[2007-03-04-NOAH Navigate For Evolution '07] Doug Williams vs Yoshinari Ogawa

[Ma Stump Puller]

The people (oh god this just sounds like a "you people" promo now) who ranked the event on Cagematch typically averaged this out at nearly one star on the scale which I found to be just complete bullshit: this was a tremendous love-letter to classic British Catch wrestling, and unlike many matches where the guys involved are too scared to keep that going for the whole match and just default into regular stuff usually after a while, these madmen kept this theme going for the whole duration pretty much. Williams focuses in on the arm until trying for a fancy top rope moonsault in the corner, with Ogawa stomping his leg and causing the lad to crumple. What I loved about this was how they'd be consistently trying to get to their respective limb to work on, so you had moments when Williams would try for the arm using the ropes and turnbuckle and Ogawa would roll out of the ring and trap his leg in the ropes instead while he was arguing with the ref. Lots of great little smart moments like that where it felt like limb targeting was actually important and meant something as opposed to padding instead, so they wrestled like those mattered and as a result the crowd in turn was, shockingly, invested in the outcome. Like you can imagine these two have a excellent chemistry where they keep finding clever ways to outsmart the other on the mat or use their respective limb target as leverage, so Ogawa would strain the leg of Williams to get him down easier and Williams in turn could use the arm to neutralise Ogawa's usual tricky transitions and keep things under control.

Near the end of the middle you have this terrific sequence where Ogawa kept pulling out these transitions to get out of a arm wrench, but Williams was such a dog that he kept just driving leverage because of how effective his arm work had gotten by this point, which felt right out of a WoS-era outing. Of course these two always pull out their usual signature spots, but they are in purpose to be used to keep driving home the limbwork advantage, never straying too far away from it. The last few minutes build on the two trying to bomb the other out, but Williams is always one step ahead and eventually snaps a cradle out of a hammerlock to steal the upset win when Ogawa lowers his guard when reaching for the ropes. Sure, was the crowd not super loud for this? Definitely: they cool down after a while given Williams and Ogawa aren't exactly crazy fan favourites and this had no crazy dives or spots/head-bumps to keep them occupied, instead being lots of slick technical wrestling worked at a realistic pace that respected fatigue, even if they pick up at certain dramatic moments and give a good response by the end. Doug Williams has historically loved working with Ogawa: it's the reason why he picked the guy out of everyone possible for his 2017 retirement match, after all: and it's not hard to see why as he can just nerd out with the technical work here and have someone who's also slick enough to make that work for a match. It's crazy to see just how this old-school side of Ogawa emerges here as opposed to his usual fun Rat Boy cheating antics, but it's fresh enough to keep interest and amaze given this typically never gets a chance to fully emerge. Honestly fantastic and a joy to watch, a great little gem.