Wrestle Kingdom 10

[supremebve]

Tanahashi-Okada is never going to hit my wrestling sweet spot, but I can't fault what they did in producing a suitable main event and capper to their rivalry. I don't enjoy watching those guys work through the body of a match. Their strikes and holds just don't look good to me, so it's hard to see the work as anything but bland preamble. What they're great at is producing long, dramatic finishing runs. And they whipped off another one here. I didn't have a problem with Okada's selling. It wasn't as if Tanahashi did anything that should have crippled him. Whenever Tanahashi did a callback spot to the leg, he sold it appropriately.

I think these two are the kings of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I was to look at their matches move to move, I wouldn't really be impressed, but by the end I always feel like I watched something special. The way they build their matches clicks for me as well as any two wrestlers ever.

[Parties]

Finally watched the last three matches last night. Re: the Shibata-Ishii controversy, I really think you almost have to view it as two separate matches. That sequence at the beginning was horrible and I completely get why people were turned off by it in a "everything wrong with modern wrestling" way. But once they start working an actual match, it was excellent. From my 2016 thread:

 

 

ADDED: 4) Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii (Wrestle Kingdom, 1/4)
First half of this: what are they going for here? Who’s trying to win this match? This is shoot style without the music, from two guys who should know better. They’re both really talented - more talented than the main eventers - yet they’re doing this? It’s almost slapstick in its violent idiocy, and for that reason there was a sequence halfway through where they’re rapidly trading kicks and suplexes that I liked. The one where they both faint and Ishii spits out his mouthpiece. Second half of this: really good as they clobber each other with purpose and hit awesome strikes impactfully. Without the lame Fighting Spirit stuff in the first half, this might have been #1 YTD. Still impressed that they put it together so well at the end.

 

ADDED: 3) Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles (Wrestle Kingdom 10, 1/4)
This was well paced, especially for a New Japan match. They do enough to keep the first ten minutes interesting, but really turn up the intensity from that point on with good work in and out of holds. The selling here should be brought up whenever anyone starts talking that jive about how selling doesn’t matter in Japan and shouldn’t be among the criteria used in judging Japanese matches. It’s important here and it’s the difference between this and the lesser ROH, NJPW and Rev Pro stuff of late. Even the ref is working hard here. I liked the Styles Clash more than usual here as it looked like AJ - intentionally or accidentally - put his knee behind Nakamura’s head as he was coming down to the mat, which made it look less cooperative and more devastating than usual. The big tide-turning move of the match is a little choreographed, but they ended this at the right time. In a sense this was the first match of Nakamura’s big King of Pop run where he’s felt to me as big and exciting as others have made him out to be. While I haven’t been as enamored with his Tanahashi and Ibushi matches, I here thought he looked great.

Kazuchika Okada vs Hiroshi Tanahashi (Wrestle Kingdom 10, 1/4)
The opening here was pretty solid, they have a nice trading of momentum before the big dropkick of Tanahashi somersaulting to the floor. A really bad Okada chin lock soon follows, solidifying the comparisons between him and Orton. This was probably the best of their matches that I’ve seen in terms of pacing and dramatic impact. The wrestling itself wasn’t vastly superior to what’s happening elsewhere (let alone Best in the World stuff) but they did build to spots well and this felt like a big-time main event. I even liked the story of Tanahashi trying to take out Dropkick McGee’s leg. (It was totally dropped two minutes later, but hey, it’s Okada.) People have said this match was five minutes too long, but I’d say it’s more that they go to the finishing sequence about ten minutes too early, so that after finisher #43 (around the thirty minute mark) it starts to drag. But to their credit, these are two guys who pretty much only know how to work finishing stretches, and they turned up the volume considerably once it was time. It worked, I guess? Probably? Now let’s not see it again for a few years?