Aw yeah, thanks for posting! I knew the result of the Shishi match but hadn't seen it yet.

There were some amazing matches in the recap. Maybe some of the longest matches of the tournament. Some real battles.

The Aonishiki-Takayasu match was pretty dramatic too. I'm a fan of both of them, and on one hand I was hoping for Aonishiki to figure out a way to counter all the counters that people were developing for him, and on the other hand Takayasu was in the lead earlier in the tourney and I was hoping he'd go on a winning streak. This video shows a good camera angle I hadn't seen before, of what Takayasu was doing with his right arm to Aonishiki's left hand - looks like he was trying to pin it, but it wasn't working. That's why he backed off and tried the tsuppari strikes without success. Too bad for Takayasu, he looked kinda sad walking away from the ring, I hadn't seen that before...

I was just glad Aonishki got the point. I had hoped they would do better earlier in the tournament and that losing streak, I was worried it would weigh on them.

Well if he's REALLY going to be a long-term star, he's gonna have to deal with moments like these, where people come up with strategies that are effective against him, and where he has to figure out how to handle it. I think he's got smarts and he's got depth so I'm guessing he's gonna be OK, but it's not a given. And then there's always the issue of injury, let's hope that doesn't get too bad...