Kenta Kobayashi/Naomichi Marufuji vs. Richard Slinger/Scorpio

MaruKENTA arrives!

Our raft arrives with the fated duo as a tag team. Once opponents, now they must work to overcome their differences and work together. Marufuji and KENTA are up against Richard Slinger and Scorpio on October 7th. First things first, it’s nice to get a break from the onslaught of singles matches. That routine had become so perfected that there really was not much interesting to see. But now a tag match is just what we need to spice things up.

We start off with a funny dynamic between the two teams when they go to shake hands and Scorpio busts out some dance moves to confuse and frighten his enemies. After that, Marufuji lets KENTA start the match against Scorpio! How nice. KENTA does what he does best and gets beat up a bit while still not looking like a total chump before tagging in Marufuji. And I’m gonna be upfront, this Richard Slinger guy is actually quite good. His movements look really fluid as they transition from move to move.

KENTA and Scorpio come back in and we that athleticism on display once more. KENTA runs up Scorpio’s chest and does a flip - which is cool - but Scorpio immediately lariats his head off for doing so which was also cool. There’s something endearing about a rookie who is overly confident paying the price that always creates a fun dynamic in matches. You also definitely get to see Marufuji work his really fast and flashy style, bouncing around the ring a lot, with Richard and Scorpio a lot more than his singles match with KENTA.

There’s a lot of innovative and creative offense introduced by Slinger and Scorpio - just like random stuff I’ve never seen before. That’s always fun. The biggest flaw with this match is that it is overly long. Even with the other guys to keep things feeling fresh, I still don’t think this match needed to be close to 20 minutes. Marufuji and KENTA have been communicating quite well too surprisingly - you’d think there’d be some angst from their previous match. But I guess it was all part of the process and nothing personal… yet.

I know I keep saying this, but KENTA is super athletic. He’ll just hop around really high and hit Frankensteins like it’s nothing and it’s kinda crazy. He’s definitely well-rounded with his submission, “high-flying” stuff, and strikes.

It’s funny. A lot like their first match against each other, their first match as a tag team is quite ordinary. The matches aren’t bad. But they aren’t exactly special either which makes sense considering that KENTA is still coming into his own. And all the payoff is far away. But yeah, this match sees KENTA gets bullied a lot and try really hard not to lose (which sums up every match ever but you know what I mean). The only thing this match brings to the table is being a tag match against two foreigners who can go quite well. The match ends with KENTA getting German suplexed with a bridged pin. Another battle, another loss for our warrior.

Where shall our raft land next?