ENCOUNTERING NAVIGATION 2002

Yutaka Yoshie . . . proves that he’s consistent if nothing else; that is, he consistently stinks up the ring no matter what company he’s wrestling for.

Takao Omori . . . finally seemed to find the missing component to get him moving up the card; unfortunately, it was too little too late for him.

Mitsuharu Misawa . . . steps into the ring with one of his old rivals from the All Japan days when he was still under the hood.

TAKESHI MORISHIMA/TAKESHI RIKIO © vs. VADER/SCORPIO (GHC Tag Team Titles)

If one is a fan of big man clubbering, then this wouldn’t be something to avoid, but that’s pretty much all there is from Vader and the champs. The only one who really shows any variety as far as offense goes is Scorpio, but his spots are little more than eye candy or something to give the champions an opening to take over, such as the superplex that Morishima turns into a sidewalk slam or the dive onto Rikio that he catches and turns into a fisherman’s buster. And, considering that it’s the first time that any team has successfully defended the titles, they sure don’t do much to make the champions look all that dominant. Rikio and Morishima being able to knock around Scorpio was a given, but the best that either of them looks against Vader is that they don’t lose. Take Vader’s last run of offense against Morishima; Vader more or less beats him to a pulp and Morishima keeps kicking out. He doesn’t do anything to look like he could pose a threat to a former Triple Crown Champion and NOAH’s top foreigner. He just takes the punches, lariats, and splashes and keeps kicking out until Vader tags in Scorp to work the finish. And it’s not even like they get some big run of offense to finish off Scorpio, Morishima uses his size to counter a roll-up that Vader breaks up, and then Scorp charges into a lariat (which he at least takes a big bump for) and gives Morishima the pin. The lariat gets a nice reaction and ends the match on a memorable note, but the body of the match, including all but the last ten seconds, hardly gives the impression that Morishima and Rikio are the top of the NOAH food chain as far as tag teams go.

TAKESHI MORISHIMA/TAKESHI RIKIO © vs. MANABU NAKANISHI/YUTAKA YOSHIE (GHC Tag Team Titles)

Seriously? I understand that New Japan weren’t going to sacrifice Chono and Tenzan in this spot, and Nagata was off limits, but there wasn’t any better team, even a makeshift one, to send over? Thankfully, this is clipped up, so it’s not nearly as awful as it could have been, but honestly even that’s reaching for positives. Most of what we’re shown is the New Japan guys working over Morishima, who puts on a really good sell job, but Yoshie and Nakanishi are as dull as it gets when it comes to working him over; chops, slaps, leg drops, shoulder tackles, stomps, more stomps, the submissions actually get a bit of a reaction the first time they’re seen, but after that they play to crickets. One would think that Morishima taking such a beating would warrant a big fired up comeback from the home team, but that’s far from the case here. Morishima wins a forearm exchange and plants Yoshie with a big boot and then the Amaze Impact, which garners a one count, and then he and Rikio hit the Double Impact which is also only worthy of a one count. Rikio ties up Nakanishi, and Morishima winds up winning after a lariat and a pretty awesome backdrop suplex. But, just like the other tag titles match, the only thing that makes the champs look any good comes in the last ten seconds. This was the ideal opportunity to give Morishima and Rikio some real credibility by withstanding the beating and handing it back enroute to vanquishing the invaders, but this is pretty much the polar opposite.

NAOMICHI MARUFUJI © vs. MAKOTO HASHI (GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title)

Even before Marufuji’s knee gave out on him and caused the ref to stop the match, this wasn’t looking like a classic. Aside from Marufuji trying to work on an obviously bad knee, there wasn’t any real story to the match, and even when it seemed like they might be trying to get something going, it was followed by something to negate the effort. Aside from two submissions, Hashi doesn’t do anything to actually work the knee. Marufuji throws superkicks and seated dropkicks and dishing out his other usual spots while he’s pretty much hobbled. Hashi throws a ton of offense at Marufuji, but it never feels like he’s getting anywhere with it; the reverse DDT on the apron to counter the Shiranui is a good example. It’s the perfect surprise counter to let him take over the match. But after Marufuji barely beats the count, Hashi’s control segment consists of a single corner kick and a couple of long rest holds, which only lead to Marufuji taking back over after escaping a sleeper. One of the few times that it seemed like Marufuji was getting something going was when he hit a series of grounded dropkicks to Hashi, ostensibly to leave him dazed and to fall prey to a Shiranui or something of that sort. Marufuji hits a big dropkick off the top, but before he can go for the kill, Hashi grabs him and hits a series of headbutts so that he can take back control. That’s the match in a nutshell; just when you think they’re warming up and going to get somewhere, the rug gets yanked and it’s back to square one. And just before the knee gives out on him for good, they’d done several big spots that would have made perfectly fine, and believable finishes.

TAKAO OMORI vs. AKIRA TAUE (#1 Contender’s Match for the GHC Heavyweight Title)

Despite the short length, this is actually a pretty fun sprint. It’s probably the best singles performance I’ve seen from Omori, which isn’t saying much, but he’s a lot of fun here. He jumpstarts things by attacking Taue before he can even get in the ring, and he shows an anger and intensity that I don’t recall ever seeing from him before. His actual work isn’t anything that hasn’t been seen before, he busts out his usual high impact spots (DDT, corner spin kick, diving knee, etc.) and it seems like he’s trying to throw as much as possible at Taue, rather than try to focus on a specific area or exploit some sort of weakness. And, until Taue kicks out after the Axe Bomber, it seems like it’s only a matter of time until Omori puts Taue away and moves on to his title shot. But once Taue kicks out, Omori is basically screwed; he tries a second Axe Bomber and Taue ducks and catches him by the throat for the Nodowa, but Omori escapes. Taue completes his comeback when he gets the feet up while Omori comes off the top, and then it’s Taue’s turn to bring the pain.

Taue starts off with a bang, with the Nodowa off the apron (which Omori puts over like death), and once he finally gets into the ring, Taue keeps it coming with a couple of other Nodowa variants and the Dynamic Bomb. Omori tries a comeback of his own with a couple of forearm shots and Taue just rebounds and hits the jumping Dynamic kick. Omori ran out of finishers after the Axe Bomber, but Taue has one more in the tank, and the Ore Ga Taue keeps Omori down for the pinfall. It’s just too bad that this was pretty much it for Omori in NOAH (he was there until June, but he wasn’t doing anything important), because this newfound anger looked like it was exactly what he needed to finally break out and move up the card.

JUN AKIYAMA © vs. YOSHINARI OGAWA (GHC Heavyweight Title)

This is a match that’s benefitted from hindsight. At the time, it seemed unfathomably stupid, but between Kobashi’s long injury layoffs and NOAH’s inability to elevate any of the younger talent (see the last match for an example of that) Akiyama had run out of interesting challengers. So, a sub-five-minute fluke loss like this doesn’t hurt Akiyama’s credibility, and it injects some interest into the title picture since Ogawa is a perennial underdog. The match itself is fine to watch; Ogawa takes Akiyama by surprise early with his usual spots like the DDT, jaw breaker, and a couple of backdrops. Akiyama gets to slow it down when Ogawa misses a corner charge and goes to the floor, and he even throws in a couple heelish things, like a gravedigger off the apron into the guardrail. Akiyama looks to finish him off with the Exploders and Ogawa gets a surprise cradle to counter the Exploder ’98, complete with Akiyama flailing and kicking like his life depended on it, for the upset and the title. No, Ogawa isn’t exactly the ideal person to hold the top title but looking at the overall landscape in Japan during this era, I’m not sure that he’d crack a top five list of worst champions.

JYUSHIN LYGER/MINORU TANAKA vs. YOSHINOBU KANEMARU/TSUYOSHI KIKUCHI

This winds up being similar to the 2/17 junior tag, in the sense that the match is a lot more heated than the work really deserves. But this is mostly due to the NOAH guys (mostly Kanemaru, but Kikuchi has a moment of his own) doing some goofy things. The clipping also hurts this, since it picks up after Tanaka had worn down Kikuchi’s arm for a bit, and with an armbar being the finish, it’d have been nice to see exactly what Kikuchi had endured, and if he was selling as well as he was when the arm work was tapering off. However, what really stands out here are Lyger and Tanaka being absolute rudo emperors, they do anything and everything to get the crowd riled up and that much more behind their guys. And, after suffering a couple of fouls from the New Japan team, Kanemaru decides he’s had enough and tackles Lyger and starts tearing at his mask and the fans at Ariake come unglued.

Unfortunately, just after the mask bit is where Kanemaru starts to go downhill. He goes right to his moonsault and Lyger kicks out at one, which really isn’t that big a deal since Lyger was still angry about the mask ripping and hadn’t really taken any punishment. Then, Lyger clocks him with a shotei, and Kanemaru decides he’s kicking out at one too. Then, they really get stupid with a dualling brainbuster sequence where Kanemaru spikes Lyger and tries to roll into a second one, only for Lyger to then spike him. Thankfully, they both tag out after that so that Kikuchi and Tanaka can work a pretty good finish, other then Kikuchi blowing off the German suplex. What’s even more odd about the no sold suplex is that it’s followed by Tanaka hitting a roundhouse kick and then trapping him in the Minoru Special, for a decent amount of time, while Kikuchi sells great and fights for the ropes. Kikuchi may have survived the Minoru Special, but his arm is back to being a target and after he kicks out when Tanaka covers after another kick, Tanaka goes right back to a juji-gatame and with Kanemaru tied up and Kikuchi having no hope of making the ropes again, the referee has to step in.

The best moments, namely the mask ripping, Lyger and Tanaka’s double teaming Kanemaru in the corner, and the opening attack on the ramp from Lyger to Kikuchi, leave the better parts of the 2/17 match in the dust. But, between the clipping and the goofiness down the home stretch, the match as a whole doesn’t hit that same level as February. Despite its faults, this is still a great continuation of the juniors feud and it’s the best thing on this tape by far.

MITSUHARU MISAWA vs. KODO FUYUKI

Old rivals from 1990 reunite after going down vastly different career paths. As an actual match, this is nothing all that special, although it’s realistically as good as one could probably expect given Fuyuki’s health issues. It’s your standard fare Misawa singles match, where he takes punishment and sells admirably for his opponent before making his comeback and winning with his usual stuff. Other than a couple of big spots when he catches Misawa in the corner, Fuyuki’s offense mainly consists of running lariats and prop shots. The chairs, table, and Kanemura interference are more suitable for FMW than NOAH, but it garners a nice crowd reaction, so it’s hard to fault them for it. However, it’s Misawa who makes it work by selling as much as possible. Fuyuki’s constant use of the lariat comes back and bites him when he charges into an elbow shot, and from there on Misawa starts rolling out near falls from his lower end spots (frog splash, Tiger driver, facelock). There’s a brief moment when it seems like Fuyuki can take over when he dodges an elbow and hits a lariat to the back, but he calls for another charging lariat and runs himself right into another elbow (complete with a great sell from him), and one more standing elbow and then a running elbow (well, it’s more like Misawa hits the ropes and takes two steps) puts him away.

Conclusion: There’s nothing amazing here, but once you get past the two GHC Tag Titles matches, this is certainly watchable. It’s a bit like the last couple of NOAH commercial tapes, in that it’s a nice chronicle of what was happening with all the titles, but that’s about it.