[2014-09-15-AJPW] Go Shiozaki vs Suwama

[Superstar Sleeze]

Go Shiozaki vs Suwama - AJPW 9/15/14 Royal Road Tournament

 

I really enjoyed Suwama in the two matches I watched for the Best of Japan in the 2000s and the trend continued here. Suwama understood Shiozaki's greatest asset to be his energy. He continually sapped that by effectively using the sleeper. This did not achieve the level of the famous sleepers match between Pegasus Kid and Black Tiger in 1996, but it was a perfect use of the sleeper. The sleeper/chinlock is best used to drain the energy of an explosive babyface and let a heel regain his wind. Too often it is misused and thus triggers people's attention to drift. Shiozaki is all about those chops, but Suwama is going to make sure there is nothing behind those chops after the sleeper. You see how Suwama modulates his selling. Suwama sells the chops at the beginning of the match, but after the sleeper he stands tall. Shiozaki did a great job selling the first sleeper as really knocking him out. He is great at peppering in the hope spots, but his selling leaves a lot to be desired. He just does not have enough emotion. As good as Shiozaki's chops look, Suwama's double chop is so sick and maybe my favorite move in wrestling now. Suwama was wrestling perfectly. He took his time and was cocky when it was time, but anytime Shizaki started to fire off, he would immediately snuff the fire out with a double chop or a powerslam. Go finally mounts a bit of a comeback and is looking for a macho pissing contest so Suwama says fuck that and grabs him by the hair and applies a sleeper. Suwama is my hero. Suwama obliterates Shiozaki with a lariat and then a belly to belly suplex. With the match firmly back in his hand, Suwama looks to polish him off with his powerbomb. Shiozaki escaps and looks for refuge on the apron. Suwama comes flying across the ring with a HUGE dropkick and follows up with a suicide dive. Suwama returns to the sleeper to set up the powerbomb, but Misawa-rana. Man copying Misawa AND Kobashi, now that is just not fair! Suwama immediately clamps on a sleeper. I love Suwama's urgency. Suwama tries to gain the pin three times. Go busts out the classic collapse on a rope run and he really exaggerates his chops not having much. This is some really good shit here. Suwama is all over him, but looks to get a running start and Go roars out of the corner with a lariat. Ruh roh! Shiozaki hits a big lariat to send Suwama tumbling out and HUGE plancha by Go! Shiozaki goes all in on the lariat. Suwama is not going down without a fight, but he is on jelly legs. Suwama is selling like a boss. The double chop crushing a roaring burning lariat attempt was awesome! Eventually, Go hits a big time lariat to set up the Go Flasher & Limit Break for the win.

Suwama totally outclassed Shiozaki here carrying him to a great match and the second best AJPW match of the year. Suwama was wrestling at such a high level. He was using the sleeper to debilitate his opponent and set himself up for the powerbomb. He was cocky when it was time and snuffed out Go when appropriate. Go Shiozaki needs more emotion and his selling for the majority of the match left a lot to be desired. The finish run was typical late 2000s puroresu and was fine for what it was. Suwama is underrated and this is a great showcase for him. ****1/4

[fxnj]

This was such an awesome match. An alternate translation of the tournament name would be King Road Tournament, which would be a pretty fitting name for the style of this match. Back when I was going through 90's AJPW on Ditch's site, I watched this one obscure 6-man from 1995 where Kawada accidentally chokes Misawa out legit and they just do their best to work the match around that, but I always had this curiosity in the back of my mind afterwards as to what a match would be like if it was deliberately worked around such a spot. This match finally answered that. The selling of the initial choke out is perfect to the point where I wondered if it was a shoot until the rest of the match clued me in. I don't agree at all that Shiozaki's selling was lacking and actually thought he was great at depicting confusion and desperation throughout the match. Suwama did look great as well, though, not only wrestling a smart and focused match built around the sleeper but also incorporating flashes of bull-like aggression to cut Shiozaki off and giving us hints at the arrogance that would eventually lead to his undoing. Him running full speed into a hard lariat was the perfect way to begin Shiozaki's comeback and there was a nice sense of urgency with him going for the big moves right out of the gate. I actually thought the stretch run was great for capturing the intense strike exchanges and bomb trading you would expect from a King's Road match while leaving room for rematch to build off of. A common complaint I've seen from people about matches that ape 90's AJ is that they only copy the head drops while forgetting the psychology to them, but this match is a very good showcase of how Akiyama's AJ goes in the opposite direction by having guys wrestle a safer style that mostly stays away from the things that left the 4 kings immobile in order to highlight the structure and psychology elements that truly make King's Road my favorite style. Overall, a great example of why I think modern AJ is the best current promotion and hopefully we can look forward to many more years of matches like this.

[Richeyedwards]

This is the 5th of seven matches between these two from 2013-15 and is one of the shorter ones… at 29:55. The length of the match does show and does work against it.

For the entire first half this match was mostly all SUWAMA as he dominates Shiozaki attacking both his neck and his lower back in an attempt to set him up for his major moves the backdrop, the last ride and the Sleeper. The work over the sleeper was the best stuff in the match as SUWAMA uses it to both wear down his opponent, choke him out illegally and to try to win by putting him asleep. The final sleeper around 20 minutes in where Shiozaki was almost put out was really the last time where SUWAMA was in the match as the rest of it was Shiozaki taking over and dominating most of the offence of the finishing stretch as he refuses to go down to SUWAMA again and delivers most of the offence as all that SUWAMA gets in during the finish is some desperation moves and attempts as gaining space using his great double hand chops. I did love that SUWAMA got none of his big moves in as it made it obvious that Shiozaki won definitively and finally put SUWAMA away at the 5th time of asking.

This did feels a bit too long as the bit before the last sleeper but after Shiozaki made his first comeback after SUWAMA’s long control segment was a bit pointless. Shiozaki just got back into the match he did not do anything major in terms of a transition he just was back into it.

Cutting that out and making just a little tighter it would have been a really great match. ****

 

The date on this should be 28/09/2014 not 15/09/2014