[2012-09-23-NJPW-Desturction] Laughter7 (Kazushi Sakuraba & Katsuyori Shibata) vs Hiromu Takahashi & Wataru Inoue

[ShittyLittleBoots]

Shibata's first match in NJPW since 2006. And it's amazing. It goes for about 3 minutes, but it's amazing. Sakuraba & especially Shibata get super heat from the crowd as they beat the shit out of young lion Hiromu. Their offense is BRUTAL. Hiromu also gets little offense in, and all of that RULES. He shows great fire & his strikes to Shibata at the beginning were fantastic. Fantastic stuff all around - awesome crowd heat, amazing work on the offense by Laughter7, great fire, selling & brief offense by Hiromu, and Inoue plays his role well too. He didn't do much, but he played his part. ****

[BigVanCrush]

All of the early Laughter7 stuff ruled. This match, the KOPW match and the Power Struggle match established them as killers. I honestly thought I was the only person who liked this match this much. This was a really good re-introduction for Shibata, a really good debut for Sakuraba (I know he worked there in 1995 but come on, 1995 Saku isn't the legend he became a few years later) and the meat thrown in front of them served their purpose well. It's kind of sad to go back and watch this knowing what comes later and how badly New Japan bungled the whole thing, but for the first few months this was awesome shit. ****

 

Also, they had a match with Nakamura and Ishii at the WTL finals in 2012 that was really good too but you get the feeling that Nakamura didn't wanna share the ring with Shibata for any longer than he had to.

[ShittyLittleBoots]

All of the early Laughter7 stuff ruled. This match, the KOPW match and the Power Struggle match established them as killers. I honestly thought I was the only person who liked this match this much. This was a really good re-introduction for Shibata, a really good debut for Sakuraba (I know he worked there in 1995 but come on, 1995 Saku isn't the legend he became a few years later) and the meat thrown in front of them served their purpose well. It's kind of sad to go back and watch this knowing what comes later and how badly New Japan bungled the whole thing, but for the first few months this was awesome shit. ****

 

Also, they had a match with Nakamura and Ishii at the WTL finals in 2012 that was really good too but you get the feeling that Nakamura didn't wanna share the ring with Shibata for any longer than he had to.

I just actually watched that match vs. Nakamura & Ishii, and loved every second of it. But yeah, I totally get what you mean with that - Naka & Shibata were the only pairing that weren't really in the ring much together.