[2003-01-10-NOAH-Great Voyage] Jun Akiyama & Akitoshi Saito vs Masato Tanaka & Shinjiro Ohtani

[El-P]

Tanaka still looks like FMW Tanaka here. Saito has blonde hair. So when they face off, it looks like Tanaka is workintg against an uncool looking erzatz of Mr. Gannosuke. Odd.

 

Also odd to see Tanaka be a dick, as he always was a perenial babyface. He does it quite well though, as he should since the first half of the match is mostly him and Ohtani, who's used to being a dick and loves to slap people around, doing heelish stuff like they are the Fabulous Ones or something. They do get heat although the home team is also a bunch of dicks. Akiyama does no sell a ton at first, like "I'm not selling that second rate promotion weak shit", and he doesn't make a lot of effort to put the opposition over. Honestly, I'd go so far to say he was the worst of the four here, as Saito is getting used to get his ass kicked now and does it well. It's like Akiyama was a bit disinterested to make this compelling honestly. There's a ludicrous no-selling exchange with him and Ohtani early which doesn't look very good, but apart from that he was still at least (and at best) *good*. Maybe the fact he didn't work on top kinda took its toll on his motivation. Anyway, after an okay "let's heel up" period, the finishing stretch finaly gets things going and Tanaka finally shines doing what he does. Heavyweight Ohtani still can deliver a terrific top rope dropkick on the back of your head too. NOAH's booking really was putting emphasis on Saito, as he's the one who gets to shine at the end. Very good match in the end.

[G. Badger]

This felt very much like a WAR match where there was much more emphasis on the hatred than on athletic competition. NOAH was doing the cross promotion stuff in 2003 still so perhaps I'm just not used to seeing that kind of stomp on your face violence as much. That being said this was fantastic stuff and an overlooked classic in my book.