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Former tag team partners and long-term rivals, Katsuhiko Nakajima and Masa Kitamiya clashed for the GHC Heavyweight Championship. The two have faced each other numerous times throughout their careers with Nakajima coming out on top the majority of the time, however Kitamiya had been victorious in their most recent clash in the Cage War last year.
Read on for a statistical rundown of all the action in-ring between Nakajima and Kitamiya:
- The 120 strikes thrown were, surprisingly, completely evenly distributed.
- Kitamiya more than doubled Nakajima's grapple total, hitting the Saito once.
- Kitamiya also more than doubled Nakajima in terms of submission; locking in the Prison Lock once for 75 seconds.
- Nakajima's victory came due to superior striking that led directly to his victory in setting up the Vertical Spike.
- Reversal numbers highlight how on the defensive Nakajima had to be.
- The Flow of Offence illustration highlights the extent to which Nakajima had to pick his spots.
- Kitamiya can be disappointed he didn't convert a cumulative 9 minutes where he completely shut out Nakajima into a victory.
- Nakajima only scored the advantage in 12 of the 28 minutes, with Kitamiya scoring the advantage 15 times.
- In a relatively low-scoring match, in terms of offence value, Kitamiya scored 10 or more 9 times, dwarfing Nakajima's 3 times.
- This match worked to a peak in the 16th and 17th minutes right in the middle of the contest.
- This match seems to be loosely structured in 5 peaks, with it ending halfway through the 5th.
- Interestingly, the lowest point in this match sparked the flurry of the finish.
- This match follows a taking of turns building of offence with Kitamiya 'going first'. Nakajima picks up less offence as the match ended as he started to build momentum.
- Nakajima's peak in offence leads to the highest peak in the match's overall offence as Kitamiya achieved far more offence than Nakajima managed when Kitamiya was in control.
- Using a Per Hour Rate we can compare this match to matches of differing length.
- Interestingly, Adam Page matched Nakajima and Kitamiya's strike rate exactly! Okada is also pretty similar.
- The biggest difference between this defence and Nakajima's previous defence was the use of submission.
- NOAH's fighting spirit style means that less strings of reversals are used with strike exchanges taking the place, to match the feeling of struggle of the advantage.
- All the Puro matches have a clear peak in the flow of offence.
- This match, Nakajima/Kitamiya, fought the match with lower offensive tallies. No minute saw more than a value of 25.
- The Tide Changes tally highlights the lack of back and forth build up due to a lack of reversals. Shiozaki/Nakajima had slightly more reversals but also more trading of strikes.
- Kitamiya/Nakajima did achieve the highest offence per hour of wrestling, rate.
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