GOTNW
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The Strong BJ division is way better now that they have guys like Hideki Suzuki and Shuji Ishikawa to complement Chopmasters, as well as a group of very promising young guys.
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Their job is to get heel heat, not be "funny" and "win-wink". They're terrible heels. Unlike The Miz And for the last few years it seems Jericho has been so bad people want him to go away when he's the face and want to cheer him when he's the heel.
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I mean that is a very real side effect of a consumerist society but when I think more about it I don't buy it one bit. People talk about "older" wrestling all the time. Wrestling that is more than a few months old always gets mentioned in people's MOTY lists. Wrestling older more than a few years gets mentioned in lists of their favourite matches. I'm not even sure how you go about doing something like that. Here's an example-I absolutely love this match. I wrote a review for it praising it. Put it on my MOTY list. Pimped it on twitter. Sometimes mention it when I watching the Suzuki-Nakanoue stuff that came after it. I'm mentioning it here once again because I do think it is absolutely something almost everyone (at least people not grossed out by brutal PRIDE fights) would love. I mean. What more is there to do? If someone doesn't want to watch Big Japan because they watched a bunch of boring Sekimoto matches five years ago, that's their call. I think they're missing out but I can't force anyone to watch something. Generally speaking I think these days everyone has their bubble that they're not particularly interested looking outside of due to the sheer amount of wrestling out there. And if you're not around those bubbles it might some seem like nothing's remembered.
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As much as I love Rush and LA PARK I don't see them keeping up with the insane shit Hideki Suzuki and Nakanoue do to win the prestigious price of the coveted "best wrestling feud of 2016" in the coveted GOTNW awards™. Man. Why can't this be the norm in modern japanese wrestling? Guys start beating the shit out of each other as soon as they enter the ring and continue hating on each other and throwing shoot headbutts even after the match ends. So much happens here-Daichi puts on his best performance yet, he does this insane ninja kicks early on while they're brawling outside that's just insane, up there with this: in terms of powerful kicking images. And he keeps it up during the match too-unloading with kicking combinations and even doing the Murakami flurry in the corner! That's a sure fire way to get me to praise you. I also really like Nakanoue and Uto as the de facto heel team. Hideki Suzuki is the unquestionable star of the match though. He manages to break Uto's nose, stretches everyone into oblivion and brings back the HEAD STOMPING. And Uto and Nakanoue keep up with him, make Suzuki, as dangerous as he is already, fight for everything, grabbing his limbs when he strikes at them, pushing him off etc. I brough up the escalation of violence in my last review-and Suzuki and Nakanoue absolutely *get it*. It's like you're watching 1993 WAR, you get the lock up, some teases of strikes, some slaps are thrown while fighitng for it but just enough to keep you on the edge of your toes but not enough to really turn into a full on brawl and when they go through with just smacking each to hell the crowd completely loses it. ****1/4 -
WAR tag matches fucking rule and I'm glad to see the Suzuki-Nakanoue feud bring them back, this wasn't as good as the 5/30 tag but few things in life are as good as PRIDE stomps to the head and that match had those. This one wasn't that crazy, but it was still the kind of japanese wrestling I fell in love with and continue to love, no bullshit "uwaaaa who has better weak looking forearm strikes between the two of us" everything here is very rough, you have guys pushing each other into corners, taking each other down, knocking each other off the apron, it's neat and the escalation of the violence is done extremely well too. Suzuki's takedowns are a thing of beauty in particular, he makes an arm winger takedown look like art. I really liked everyone's performances in this one, Nomura continues to wrestle like the shooty kicker I'd want him to, desperately attempting leglocks and armbars, Nakanoue matches Suzuki in violence and really lays his stuff in as does Uto who brough an interesting flair to this match, everything he does is pro style but he does some really creative moves that aren't creative for creativeness sake, pretty much everything he invents includes brutally cranking his opponent's neck and that is the type of stuff I love to see. ****
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SHOOT STYLE LIVES! Kinda sort of. This was pretty shooty-pretty much a Battlarts/Futen match with pinfalls, and it was more HC than a lot of those. Loved Suzuki in control, he'd do these awesome details like hook Nomura's leg to remain in control and do the greatest small package in history (not really from the standpoint of milking it out from drama but the sheer proficiency in its execution), if there was ever a small package I would show to someone to convince them you could do it in a real fight it was here. There's also awesome stuff like Nomura attempting the Sakuraba stomps on Suzuki only for Suzuki to catch his leg, Suzuki Kneebarring Nomura and Nomura tring to slap his way out of it, the match in general is very fluid and they do a greatjob of transitioning form one point to another naturally so you have Nomura pin Suzuki>Suzuki kicks out>Nomura immediately grabs the arm and goes for an Armbar and similar sequences that achieve that effect. ***1/4 Hideki Suzuki always works how I'd want Minoru Suzuki to work all the time and if his run lasts long enough I see him becoming an all timer for me.
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I hope I never see another match of his again. After watching one of the Ospreay matches I stopped watching wrestling for like a month. And he had that absolute abomination of a match against Sabre at BOLA as well. That thing would just not end. He would probably be my least favourite wrestler in the world if I cared enough about watching "pimped" stuff to subject myself to hate watching but I do not.
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Coming into this I was hoping YOSHI-HASHI would get zero offence in. Of course there's no way that would happen in a New Japan match in 2016 but it should've. Shibata was killer on offence, some weakish stomps aside, his forearms, uppercuts and kicks were absolutely brutal. YOSHI-HASHI's offence on the other hand was so ridiculous I had trouble taking it seriously, he's a guy I liked as a hot tag but I had my doubts about how he would translate to being a singles worker, and if I see more performances like this it would just point to the Naito match being a complete carry-job. **3/4
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Yano can build a neat match around rope breaks and shaking hands. I don't know what more you could ask from a wrestler. I don't remember seeing the crowd chant along his antics before, that really added to the experience. "Yano goes to grab a bald wrestler's hair" remains hilarious even years after he did it to Karl Anderson the first time. ***
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This match was almost like a mini-game for Honma-he'd try a move, get overwhelmed by Elgin's power, persevere and eventually succeed, then go for another move and get cut off by Elgin's power again. Every time Honma would execute a move he would earn a trophy or an accomplishment. In the end, because he was more concerned with earning the platinum trophy than beating the game, he lost. Best moments in the match came from Honma firing himself up and his theatrical selling in the finish. The turnbuckle Powerbomb no-sell spot worked because Elgin's Powerbomb actually looks good and dangerous and has credibility unlike Rollins'. Honma managing to take Elgin down with shoulder locks is the kind of spot that doesn't really make sense, but it's pro wrestling and a G1 house show main event so whatever. Finishing stretch became overreliant on nearfalls. Match would have been better and more compact if they'd done less of them and made the good ones matter more. ***-***1/4
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Disappointing in the context of their feud, if you've watched any of their other matches you've seen them do this match better. It is a skill to have great matches with the same opponent over and over again, it's not something Nagata possesses and I'm having my doubts about Shibata currently. It was fine but cliched-the "fight outside until 19 when we both get in the ring at the same time", the no sell suplex sequence, Shibata countering Nagata's middle kick with a quick slap........I've seen them before and I've seen them done better. Highlight of the match was Shibata sneakily low kicking Nagata after daring him to kick him in the puro macho bullshit 2k10 spot™. Some nice shots were thrown but the match was nothing I'll remember by next week. **3/4
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Very interesting match. Essentially it's Matt D's write up of the Buddy Rose-Martel match I'm going to watch like three years from now. Naito has to get YOSHI-HASHI over and help legitimize him after he spent years as a jobber. There isn't much in the opening portion worth discussing-but there was a phenomenal moment during YOSHI-HASHI's early shine where it looked like Naito was going to cut him off because he positioned himself like he was going for a Hiptoss, which is a lead in to his Sliding Dropkick. Just *positioning* himself like that made YOSHI-HASHI executing a move during his run mean that much more. There was *armwork*, in terms of how much the limbwork meant, they didn't really go all in on it but it did provide at least some interesting moments and served a purpose in getting sympathetic heat on YOSHI-HASHI. The only modern New Japan-ism I dislike I remember seeing in the finishing stretch was YOSHI-HASHI's comeback Lariat, and that's because you can see it coming and Naito wasn't really *going* for anything. It's not that it even bothered me much (didn't really affect my enjoyment of the match one way or the other)-but it is worth getting that type of thing out there and thinking about predictability vs. unpredictability. I do accept the predictability of Makabe's comeback. I know what's coming next and it doesn't matter. But sometimes the same thing is an issue. Hopefully watching more of the stuff where these types of tropes are heavily featured will help me explain it better. As far as the stretch goes-it was special. It was special because instead of just doing *stuff* they truly struggled over it. And sometimes it wasn't even about the struggle-but just that Naito smacked YOSHI-HASHI in the face ten times before doing a Frankensteiner instead of just doing the move on its own put over YOSHI-HASHI as a threat. And where the armwork helped is that you could do a sequence where YOSHI-HASHI would fight out of Naito's move and then have Naito attack his shoulder, quickly cut him off and continue his control segment. Another thing that made the match special was that Naito, who usually goofs around and sticks his tongue out even in the dreaded New Japan serious moments like forearm exchanging and whatnot, sold YOSHI-HASHI's main submission closer to how he sold when he was a face than now when he is a heel. It wasn't to get heat on himself here put to put over YOSHI-HASHI's hold as a serious threat. The elbow exchange they did here was very good-no weird pauses, worked with urgency and with them slapping the taste out of each other's mouth incorporated into it. There was a botch that the match would've been better off without, but sometimes you just can't help those things, a man slips from you when you're trying to slam him, what can you do? And that's not something I'm going to hold against this type of match when they did so many things right. ***1/4
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Oh man I've missed Yano so much. He is now a triple crown champion-he has a new shirt, has produced a DVD and has the GHC tag team belt and they're all worth about the same. EVIL's current gimmick is something inbetween Akitoshi Saito and MABACH Taniguchi 2012, kinda wish he DQed himself in every match by chairshotting his opponent to death (he already does that but it's outside the ring and in New Japan you'd have to knife someone there to get DQed). This was a blast, and Yano's biggest virtue might be that he manages to pull of convincing nearfalls in contemporary New Japan. A blast. ***
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Back in 2012 Kenny Omega was an invading junior champion in All Japan. His shtick consisted of shitting on Mutoh and doing about 15 Dragon Suplexes per match, and not I am not throwing that number around as a hyperbole. That's about as many as he'd do. In the first minute of this match they exchanged about five control segments and did a Dragon Suplex on the floor. And-you know what-I'd rather they start that way than do the usual New Japan BS. Match wasn't much early on-there was some semblance of neckwork but it was more about Nakajima's (solid) selling than Omega doing anything interesting-his neck attacks consisted of weak kesagiri chops and kicks. You'd think if there's a bodypart you can easily work over in engaging fashion it's the neck, that's what the majority of wrestling moves target. Then we moved onto MOVES, and, well, I enjoy Dragon Suplex spamming and Nakajima has pretty kicks, so this was a pretty easy watch, but I don't reward mediocrity and creatively that's what this match was. Also Omega kicking Nakajima's knee/shin/whatever to set up his jumping bulldog looked silly. **3/4
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The idea that fans hate older wrestling now is completely inaccurate, as of course is the idea anything's really changed in how fandom works. Put this into perspective Loss-Ric Flair's classics on those DVDs may not have been as old as Attitude Era matches are now, let alone the Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels stuff that's also part of the cannon. The 80s stuff just isn't the relevant older wrestling people look back to and compare current things to just like 60s/70s stuff wasn't relevant when people were talking about how much the Attitude Era sucks and how it was better when Hogan ruled. If anything older wrestling is now remembered more than ever due to how easily footage is available to find and share.
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Super fun, Gallagher's WOS escapes were really cool, he totally lived up to the hype. Aicher also did a good job keeping up with him on the mat (especially liked how he'd position himself during armlocks) and threw some good looking strikes. I wonder if "huge size difference" is WWE speak for "only one guy is on roids here". ***
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This was shit. Sloppy, awkward and slow which is precisely what you don't want out of a junior workrate match. Also not a fan of the bullshit they'd do before the moves, didn't add any flair to them just made them look even dumber. I have a feeling I won't be a big fan of this Noam Dar guy with all the thigh slapping he does on his sub-Marufuji kicks. Sihra did a cool Back Elbow at least. Finish is a bad looking leglock that got zero reaction. *1/2
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Fun throwaway Nitro-type match, I enjoyed Lee's kung fu shtick, their movement was fluid and smooth and their spots athletically impressive, I like these kinds of matches way better when they have selling and don't drag forever. **3/4
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I enjoy Bryan as the enthusiastic commentator that marks out to everything, not really sure if he's better than Liger and Millano Collection AT in that role. This is a pretty good showcase for how little it takes for a match to be called an all time classic these days, a couple of hot nearfalls that the crowd bites on and it's ****465/887 match of the decade candidate everywhere. The sequence where Ibushi botched the Frankensteiner was pretty ugly but outside of that this was a strong, well paced junior match. The early matwork wasn't anything special or even remotely interesting but helped set the pace and the selling inbetween the moves was crucial to it as well. Loved how insane the bumping here was, the Missed Moonsault dive spot was perfect as a transitional spot since Ibushi almost always hits it and the match didn't overstay its welcome. ***1/2
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Very fun junior workrate match. There were two instances where they were setting up the next spot and it looked bad (them turning around in the corner so Metalik could strike Tajiri and Metalik not falling to the floor to set up the Dragon Screw) and I wasn't a fan of them faux-dramatically using Tajiri's high kicks as highspots just to have Dorada come back from peril in the next move. Still there was some fun stuff, Dorada is an elite high flier and Tajiri is the kind of base you want to see him against, Tajiri's offence was on point, I'm sure everyone's pointed out his strikes and kicks still look good but I was impressed by the impact of his knee drop and neckbreaker as well, and the Tarantula variation he busted out was badass. ***
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Gordeau is a martial arts guy most famous for jobbing to Maeda in a pretty big match. That was in, like , 1988. This match is just the best, a whirlwind of random yet awesome stuff. Basically half of the match are nearfalls (which is actually really awesome and only possible because of how short the match is) and it has the classic 80s screwy "keep my heat" finish you'd expect out of an old carny. Gordeau resorts to biting to survive, which the announcer claim was some kind of callback spot to his Vale Tudo days (wikipedia says this is indeed true). Also there's a spot where Inoue goes to catch his breath after a rope break and Gordeau goes after him and slaps him on the back of the head which, much like this match general, ended up being both hilarious and awesome. ***
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Enson Inoue is someone you never hear anyone talk about that I really like, this was a pretty great performance from him, great punches and just super smooth matwork. The armbar escapes here were phenomenal, a lot of times you can sense where the workers are going and so can the crowd, here they looked like something from a real fight, just superb stuff. This managed to be very compelling despite Inoeu being so dominant which also made Hara's brief comeback more special. Love the way Inoue used the headscissors early on to control Hara, kind of rolling with him as he tried to escape or improve his position. ***1/4
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This was a spotfest, in the sense that there wasn't really a theme established during the match and it was more about the flashiness of the work. And it was a very good one. Hara is the least noteworthy guy here but even he is good, I always have time for a midcarder with nice kicks even if he doesn't offer much more. I loved the way Sawa used ring positioning in his striking exchanges vs Hara to express both dominance and peril and his usage of pro style moves was amusing. Ishikawa really is the master of making simple holds look deadly-it's not just that he knows how to properly apply them, he really wrenches on them and contemplantes them with great facial expressions and body language. I think they could've gotten more out of what they did here by attaching clearer roles to everyone involved but as an exhibition of violence and flashy matwork this was pretty neat. Also popped big for Usuda's Shining Wizard counter and Sawa cutting Usuda off near seconds before the finish. ***1/4-***1/2
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Ito looked somewhat unpolished here, he has nice kicks and I liked his palm strike flurries but he doesn't seem to have much clue how to work and time his stuff. Usuda carried him through the mat exchanges and executed some really cool holds, love his Wakigatame/bodyscissors. Finishing stretch was neat as they finally started going after each other with brutal stand up exchanges but the match didn't really seem to click before that as they'd just awkwardly reset after every sequence, though a great TKO finish will make me quickly forget the bout's shortcomings. ***-***1/4
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Just a teaser of what these two can do but what an awesome teaser it was. Usuda has some of the prettiest kicks in all of wrestling and of course Ikeda won't shy away from taking them. My favourite moments here were Ikeda desperately kicking his way out of a leglock and dramatically punching Usuda out. I don't know how much you enjoy violence for its own sake but I love it, and these two are strong enough sellers to not ruin the match with machismo bullshit. There was a great moment where Usuda leaned on the ropes and Ikeda just Lariated him with full force and instead of backflipping outside of the ring Usuda kinda just weirdly bounced off and it looked a lot more realistic and brutal than the spot usually does when it's sold conventionally. ***1/4