KING OF PRO WRESTLING

October 8, 2012

Katsuyori Shibata . . . returns to the New Japan ring in a big way with a molten tag match.

Kazuchika Okada . . . continues to be awesome, even when having matches that have no business being awesome.

Minoru Suzuki . . . puts on a great performance in a very good main event.

YUJI NAGATA/MANABU NAKANISHI/STRONG MAN vs. TORU YANO/TAKASHI IIZUKA/TOMOHIRO ISHII

As expected, with Nakanishi and Strong Man involved, this is miles away from being even good. Nakanishi clearly has some ring rust, and there’s too much Nakanishi, and not enough Nagata, to make something out of this. CHAOS’ heel antics are always fun to watch, especially when they’re done at the expense of stupid things, like Nakanishi attempting his finishing submission less than five minutes into the match, but, even they take a backseat to Nakanishi. Nakanishi doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been seen before, although the German suplex to Yano was a nice touch, but it’s nice to see the crowd be so into everything he does, even if it doesn’t do anything for me. Nakanishi seems to have the match won, but the cheating commences and Yano steals the win after an assist from Iizuka.

ROCKY ROMERO/ALEX KOSLOV © vs. ALEX SHELLEY/KUSHIDA (IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles)

If you’re a fan of fast-paced and well-executed spotfests, then this is right up your alley. Their work is fine, all four of them have stuff to do, but, there’s no real story involved to make things matter. Koslov and Romero work over Shelley for a decent amount of time and build to a hot tag from KUSHIDA, but it’s not too hot a tag because they weren’t all that heelish and Shelley wasn’t all that sympathetic (although his selling, especially for Koslov, was good stuff). If anything, Romero looks like a babyface with how the finish goes, the challengers look to do their tandem Shiranui, but Romero stops Shelley and then counters and cradles KUSHIDA for the pin, there’s no cheating and Rocky gets no assist at all from Koslov. If nothing else, these four aren’t nearly as frustrating to watch as the Young Bucks, because they at least have some idea of what to do to build a match, even if they weren’t able to do it all that well this time.

KOTA IBUSHI © vs. LOW KI (IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title)

This wasn’t great, but it was much better than I was expecting. Once they flesh out the story of Low Ki wearing down Ibushi’s midsection, this really picks up, even though Ibushi loses his mind from time to time and forgets about it. If I never enjoy anything else Low Ki ever does, I’ll always have to give him props for avoiding the double moonsault in the obvious way (simply rolling out of the way both times) and then getting to his feet and shot gunning Ibushi the corner. Low Ki escaping the half-nelson suplex and hitting the stomp to the ribs was another good moment. Ibushi reigns himself in relatively well, for him anyway, and only does a couple of his flippy spots, but he also sells his midsection really well, even better than Shelley was selling for Koslov. But, again, he forgets about it from time to time to do big spots like the Last Ride into the corner. The botched finish actually somewhat works, with Ibushi slipping because he was so hurt that he could barely even stand, and Ki needing to use all of his strength to get him up where he needed to be for the super fisherman’s buster. ***1/4

HIROYOSHI TENZAN/SATOSHI KOJIMA © vs. LANCE ARCHER/DAVEY BOY SMITH Jr. (IWGP Tag Team Titles)

Take away the flashiness from the previous tag title match, and this is pretty much what you get. They follow the formula to a tee, but nobody steps up and tries to take charge to get them out of first gear, so, as a result, the match never gets out of first gear. Archer actually shows some personality and sells decently well for Tenzan, and TAKA takes a couple big bumps, but that’s about all there is that’s really notable here. The heels have their chance to work over Tenzan, but, they’re not interesting at all and Tenzan isn’t enough of a seller to make up the difference. Tenzan hot tags, Kojima gets in his stuff, but the bigger, and younger, team winds up prevailing after their powerbomb/full nelson slam combo.

TETSUYA NAITO vs. YUJIRO TAKAHASHI

This is fun for what it is, which is basically a five-minute squash. Naito’s leg is heavily taped up going into the match, but, he tries to fight through it, and has a little success. Naito tweaks his leg taking an armdrag and Yujiro takes advantage and doesn’t let up until the ref has to call it off. It’s fun to watch Yujiro do this thing, but, aside from the sweet figure four variation that ends things, there’s nothing from him that any number of good heels couldn’t do far better.

KAZUSHI SAKURABA/KATSUYORI SHIBATA vs. TOGI MAKABE/WATARU INOUE

Honestly, this is much more heated than it is good. Shibata and Sakuraba are years removed from working pro-style matches, and, while Makabe and Inoue aren’t terrible, they aren’t good enough to make up the difference. After the obligatory brawl to start, it settles down into a typical tag match, with the shooters working over Inoue, and building to a tag to Makabe. There are a few good moments sprinkled throughout, like Saku surprising Makabe with the fireman’s carry and then segueing into the keylock, and Inoue taking Shibata by surprise with the spear and trying to set him up for Makabe’s flying knee drop, only for Saku to shake the ropes to stop him. The return of Shibata to NJPW also means the return of the PK, even if this one doesn’t look all that great.

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. KARL ANDERSON (#1 Contender’s Match for the IWGP Heavyweight Title)

This is far better than it has any right to be, and is proof positive that Okada is much more ready to be a full-fledged ace than Nakamura was in 2004 during his first big push. Stylistically, it’s no different from Okada’s IWGP Title matches with Naito, or even Goto, Okada lets them reel off offense, sells hugely, works the neck, and wins with the Rainmaker. But, Anderson isn’t on the level of the prior IWGP challengers, so, working this sort of match is a big step up for him, and he rises to the occasion. Anderson pulls out all kinds of great surprise escapes and counters, and has Sumo Hall going into heart failure thinking that Okada is about to lose his chance at a rematch with Tanahashi. Anderson doesn’t do much more than pile on big spots, but he doesn’t need to, because every surprise neckbreaker or Bernard Driver gets the crowd going, and the close near falls makes things seem as though Anderson just needs one more big one to finally put Okada away. The finish gets a bit ridiculous with the constant Rainmaker and Gun Stun counters, including Anderson trying the Rainmaker and Okada trying the Gun Stun, but it doesn’t get too drawn out, and when Okada finally hits the Rainmaker everyone knows that Anderson is finally vanquished. It’s no surprise that this was an excellent match, with Okada involved, but Anderson stepped up to the plate and made his first big opportunity count. ***½

Take away all the good qualities of Okada/Anderson, which was well-structured, well-worked, and engaging, and what you have left is pretty much what Nakamura and Goto offer. They seem like they’re too concerned with the match being back-and-forth, with both of them getting in offense, that they forgo doing anything else. There isn’t a single spot from either of them that you can pinpoint as a major turning point. Their clunky sequence that leads to an armbar from Goto doesn’t mean anything because Nakamura doesn’t sell the arm very well, and Goto doesn’t work back to it. Their pile of strikes exchanges only serves to eat up time, Goto seems to have things under control after a good amount of elbows, but, it takes one shot from Nakamura to turn things around. The only thing that seems to be established is Goto’s hard head, with Nakamura hits a punch and sells his hand, and that works because it’s funny rather than any other reason. It’s rendered meaningless a minute later, when Nakamura stops a Goto headbutt with his fist and then hits the Boma Ye to retain. Hell, forget 2004 Nakamura, Okada looks a million miles ahead of 2012 Nakamura!

It’s clear that this is a good match. And, it’s a welcome sight after the IC Title match. But, this definitely doesn’t look like the best match of 2012. What Tanahashi and Suzuki do, is done very well. But, it’s nothing that we haven’t seen done many times before. Suzuki gets angry (in this case, it’s from Tanahashi using him to play the air guitar) and decides to try to take home one of his limbs along with the IWGP Title. Tanahashi fights fire with fire by sharking after Suzuki’s knee. It’s fun to watch them shark on each other’s body parts, even though it pretty much amounts to filler. Suzuki doesn’t try to win the match by going after Tanahashi’s arm, he sticks with more familiar weapons like the sleeper and the piledriver. And, like usual for the champ, all the time spent going after the knee only leads to the High Fly Flow for the finish. And, like usual for Suzuki, the wrestler who loves to look like he’s going into business for himself, is able to sell like crazy.

But, the make up for the lack of originality in story and structure, by kicking out a ton of creative and fun spots and counters, even before the limb work, Tanahashi does a remarkable job of working a simple headlock, rather than just using it as a rest hold. As the match winds down, Suzuki goes for his piledriver, but Tanahashi blocks, and then counters into a Dragon screw. The Texas Cloverleaf getting blocked wasn’t exactly a surprise, but Tanahashi turning a negative into a positive by going to a figure four was a very smart touch. Even the finish winds up being creative, even though it’s essentially getting from Point A to Point B the same way. Yes, it’s the High Fly Flow that puts Suzuki down, but, Tanahashi winds up doing it while Suzuki is standing, so it’s a flying body press instead of the standard splash, and it stuns him enough to let Tanahashi do the regular one to finish him off.

This isn’t flawless by any stretch. It would have been to see the limb work count for something, and the figure four and sleeper spots were both drawn out far too much. The sleeper wasn’t as bad as the figure four, but they both could have easily been chopped down considerably and not taken anything away from the match. The extended slap exchange also didn’t really serve any great purpose. It’s just as useless as the NOAH boys punting each other in the face. But, these few flaws don’t do anything to drag this down. It ends the show on a great note, even if the match itself isn’t as great as advertized. ***3/4

Conclusion: While I don’t think the main event is worthy of being MOTY, as a whole, this seems like a good pick for best show of the year, even with a few black marks on it. This is most definitely worthy of a pickup.