I was a teeny bit skeptical when this was announced as being the main event of this show and I had heard about how long it went. I love all six folks in the match and was going to be excited about seeing them get to lock-up regardless, but some of these Tenryu Project six-man tags near the top of the cards can definitely feel like the typical, monotonous hoss fights that go 25~ minutes for no reason as they meaninglessly trade plenty of lariats and suplexes.
I ended up absolutely loving this match, though. “Idealistic” is the word that keeps coming to mind again and again, whenever this consumes all of the space in my mind every few hours. These six folks all bring their distinct visions of what they feel wrestling could look like, and they stay completely true to it the entire way.
Pro wrestling is, at least to a degree, a performance. Not everything that’s expressed is “legitimate,” so to speak, but it can still be true (and even real?). The key to compelling an audience is convincing them that what they are seeing is the truth and you can make it the truth through commitment to the ideals you’re trying to get across. There’s 50 years (mind-blowing stat) of combined in-ring experience shared between these six wrestlers, and all of that time has been spent telling you who they are and why you should have any emotional investment into them. Now, it’s time for them to reward you for that and show why it all matters. As a fan of all of them, it was an extremely fun and celebratory experience to see every part of these wrestlers come together and express it all during the time we have with this match.
I referenced how other Tenryu Project trios matches can usually go, when put in the position this was in, and it’s interesting point of comparison to see how this match stood out against that by diversifying its own approach and philosophies from how the average six-man in the promotion (and how those can be a reflection of Tenryu’s own vision of what six-man tag wrestling should look like dating primarily back to WAR). This just isn’t a match that would be possible without having Mizuki Watase’s creative alterations to worn-out tropes, the skill/stiffness/technique/malice of Daichi Hashimoto, the chip on Ayame’s shoulder to be just as mean and strong as her teammates, up against a babyface trio that is so easy to feel sympathy for when you pair their excellent selling (especially physically from MIRAI) with the extended periods of brutality brought on by their opposition.
So many great, key choices made throughout this that I was so into, including, but not limited to: working over MIRAI and Najima for the match’s first act, MIRAI's exhausted selling throughout the 2nd half + that wild stretch against Watase, Hashimoto and Watase having that kinda arrogant “my opponent is beneath me” edge to them earlier on to try to bring something out of Najima (+ even Ayame to an extent was pretty aggressive towards him, albeit in a different way, which was fitting). I know that the finish might even be a bit eye-rolling for some but I thought it was cool how they played around with the idea of that customary “we all are going to suplex each other, lay down, and then the time will expire” finish by going around a 2nd time and then even having one of the suplexes suddenly end the match right when it feels like a time-limit draw is most predictable. I don't find it to necessarily be some completely great spot, but I can definitely appreciate the adjustments made to give the sequence new life and how that can reflect some of the creative engines pushing in the ring.
I understand that this rambling has mostly become about how much I loved this match and how I good of an expression of the ideals and different visions of the talent involved, and I know every match theoretically should be that way because most art any artist creates should serve to be an expression of what they think that art form could be, but it stands out so much more when it’s put in a position that is typically saved for more “traditional” (?) wrestling philosophies that even come directly from Tenryu himself, to an extent. This match can stand to show how a match like this can happen in Tenryu Project and be something truly unique (and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened with MIRAI and Ayame Sasamura added in the mix), and I love that about it. There’s just an infinite amount of passion on display throughout this half-hour, and that true passion could result in something special, like this. Structurally, this is an epic, and god knows how many epics in recent wrestling can come off as so forced and fake. But this isn’t either of those things. It’s a true epic, grander than the show and promotion that it took place on, but rather representative of enthusiasm for wrestling that all six people share, and have shared for their entire careers, despite this being the only meeting between them all.
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