat and probably could have been better. Koji did a great counter into an ankle lock and I loved I think Kanemaru climbing up the rails and then hitting a legdrop. Rating:**3/4

Kaz Hayashi, Shuji Kondo and Joe Doering vs Akebono, Yasufumi Nakanoue and Ryota Hama

Joe Doring got the win here with a seated powerbomb. The match wasn't very interesting and pushed the SMOP vs Junior Stars and Joe Doering feuds. Kaz said something to Nakanoue after as Doering held him up by the head.

KENSO vs Jun Akiyama

The finish

Jun Akiyama won with a wrist-clutch exploder. The match was good but the selling was awful Akiyama worked KENSO's knee for a while early and then KENSO proceeded to jump over the top rope and off the apron, making all of that useless. The crowd liked it though and the finish was hot. Rating:***

Seiya Sanada vs Takao Omori

 

Seiya Sanada got the upset win with the Stretch Plum. This one never got going for me. The crowd didn't care and it wasn't that interesting.The crowd really didn't even care for the upset. The match was also too long.

KAI vs Masakatsu Funaki

Funaki got jumped during his entrance.

Funaki won with a wrist-clutch tombstone. This was all squash and went way too long. Funaki was good but gave his opponent very little and it had me begging for it to be over.

SUWAMA vs Go Shiozaki

Both men went to a 30 minute draw. This felt like a 60 minute draw. The first 20 minutes really dragged. Go Shiozaki is just not that good. Maybe I'll get heat for it, but it's true. His offense really sucks and drags down everything. His chops are mostly jokes and all Kobashi ripoffs. Suwama was fine but he's not a superworker. Put these two together, and you get an average to okay match. This would have been much better a shorter match. I liked the last 1/3 but it doesn't make up for the bad  first 2/3.

Overall thoughts: The show was good but not must see. There were 2-3 good matches here but like always with AJPW, you will get disappointing and long matches, and there were some of those here.