Joseph and Colette Discuss Kensuke Sasaki vs. Yugi Nagata

Is the Tokyo Dome the Japanese venue with the most epic sweep? Is blood enough to keep a match thrilling? Should Sasaki have humbled himself before the lion mark?

NJPW

Joseph and I had similar complaints about this week’s match: unless you’re really, really sold on it (I see you, TAPE), that last bit can be a bit of a yawn. Not to diminish what came before that moment, but having covered it thoroughly in both of our pieces, we split off in a bunch of different directions this week: camera work, attendance numbers, how much time Nagata and Sasaki could have shaved off the submission (or added effort to it) to juice things up, and so on.

Housekeeping: The next edition of BIG EGG is our 50th! After that, Joseph and I will embark upon the BIG EGG MASTERLIST project, where we determine the exact order in which every match we’ve written about for BIG EGG is better than Triple H vs. The Undertaker. We’ll be doing that live on Joseph’s Twitch stream. Also, as a reminder, once we get to 100 paid subscribers, we’ll add a monthly Q&A feature for that tier, and I’ll give away two rare wrestling programs. We’re currently at 69, which is nice, but the program for the 1995 King of the Deathmatch tournament is even nicer. Upgrade your subscription at the button below, or meet me at the paywall.

Next Up: It's the dawn of a new decade for New Japan Pro Wrestling in the Tokyo Dome! To kick it off, a rematch of a previous Dome main event as Shinsuke Nakamura defends the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Yoshihiro Takayama!

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Colette Arrand
Joseph, the way my excitement over this match gave way to frustration over its finish felt very similar to yours. Very DUDES ROCK until dudes were just kinda laying there waiting for Red Shoes to go through his whole Earl Hebner routine. It’s such a fucking muddy conclusion, too. I haven’t seen Kurt vs. Shawn because I love myself, but I do feel like we’re on the other end of the spectrum from, say, the finish of Hart/Austin from WrestleMania, where the blood is there and the timing is perfect, and everything thus hums in perfect alignment with the soul. Why couldn’t they have cut this by like … thirty seconds?

Kensuke Sasaki vs. Yuji Nagata Is Bloody Perfection, Until It Isn't

Joseph Montecillo
The length of the hold is part of the problem, absolutely. But it only really suffers so much because these two put absolutely nothing into it. In that sense has the opposite problem of Kurt/Shawn because that suffers from Shawn giving it too much. A million different ways for this to have gone. If Kensuke really was having such financial trouble, dude should have just eaten the L properly.

The Bad Blood of Yuji Nagata vs. Kensuke Sasaki

Colette Arrand
Without doing a lick of research I have to believe that the intent here was to give Nagata the win for sticking with NJPW while giving Sasaki a base to rebuild his reputation from. I kind of wonder how much this match plays into Nagata's later heel turn, but not as much as I am fascinated by the idea of Kensuke trying to rebuild his mystique while wrestling Leatherface and the Florida Brothers.

Joseph Montecillo
The latter is often considered some of his best work. One of those big Toryumon tags often considered one of the best of the Dragongate-style matches ever.