[2004-11-13-NJPW-Toukon Festival] Kensuke Sasaki vs Minoru Suzuki

[Superstar Sleeze]

IWGP Champion Kensuke Sasaki vs Minoru Suzuki - NJPW Osaka Dome 11/13/04

New Japan was still drawing 28000 people to the Osaka Dome this late in the Inokiist Era. Pretty stacked card as this does not even close the show. There's Tenryu/Shibata on the undercard along with invaders (Kawada/Naoya Ogawa) vs Tenzan/Tanahashi (sounds tasty) and weirdo main event of Fujita/Kashin vs Nakamura/Nakanishi. The main event did not sound appetizing on paper and Jetlag's review made it seem even less so (except Inoki comes in and punches Nakamura apparently) so I will skip. 

On paper this is kind of a dream match for me. I am way higher on Sasaki than most people and I do like Minoru Suzuki (more recent Suzuki can be hit or miss, but this era I usually like). This match much to my shock and dismay kinda sucked. I am not even sure it kinda sucked. I think it might have sucked out loud. 

Usual New Japan feeling out process. Nothing wrong with that. I like Sasaki muscling Suzuki over but Suzuki keeps the headlock on and yanks him over the top with him. They stare off and both head back in the ring. Missed opportunity in my opinion but fine. Suzuki puffs out his chest which is the Universal sign of Hit Me. They trade some blows. Cool wrinkle here at the end. Suzuki hits a dropkick to get Sasaki off his feet. Suzuki invites Sasaki to do the same, but side-steps him and makes him look like a chump. This is weird it got weird again. Suzuki hit the lightest knees, threw some strikes tried to go for the arm but Sasaki just threw him off and reset. Ok it seemed like they had somewhere to go but didnt do much. I kinda forget what happens next (watched this about 5 hours ago) but the next big thing is Suzuki works the arm which is the bulk of the body that has any sort of progression. Suzuki would just wander a way for extended stretches and just leave Sasaki to sell. It was weird. Either Sasaki needed to throw in some hope spots of Suzuki needed to stay on him. The way they did it was just awkward. The finish run took what was a boring match made it actively terrible. Sasaki started throwing some lariats. Suzuki gets a Rear Naked Choke out of a Northern Lights Bomb attempt which was the first big "nearfall". He hits a piledriver, Sasaki kicks out at one. Sasaki hits Northern Lights Bomb with no struggle. Suzuki at least punches Sasaki a couple times before his second piledriver which Sasaki no sells and hits a lame Northern Lights Bomb. They are both out. Suzuki slaps Sasaki twice pretty good cracks. Sasaki misses on Lariat but gets him on the second attempt. Suzuki kicks out at one. Makes some faces, fall down and Sasaki wins. 

The first 15 minutes or so are pretty fucking boring. The last five minutes are terrible. I know Suzuki is supposed be mercurial and eccentric but this was just bad. Sasaki did not adapt at all either. I am sure most people would blame Sasaki but I thought Suzuki was just as bad if not worse. This could be one of the worst matches featuring two wrestlers who are otherwise pretty good at wrestling.

[WingedEagle]

On 6/14/2023 at 9:07 PM, Superstar Sleeze said:

This could be one of the worst matches featuring two wrestlers who are otherwise pretty good at wrestling.

My goodness was this ever true. Outside of a brief moment early when Suzuki cared to show any activity on the mat and a couple brief spurts of intensity on the striking this was just boring. It felt worse given the expectations of these two squaring off as the work wasn't technically awful, but rather felt like both were sleepwalking through it most of the time.