[2004-09-10-NOAH-Navigation Over The Date Line] Kenta Kobashi vs Akira Taue

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Navigation Over The Date Line is a close second to Navigation With Breeze as a hilarious wrestling tour/show name.

GHC Heavyweight Champion Kenta Kobashi vs Akira Taue - NOAH 09/10/04

"TAUE! TAUE! TAUE! TAUE!" Besides the one asshole twerp that screams "Kobashi" every 5 fuckin seconds (seriously it could kill your enjoyment of this match), this crowd is 100% behind Taue to lift the title off Kobashi. After 18 months, it is just the nature of the beast that the crowds start to get restless with Kobashi as a champion. Yes, they still had this match with a fellow Four Corner of Heaven, an invader match with Minoru Suzuki and the final title loss to rookie bust, Takeshi Rikio. However, after the Akiyama match there is a definite feel that Kobashi reign has climax. When you get that sense of climax, audiences tend to want to rush to the final resolution. Remembering back to high school English, they broke a story into 5 fundamental parts and the shortest one usually was the falling action (between climax and resolution). There is a reason it is short people just had their minds blown by the climax and now want the satisfaction of the resolution. Well, Kobashi's reign had a long falling action. It provided us this excellent match against Taue and a very good match against Minoru Suzuki, but I feel this explains the crowd behavior, which was dead in this match unless Taue was doing something awesome.

Normally, Kobashi does a little shine in the beginning because he is a macho badass champion well Taue aint having none of that. He boots him off the apron and goes diving through the ropes onto him. Whenever Taue dives outside, it is just so unexpected and ungraceful that looks awesome. Taue loves picking people up and dropping them neck first on unforgiving objects and that is why he is the Man. Kobashi starts firing off some chops and hits a plancha to the outside. Taue like most Kobashi opponents has raw meat for a chest now. Kobashi busts everyone's favorite move the 3-Handled Moss-Covered Gredunza and controls with various holds. Taue steals a move from his Holy Demon Army partner with a spinkick to turn the tide. He goes after Kobashi's knees as so many have tried using the half-crab, kneecrusher and a weird figure-4. Taue's chest is just gross at this point as it already starting to bruise. NODOWA ON RAMP~!

 

Taue going to take no countout win and goes out gets Kobashi. Taue just runs off a huge string of offense. When Kobashi tries to no-sell a German, he just kicks him in the head. NODOWA OFF APRON~! Kobashi keeps falling down, but nothing can stop the DYNAMIC BOMB~! At this point, the crowd relents and starts to cheer for Kobashi. Kobashi chops Taue's hand to stop the Nodowa and gets a Burning Lariat to create space (Vintage Cole). It truly is 2004 because Kobashi steals the Nodowa to no reaction, but hits on of his best powerbombs, but cant keep him down. Kobashi crashes and burns on the moonsault. Can Taue do it? Can he pull it off? The crowd has woken up! Taue busts out a backdrop Nodowa! Taue goes for the Super Nodowa, but Kobashi looks to powerbomb him and it is a Taue-rana!!! HUGE POP! Brainbuster only gets two. The crowd wanted Taue to win so badly there that you had to feel bad for Taue and them. Taue hits a flying friggin bodypress. Giants dont fly, but Taue does! Taue chants echo throughout the Budokan. One Kobashi lariat silences the crowd. He runs through some standard offense while the crowd chants for Taue before he finishes him with the Mutha of all FInishes: Wrist-Clutch Burning Hammer!

 

The fun of this match is undoubtedly seeing Taue get a crack at the title in his waning days and having the crowd fully behind him. He really puts it all on the line here flying through the air, ruthlessly attacking knee and Nodowas galore. The Nodowa is the opposite of the Kojima's Ace Crusher it is bitchin in all its variation. Kobashi sold like a million bucks to make you believe the Impossible Dream could come true. This was the least Kobashi-oriented match of the reign. It makes sense that after Akiyama pushed him into the limit that he was really out of gas. He was just hanging on my a thread in this match taking less offense than usual and being on the defensive early. He also needed to bust out his super-duper finisher to polish this one off. Bot in kayfabe and reality with Kobashi and crowds fatigued, the end was nigh for this historic title reign.

[dawho5]

You know what this match had that most NOAH matches do not? Build between the big nearfalls. First big nearfall is the Dynamic Bomb after the apron backdrop nodowa. But Taue just doesn't get to go straight to the nodowa. For one, it puts over the idea that that nodowa could have won the match if he had gotten it. This is important in establishing somebody as a threat. Secondly, it lets the crowd build tension again. They go back and forth a bit, it looks like Kobashi may have something, but he tries the moonsault too early and misses. NODOWA! BACKDROP NODOWA! NEARFALL! Bigger than the first one because there was build in between. Because you thought, "Kobashi is coming back!" Then they go through more build with another Kobashi tease, but lesser as he just got killed. SUPLEX NODOWA!! HOW THE FUCK? HE KICKED OUT!! This is why Akira Taue is an amazing wrestler. Not because he has the best moves or the most athleticism. But because he knows how to build a match to get the most out of everything. The top rope splash out of pure desperation, just looking for ways to put Kobashi away, was great. Oh, this must be the Kobashi comeback. He's got that brainbuster he's been using hooke-wait, Taue rolled him up? No way, this could- NO! How often can Taue cut off Kobashi? Kobashi hits a big half nelson (used properly for maybe the 5th time ever) and gets a small reaction off the kickout because (5th time ever, but that's the past not this match). Big chops! BIG LARIAT 1!! 2!! NO!!! Taue just won't stay down. What's it going to take to put him away? He's got it hooked up....BURNING HAMMER! 1!! 2!! 3!!!!!

 

And THAT is how matches are finished. That is the difference between the art of pro wrestling and spot fu. And that is why I love this match. This comes in just below Akiyama vs. Misawa 2/27/00, but being second to that is not bad at all.

[Graham Crackers]

This is really good so I don't really mean to disparage it but...

 

I did found this to be kind of disappointing. I remembered liking this a lot when I saw it years ago but this is missing that special something that Kobashi's best GHC defenses had. Even the Takayama match which has an uninspired opening ranks above this for me. I can see the point that dawho5 is making but this just feels cold. The layout is that of a well realized epic but in many ways it feels "average." This is an epic formula that works but I feel like it needed something more. I don't know what would have made me feel the intensity but this didn't have it.

[Childs]

From agony to ecstasy. As much as I hated the tag match from this show, I loved this. They threw a bunch of bombs but with little wasted motion, and by the end, they had a so-so crowd totally on the hook. I popped out loud when Taue reversed Kobashi's attempted power bomb from the second turnbuckle into an old man rana. I felt like Kobashi didn't want to hit him with the Burning Hammer, but he owed his old rival the respect of putting him away with the uber-finisher. Top-5 match. Taue!

[Superstar Sleeze]

I pegged this as something I criminally underrated initially. I definitely underrated it, but not to the extent that I thought I had. The Taue finish run is up there as one of the best false finish run of all time that is the driving force behind my rewatching. You could tell how bad people wanted Taue to win that were even chanting his name while he was winning. Kobashi sold his ass off for Taue and really got him over as a threat. The last 15 minutes from the first NODOWA~! on the ramp is really classic wrestling. What keeps this from the Top 20 is that there were too many lulls in the opening 15 minutes. I liked Taue's big dive, but everything seemed too easy for either one of them. For really great Taue matches from the decade, I definitely recommend the 2005 tag against Tenryu & Akiyama and the 2006 title defense against Akiyama over this match, but still a very excellent match. Oh yeah and TAUE-RANA!!!! ****1/2

[TonyPulis'Cap]

This match is all about survival for Kobashi. At this point in his reign, the tank is running dry and you can feel the title slipping from his grasp. He's just hanging in there and surviving. Taue getting that last shot at glory is an awesome backdrop, and as has been highlighted, the crowd is all in on the old gun slinger having one last run.

 

Kobashi is on the back foot for much of the match and such is the punishment that whenever he hits a big move like the powerbomb he can't follow up. He gets very few near falls, and wrestles most of the match defensively, scoring with chops but with little else. With all the wear and tear from his lengthy title reign, he's vulnerable while Taue is inspired, hitting moves out of the blue like a rana, plancha to the outside and a massive gangly looking frog splash that looked like a giant octopus falling out of the sky.

 

In the end Kobashi has just enough to see it over the line and has that big move in his arsenal, but you can sense the end is near and the challengers are getting closer.

[ohtani's jacket]

I enjoyed this a lot. In a sense, these Kobashi title matches are just as formulaic as WWE matches, however the slow pace and the incredible attention to detail almost makes them feel like novels. There's so much packed into these matches that you wind up getting more of them than any other style of match. I had my "Taue is the best of the pillars" phase years and years ago (it seems everyone goes through one), but I lost interest in him over the years. It was genuinely heart-warming to see him give such a great veteran performance in this match. Love that dude.

Kobashi may have edged Eddie for WOTY given that Eddie is being dragged down by the Angle feud.