FUKUOKA DREAM NIGHT

October 18, 2003

A very fitting name of this show, as it has several instances of things you’d not expect to see. This was also during the time period when NJPW screwing something up would seem more like a case of bad luck, than a certainty.

Mike Barton . . . stands out as the lone highlight to an otherwise waste of time trios match.

Enson Inoue . . . isn’t a pro wrestler, but still manages to perform better than his tag partner and opponents.

Yuji Nagata . . . puts on a very good performance in helping to elevate a lower ranked opponent.

HIROOKI GOTO vs. AKIYA ANZAWA

Typical New Japan rookie stuff here. Both Goto and Anzawa improved a lot since this took place, although that in itself doesn’t say a whole lot. Look no further than the blown ending to see evidence of that. Considering how clipped up the match is, there’s no real reason the match couldn’t have simply been scrapped from the broadcast. Goto using a variation of the Minoru Special is rather ironic given the successful tag team he and Tanaka formed, although it takes him two tries to get it applied. The initial attempt goes wrong when Anzawa doesn’t know what Goto is doing and levels him with a forearm, and after realizing they screwed up, they hurriedly do the spot over, only Anzawa’s feet are in the ropes, so he takes them off before tapping out.

HEAT/MASAHITO KAKIHARA/TIGER MASK vs. WATARU INOUE/RYUSUKE TAGUCHI/SUPER CRAZY

What the hell is that thing on Inoue’s face? If what’s shown here was good enough to make the cut, then I’d really hate to see what got left off. What’s shown is nothing really ‘bad’ but it’s far from engaging. Taguchi and Kakihara may as well not even be present, Kakihara doesn’t do anything of note other than the Kaki Cutter at the end when they all do their finishers to Inoue, and aside from the ass stomping in the beginning, Taguchi doesn’t provide anything. The other four are more active in the match, but they pretty much just run through their stuff. The only real notable moments of the match are Crazy’s dives, and a few nice kicks out of Heat. The fact that Wataru has to take finishers from all three of his opponents before getting pinned by Tiger Mask was probably designed to show his growth and give him a bit of rub, although it seems to me that getting a meaningful run of offense against Tiger Mask or Heat would have accomplished that much better.

MIKE BARTON/JIM STEELE/SHINYA MAKABE vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA/TORU YANO/BLUE WOLF

It shouldn’t be surprising that this is pretty much a one man show, but what is surprising is that the one man in question is Mike Barton. The other five are all capable workers but seem unable to do much of anything to make an interesting match. The match itself is similar to the trios match that came before it, where building a match and telling a story is forgone in favor of everyone simply rolling out their stuff. Barton is just as guilty as they are in that regard, but he at least adds some fun moments to the mix. Barton and Blue Wolf have a decidedly decent chain-wrestling sequence to start the match off. When Barton is in control for his team, he uses his power-based offense to throw out some nice spots, and a nice diving elbow off the top. Before he finishes off Yano with the Barton bomb, he gives him a few good nearfalls. Compare what Barton does to Nakamura, who was less than two months away from being the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, who shows off a jumping knee smash, and inability to give Steele a full nelson. And lucky me, this was the first match to be shown in full

MANABU NAKANISHI/ENSON INOUE vs. TADAO YASUDA/RYUSHI YANAGISAWA

The only way it might have been possible to have a worse match then this, would be to replace Inoue with Yoshie. Or strike up a deal with NOAH and bring in their Inoue. The pre-match antics with Hoshino talking smack and beating Nakanishi down with the microphone are better than anything else that happens. Yasuda shows off the impressive skills that led him to the IWGP Title in 2002, such as hitting below the belt and a poorly executed double arm suplex, not to mention his failure to properly apply a crab hold. Yanagisawa packs a decent kick, but isn’t any better, putting on a camel clutch to Nakanishi, and it’s Manabu who winds up hooking the arms behind the knees. Enson at least brings a nice level of intensity to the match, but he’s never in the ring for a long period of time, giving us the pleasure of long stretches of Nakanishi getting beaten down. When Enson and Manabu put on dual submissions, leading to Makai I interfering, the crowd does wake up a but it doesn’t lead anywhere. The lead to the finish run isn’t even a real mis-communication by the Makai Club, Yanagisawa whips Nakanishi into the corner and hits a running knee, and when Yasuda tries to charge in he misses. Yasuda gets pitched with a German and Yanagisawa submits to the Argentine Backbreaker. Nakanishi and Inoue are happy they won, the fans are happy that they won, and I’m just happy that the match is finally over.

KOJI KANEMOTO/JYUSHIN “THUNDER” LYGER © vs. GEDO/KATSUSHI TAKEMURA (IWGP Jr. Tag Team Titles)

The sight of Jado with the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title draped over his shoulder brings a tear to my eye. If I took wrestling as seriously as I used to, I might be driven to thoughts of self-torture or suicide by that sight. The booking of the finish here (Kanemoto over Takemura with the Ankle Lock) is fine, but the road to the finish has quite a few bumps. The Jado/Gedo/Takemura trio had been on a rampage for a couple of months and had roughed up the champions several times, so Koji and Lyger being hell bent on killing them is fine, and they do just that in the early going, but when it’s time for the challengers to actually do something useful they fall embarrassingly short. The big shift in momentum comes after Jado trips up Lyger on the floor, and holds him so Gedo can carve him up with a spike, and give him some color. With Lyger hurt (and doing a great job selling it) the challengers’ big strategy is to simply punch Lyger over and over again in the head. It works for putting over their vicious nature, but does precious little in terms of telling a story and building a match. It’s more excusable with Takemura due to his lack of real experience, but Gedo had shown before (and would show again two weeks later in NOAH) how capable a worker he can be, with his ability to use an overbooking tactic to get a real advantage.

The lack of real offense from the challengers isn’t the only thing that holds this down though. Another big factor is their obvious lack of chemistry together. In the whole match, they only use two double team moves. The Leapfrog Backbreaker (made famous by Badd Company and Team Angle/TWGTT) and Gedo holding Lyger for a missile dropkick which misses. Lyger is excellent as always here, doing a damn fine sell job when the heels are beating him down, and the finally mounting a comeback. One of the best moments in the match was Takemura charging at Lyger, and running straight into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Thankfully, Kanemoto really isn’t in the ring all that much, and the bulk of the time that he’s in there, he’s on offense, so his selling (or lack thereof) isn’t given a chance to really bog things down. Some might complain about the ref bump and Jado’s run in, but considering the middling amount of offense that the challengers had used, it was the only time that the champions looked to be in danger of losing. Takemura’s missed moonsault and Koji slapping th Ankle Lock for the submission is a good finish, but the match itself needed the challengers to bring more to the table.

MINORU SUZUKI vs. KAZUNARI MURAKAMI

Forget all that stuff that ROH always says about how WWE forces people to hold back and ‘work with limitations,’ potentially the most fun match ever is reduced to something that Big Show matches are usually reduced to, the type of match you go take a leak or go get some nachos during. Instead of Suzuki being a punk and Murakami being insane, they spend a couple of minutes trading a waist lock, and working a guard, until Murakami lets the fists fly and gets disqualified for throwing the ref down. Nakamura runs in to attack Murakami and the Makai Club run in, and then Makabe and Takayama run them off. Hoshino offers Suzuki a spot in Makai and he seems to accept it, and doesn’t even punk out Hoshino in the end. I demand a refund and I didn’t even pay for the tape of this show.

MASAHIRO CHONO vs. YUTAKA YOSHIE

How fitting that a match that could only happen in one’s nightmares, takes place on a show called ‘Fukuoka Dream Night.’ It’s not the worst match in the world (or even Yoshie’s career), but it’s still the bland and boring Yutaka Yoshie taking on the broken down and injured Masahiro Chono. Neither Chono nor Yoshie is the greatest at bringing offense to the match, so you can only imagine how this is worked for nine-tenths of the time. Chono uses the Yakuza kick a bunch and Yoshie uses lots of punches and lariats. There is one nice stretch of about a minute, where Yoshie goes after Chono’s knee, but it’s all to brief. Chono takes a nice flipping bump from the initial shot at the leg, and Yoshie uses his weight to attack the leg. But just as fast as the knee was the target, the focus is gone. This match does succeed in getting Yoshie’s release German suplex over as a legit finisher, when it re-injures Chono’s neck, but like most good things that happened to Yoshie in NJPW, it wouldn’t last. It’s hard to fault Yoshie for panicking when he realized he’d injured Chono and slap on a crab hold for the win, although it’d have been interesting to see Yoshie display some sort of mean streak and put on a neck submission hold.

YUJI NAGATA vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI

The goal here is simply to make Tanahashi look like a million bucks, even in defeat, and as the next big star of the promotion. In that simple regard, the match contains the usual things that go along with that, such as the hot near falls where Tanahashi seems to be getting closer and closer to that win that will surely shoot him into superstardom. What makes this stand out though is how good a job Nagata, and mostly Nagata alone, does at making Tanahashi’s offense actually seem capable of putting away the former and longest reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion. The early portion of the match features lots of ‘learned’ spots, with both Nagata and Tanahashi using several counters, reversals, and dodges to stay ahead of each other. The spot where they continuously block and counter the juji-gatame with Tanahashi finally winning out was a bit obvious, considering Nagata just had Tanahashi in the move a few minutes earlier. But Nagata makes up for it by really going all out with selling the arm after he gets the ropes for the break. Nagata also does similar sell jobs with Tanahashi’s sleeper hold and Dragon sleeper. There are times Nagata overdoes things, like when he seems to faint on the apron after Tanahashi hooks a sleeper hold on over the ropes, and when he does his big belly flop soon afterwards when Tanahashi attempts the Irish whip. Nagata’s sell job when Tanahashi hits his dropkick off the top to Yuji’s back is another overreach by Nagata. He literally runs full speed ahead to the corner.

While Nagata’s overselling is a bit much, he always has a nice offensive move ready when he needs to take back control of things. When Tanahashi has his first major control segment of the match on the floor, Nagata stops it cold with an Exploder on the floor. A bit later on he levels Tanahashi with a wicked kick to the chest. And when he finally gets to finish him off, Nagata channels the spirit of Kawada for a big face kick, an enzuigiri, and the bridging backdrop to finally end things. The big failing of the match is thanks to Tanahashi though. Simply put, he doesn’t do a single thing out of the ordinary for him to show how much he’s trying to put away Nagata. His reactions and facials to Nagata’s kick outs are great, and he’s good at playing to the crowd, but when it comes to his actual offense it’s same old same old, with the exception of a slap to the face in the early going. The Dragon sleeper and Dragon suplex both make for good near falls, but other than that all he has are a bunch of roll-ups and cradles. The cradle out of the Exploder was especially nice, but nobody would believe that Nagata could be put away that way, and ending things on that note would have made it look like a fluke than Tanahashi truly digging down for the win. It’s sort of sad in that aspect, with how much Nagata was stepping up to help elevate Tanahashi, and the guy he was trying to help elevate couldn’t follow suit. ***1/4

HIROYOSHI TENZAN/OSAMU NISHIMURA vs. YOSHIHIRO TAKAYAMA/TOA (G1 Tag League)

Aside from the booking helping to build up the anticipation for the Tenzan/Takayama IWGP Title showdown on 11/3, there’s very little here of any real interest or substance. Nishimura is ahead of the other three by a country mile in terms of bringing good offense, and he does a fine job of putting over TOA’s strikes. The punch-chop-kick style that gets worked for most of the match makes sense due to TOA’s limitations as a pro wrestler, but makes for a far from interesting match. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of storytelling or sense of real buildup going on at all. Sure Tenzan pinning Takayama after the TTD heats up their rivalry, but other than that their exchanges were the same punch-kick-Mongolian chop stuff that Tenzan had worked with TOA. The big catalyst to Tenzan hitting the TTD for the win was a mis-communication by Takayama and TOA, ending with TOA leveling Takayama and allowing Tenzan and Nishimura to finish him off. But there wasn’t any sort of storytelling or buildup to lead up to that either. The more one thinks about it, the more it seems like the only intended lasting memory of the match is that Tenzan pinned Takayama, which he’d already done in August in the semi finals of the G1, and when you consider that this is also a preview of what the G1 Tag League finals were going to be, it seems even more odd that there wasn’t any effort to lay any groundwork or tell a story.

Conclusion: Despite a good effort from Nagata, and a fun Jr Tag Titles defense by the Unbeatables, there’s just too much here that needs to be waded through in order to get to the good stuff. Recommendation to avoid Fukuoka Dream Night.