[2016-02-25-NJPW] Jay White vs Yoshinari Ogawa

[Ma Stump Puller]

Actually a fairly solid match given the conditions. Jay is a Young Lion here, so he's restricted to what he can and can't get away with: Young Lions are kept to a fairly basic move set and not really allowed to do much of anything else, even if Jay could (and had) done a lot more. That being said, Jay's still able to show that his fundamentals are very much solid. We see this with a strong starting pace as Ogawa and him exchange smooth technical work as they both battle for control. This bit is done really well as both men manage to balance coordination as they flow between White using his athleticism to take Ogawa down, as well as the latter's experience to eventually take over from his initial advantages: they make it look clean, but also not something that makes it look like they are coordinating, if that makes any sense: things still feel like a struggle and no transition is easily performed.

Jay has a awesome spot where he manages to counter a tight headscissors by Ogawa and flip him over to his back, rolling over to get the guy in a front headlock. He relentlessly aims at Ogawa's arm, even pulling back his hand at points for extra leverage. Eventually Ogawa counters with his signature nifty "spin around the wrist" sequence to take back control. Ogawa tries to turn this into a more traditional affair by going for a Irish Whip and then countering Jay's dropdown for a side headlock, only to be countered himself into a weird Indian Deathlock/arm wrench combination. He even tries to pin his arms for a pin but that doesn't work obviously.

Ogawa works over the leg of his opponent awesomely, leading to him using the turnbuckle post to smack it around. Jay sells this great, with some very convincing yells of pain, but he never goes overboard with it, with him holding on some submissions to carry up the drama as well as good timing with his comebacks when he's able to eventually battle though the pain enough to even things out. What I also love is that he doesn't stop selling the leg even on offence: when he's leaping around, he drags his bad leg and delays what he's doing to sell more. It's a small but very well done detail that many don't seem to get quite as well, especially on a consistent basis. Ogawa also makes his basic offence look killer: even a Boston Crab, as basic as you can imagine, Ogawa sells like it could be a world-ender with the crowd getting surprisingly into this despite the obvious outcome. The finish comes when Ogawa tries for a superplex, gets countered into a top rope dropkick but he dodges at the last second, leading to Jay damaging his bad leg even more. Ogawa then finishes things with a Figure-Four.

He really holds on to it afterwards like the biggest of trolls, not even letting him have the dignity of a ice pack for his leg by throwing it away. It's rude, yes, but it gets over Jay hugely as he got under Rat Boy's skin: something that few can testify to doing. All in all, a early sighting of Jay White's greatness (as a underdog babyface, of all things) but Ogawa gives him a ton of leeway for a Young Lion and manages to work with the limitations of said match standards to really elevate this to something way better than it had any right to be in the first place, Ogawa really made the guy look great.