BIG FIGHT SERIES

March 4, 2005

Who’d have thought that a totally random NJPW show from 2005 could be so much fun? Young Lions show attitude and fire. Yuji Nagata dishes out pseudo child abuse, and the main event has blood, lots of blood.

Hiroyuki Ito . . . looks like he may very well be the next Shinjiro Ohtani.

Katsuhiko Nakajima . . . takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.

Wataru Inoue . . . sheds more than a bit of blood in order to capture the IWGP Jr. Tag Titles.

AKIYA ANZAWA vs. HIROSHI NAGAO (Young Lions Cup)

The idea here is fairly straightforward, Nagao can use his size and power to beat Anzawa, but Anzawa knows how to work around it. Anzawa ties him up early on the mat, and uses his speed to keep Nagao at bay. Nagao tries to play his game and connects a dropkick, but isn’t quite sure how to follow up. Anzawa one-ups Nagao by using a power move of his own, the uranage, and quickly follows up with his own dropkick for the win. It’s not bad for what it is, but there’s not much you could expect from either of them (or really any of the Young Lions) at this stage of their career.

HIROYUKI ITO vs. YUJIRO (Young Lions Cup)

At first this doesn’t look much different the previous match. Yujiro has a plan, which is to use his amateur skills to his advantage, which he does by tying Ito up on the mat, and then shooting in and planting him with several suplexes. It looks like Yujiro has the match well at hand, until he charges right into a knee from Ito. And Ito looks like a young Ohtani the way he errantly kicks at Yujiro’s chest, and gives him a taste of his own medicine with an amateur style take down, and holding the juji-gatame past the five count when Yujiro gets the ropes. Ito clocks Yujiro with a Tajiri roundhouse for the KO. If nothing else, this makes me want to see a bit more of Ito, in hope that he’s always this grumpy.

HIROOKI GOTO vs. NAOFUMI YAMAMOTO (Young Lions Cup)

While this isn’t as boss as the singles match they’d have later in the year, it’s still better than the other two YLC matches. The exchanges they have on the mat look much smoother than those of both previous matches. But what really separates this from the rest of the pack is the fire that both Goto and Yamamoto show. Both men make it clear how much they want to win. And while some moments, like Yamamoto’s kick out of Goto’s dropkick at one, look silly at times, at least it’s somewhat merited with the idea that neither one really wants to lose. And it makes the match as a whole feel more like a contest, rather than an exhibition. Both Goto and Yamamoto seemingly run through just about everything they’ve got (which isn’t much at this point) until Goto finally pulls out a trump card with his juji-gatame off the shoulders, and there’s almost no doubt that it’ll get the tap out.

MINORU TANAKA/PUMA/TOMMY WILLIAMS vs. EL SAMURAI/TIGER MASK/TAIJI ISHIMORI

This isn’t too bad, but it’s mostly uneventful. Tanaka and Samurai bring almost all of the good work with them. Tiger Mask and Ishimori aren’t good for much more than flipping around and a bad looking 619. Puma and Williams make a nice pair of henchmen for Tanaka, but neither adds much to the match as far as actual work goes. There’s a nice pair off and dive sequence, but that’s about it for the four of them. With the heels it’s not much surprise because they’re not full time roster members, but it’s a shame that the IWGP Jr. Champion and the regular freelancer didn’t have any more to add. It’s not like Tanaka and Samurai are really that great, but they’re good enough to standout. They pull off a couple of nice reversal sequences with one another, and the only real awkward moment from them is when Tanaka tries to counter the Tornado DDT, but winds up spiking himself on his head and no-selling it. They’re both given the chance to put over their trademark submissions. Tanaka does a fine job of putting over the Chickenwing armlock, and only escapes when his partners make the save. And Tanaka gets the win with the Minoru Special, but really struggles to apply it, and only does so with assistance, but when it’s applied it’s a near instant tap out.

MITSUYA NAGAI/RYUSHI YANAGISAWA vs. TOGI MAKABE/MASAYUKI NARUSE

Well this was a waste of six minutes. Naruse pleads with Nagai to leave the dark side, to no avail. The heels stall a bunch and can’t decide who’s going to start. Makabe no-sells a bunch of kicks and does a fairly decent spear. The showdown between the former All Asia champions lasts all of thirty seconds long, ending with Nagai trying to decapitate Naruse with the running knee. That’s the whole match.

TAKASHI IIZUKA/KATSUHIKO NAKAJIMA vs. YUJI NAGATA/MASAHITO KAKIHARA

What’s this? A match where Yuji Nagata didn’t annoy me! Actually, this is almost shockingly fun. Nagata does a damn fun job of torturing Nakajima in the early parts of this. Yuji really lays into him with the roundhouse kicks, and Nagata looks like he’s trying to take home Nakajima’s arm as his own personal trophy. To his credit, Nakajima does attempt to give at least some of it back. He hits Nagata with several stinging shots across the face, and his pescado prevents Nagata from making the save at the end. The only thing Nakajima needed to do better was long term selling. It’s especially noticeable after Nagata singles out his arm, and locks in the Nagata Lock II. The abuse to Nakajima isn’t the only thing to like about this however. Nagata and Iizuka have a cute exchange where they trade off sleeper holds and counters. Kakihara dishes some of his own abuse to Nakajima, and has a couple of nice exchanges with Iizuka, including connecting with a couple of knees and kicks to the jaw in a little throwback to the 6/01 tag match that put Iizuka on the shelf. Iizuka has a nice and smooth transition from the Kaki Cutter attempt to the sleeper, and Kakihara even tries a couple of escapes before he sees Nakajima dive onto Nagata and gives in and taps out.

OSAMU NISHIMURA/KATSUSHI TAKEMURA vs. MINORU SUZUKI/JYUSHIN “THUNDER” LYGER

There are some fun moments here for sure, but with Lyger, Suzuki, and Nishimura all involved, that’s not a big shocker. Takemura isn’t bad, he makes a nice whipping boy a la Nakajima in the last match, but it’s hard to get behind him as the fired up babyface given the way he was reintroduced to New Japan in 2003. It doesn’t help that he’s clearly the low man on the totem pole, and the match itself more than makes that obvious. For instance, Takemura does probably the craziest (in a good way) spot of the match, with a tope suicida, and tope genocidio is more of a fitting name for it really, as he looked like he was trying to take out Lyger, himself, and the front row. But all it takes is Takemura charging into one shotei, (almost immediately afterwards) to give control to the heels. Takemura also gets into a slap tradeoff with Suzuki, and anyone who’s seen more than a few Suzuki matches will know how that turns out. Takemura switches to forearm shots and Suzuki just stands there like a brick wall. Takemura has other issues though, namely in selling (or lack thereof), at one point Takemura locked Suzuki in the Dragon sleeper, and Suzuki kicked him twice in the head to escape. Takemura responded by giving him a body slam, and then staggering around like the two kicks knocked him for a loop so that Suzuki could take over, and finish him off with the Drill Hole Piledriver.

Takemura’s shortcomings aside, there are still plenty of things to like about this match. Nishimura and Suzuki have several cute exchanges on the mat. Suzuki’s Boston crab attempt, and Nishimura’s attempted escapes and counters are highlights. Suzuki is enough of a punk to mimic Nishimura’s clean break in the corner, and then scoff at it by throwing knees at him. Nishimura returns the favor though, faking out Minoru with his own clean break and then firing off the European Uppercuts. Lyger isn’t in the match all that much, but he does a decent job of dishing out punishment to Takemura, and he puts over Nishimura’s abdominal stretch nicely, doing the hip toss escape, but being too worn down by the hold to rush in and save Suzuki. It’s not a bad match for what it is, but could have benefitted from either a better performance from Takemura, or a more even match.

MASAHIRO CHONO/MANABU NAKANISHI/SCOTT NORTON vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA/HIROSHI TANAHASHI/YUTAKA YOSHIE

While not overtly offensive, there isn’t anything here that’s really worth checking out. The most noticeable thing is the big difference between Nakamura and Tanahashi. Nakamura is full of intensity, and take the fight right to Chono, to the point that when Tanahashi tags in, Chono won’t even acknowledge him, and implores Nakamura to get back into the ring and fight some more. Tanahashi never shows anything even remotely close to that sort of fire. And Tanahashi’s tag in is pretty much the cue for the heels to take control of the match. Tanahashi is a decent seller, but it’s not like Chono, Nakanishi, and Norton can really bring anything even close to decent offense, outside of brawling. Yoshie doesn’t seem to have much purpose other than to be Tanahashi’s hot tag, to throw his weight around, and to take the fall after a double chokeslam from Nakanishi and Norton, and a Norton powerbomb, which is probably best for everyone involved (the wrestlers and the fans). Thankfully, the eventual tag titles match between the champions and Nakanishi/Norton turned out better.

There are things to like about this match, but most of them don’t have much at all to do with the actual wrestling in the match. Wataru’s blood is nice, and after months of being denied by C.T.U. (a group that was formed at the expense of Koji attempting to win these same titles) it’s cool that Koji finally got one over on them. And Korauken Hall is red-hot for the match. But the match itself has some rather noticeable flaws.

The southern tag structure to the match isn’t bad at all. It’s actually rather fitting, considering how long Koji has been at war with not only C.T.U. but Gedo and Jado specifically. But the pace is way too slow, more often than not, and Gedo and Jado don’t bring much of anything as far as interesting work goes. Gedo and Jado have never been the Midnight Express, but they don’t even look like Haas and Benjamin here. It’s nice that they can punch Wataru in the head and make him bleed more, and to his credit, Wataru sells it like death, but that can only go on for so long before it’s obvious that they’re killing time because they’ve got to go for half an hour, and don’t have a whole lot to do. When they’re not punching or choking, the only other things that Gedo and Jado have to do are sit in holds, and their signature stuff. Jado’s constant use of his Crossface wouldn’t be so bad if he’d spent some time actually trying to wear down Inoue’s arm. The early filler parts of the match actually had Jado working on Koji’s arm. The superbomb is their big double team, but it seems to be the only double team they have.

God bless him, Wataru puts everything over like he’s near death, but even that comes with a price however, as his sudden second win at the end looks odd. Him kicking Jado into the ropes to stop Gedo from doing the splash and then cradling Jado for two doesn’t seem so bad, it can be explained as Wataru playing possum while Gedo climbed to the top. But Gedo went for the splash just moments after Jado got a near fall after Inoue seemed to nearly pass out while in the Crossface, and Jado only released the hold to try for a pin after Inoue’s arm dropped twice. Why would Wataru try to feign passing out? What if the ref didn’t check his arm and just called for the bell? For all of the time he spent in Jado’s crossface, it’s nice that Wataru showed he’d learned something by countering it into his Triangle Lancer for the tap out. Kanemoto is a decent enough hot tag, but he’s more of a supporting player in the match. He brings the mean streak that you’d expect him too, but all he really had to do were roundhouse kicks, his ankle hold, and to hold back Gedo while Inoue scores the win, it’s possible that his arm being attacked in the early going was a reason, but it wasn’t like Gedo and Jado really went out of their way to hurt it. There is one nice moment when Koji has Gedo locked in the ankle lock, and Jado saves. Gedo starts to follow up with his Gedo clutch, but thinks the better of it, with his ankle recently being wrenched. Jado and Koji also pull out a Benoit/Angle Ankle Lock/Crossface sequence that looks just as odd as when Kurt and Chris do it, but not nearly as smooth as when Kurt and Chris do it. It’s fitting in an odd way that the only one in the match that had anything to gain stepped up hugely, while the three established stars didn’t even really bother to show up.

Conclusion: Well there really wasn’t a big standout match, but it’s quite the fun show from top to bottom. It’s a shame that the main event wasn’t able to deliver. There’s still plenty of fun to be had. This show definitely gets a thumbs up.