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NJPW COMPLETE COLLECTION # 2

March 2003

This is a commercial release detailing undercard clips, and the complete IWGP junior and heavyweight title matches from the respective 3/9 and 3/23 cards. How exactly that makes this a “complete” collection, I don’t know.

Enson Inoue . . . looks and acts like he wants to tear apart everyone associated with the Makai Club.

Manabu Nakanishi . . . plods his way through a one-hour draw with Yuji Nagata.

Scott Norton . . . probably wishes he’d have called Bret Hart and asked for tips about doing the Sharpshooter.

TAKASHI IIZUKA vs. MAKAI #5

Between their first attempt at the match, and the restart, there’s almost two minutes of action. Thank god it was shown in complete form! If nothing else, Iizuka and Makai nee Nagai act like they want to kill each other, even if they don’t actually do anything. They trade punches and fight on the floor until they both get counted out. The referee restarts it and Iizuka runs into a head kick that KO’s him, and Nagai drops fists on him until the ref calls it off.

ENSON INOUE/HIRO SAITO/TATSUTOSHI GOTO/MICHIYOSHI OHARA vs. TADAO YASUDA/KAZUNARI MURAKAMI/RYUSHI YANAGISAWA/MAKAI #1

Hardly any of this is shown, but the little that we do get to see shows that Enson puts the Crazy in “Crazy Dogs.” He wants to hurt someone, and his partners do what they can to keep others out of the way so that he can do it. The ref throws it out, but, Enson isn’t finished yet and gets in some shots to Hoshino to really keep the fun going.

JYUSHIN LYGER/KOJI KANEMOTO © vs. AKIRA/HEAT (IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles)

Most of what is shown is between Kanemoto and Tanaka, and, because Kanemoto doesn’t feel like selling and Tanaka can’t be bothered to do anything sensibly, it isn’t anything special. The clip starts with the two of them trading strikes, before AKIRA runs in and knocks down Kanemoto and does the Musasabi press. But, rather than taking advantage and pinning Kanemoto, Tanaka decides to ground and pound him. He doesn’t try to pin him until after AKIRA gets back into the ring (after the Musasabi, he dove onto Lyger on the floor) and holds Kanemoto for a series of kicks. The only nice thing from Tanaka is his fisherman’s buster near fall, which Lyger has to break up. But, then it’s Kanemoto’s turn to act goofy. After the fisherman’s buster, he surprises Tanaka with an overhead suplex, and then jumps to his feet to give AKIRA a knee strike and then give AKIRA the moonsault, rather than Tanaka, who’s legal. Like Tanaka, he gets one good suplex near fall, when he counters Tanaka into a Tiger suplex. But, then they go back off the deep end, with a sequence where they kick each other in the head, before Kanemoto surprises Tanaka with a rolling cradle. I guess the idea was that Kanemoto’s kick rang Tanaka’s bell and kept him down. Only the clip showed that it was Tanaka giving the head shots (and head drop) to Koji. This clip greatly suffered from a lack of Lyger.

MASAHIRO CHONO/HIROYOSHI TENZAN © vs. YOSHIHIRO TAKAYAMA/SHINYA MAKABE (IWGP Tag Team Titles)

Like the other tag titles match, this is clipped to the last few minutes, which seems to be for the best, unless you’re a Makabe hater and want to see him made to look like fecal matter. It starts with Makabe already busted open, but he and Takayama are taking turns dropping elbows and seem to have the match in control. Makabe accidentally eats a kick from Takayama, and Tenzan and Chono take advantage and try to finish him off quickly. The only smart thing here is Tenzan trying to bleed Makabe dry with a Buffalo sleeper before pinning him. The near falls from the Yakuza kicks and diving headbutt don’t come off well, because, even with Makabe bleeding, they don’t make great contact. Makabe kicks out of two Yakuza kicks from Chono in a row, surprises him with his spear, and then gets pinned after Chono more or less runs into him, picture the Santana/Valentine Lumberjack Match finish, only not nearly as well executed.

YUJI NAGATA © vs. MANABU NAKANISHI (IWGP Heavyweight Title)

From a structural standpoint, this pretty much plays out as expected, with both of them getting long control segments with a big focus on working over specific body parts. The last minute or so is a sprint, with them trying to beat the clock and win the match, but the time limit expires before either of them wins. But, to no surprise to anyone familiar with these two, the actual match is far from pretty.

The early feeling out portion honestly isn’t bad, unless one’s idea of good matwork is akin to what they’d see in a UWFI setting. They work some basic sequences on the mat, and they come out looking equal, with neither of them able to get a distinct advantage. There’s a fun moment when Nagata is trying to secure Nakanishi’s arm, and Nakanishi hits a big chop to stop Nagata, and Nagata fires back with a kick to break up the sequence. But, once that’s over with, Nakanishi shows exactly what we can expect from him. He charges into an overhead suplex, and blows it off just so he can hit another chop, which Nagata puts over.

While it was probably for the best for them to spend the match focusing on body parts, neither of them is especially interesting about it. It’s nice to see Nakanishi trying to wear down Nagata’s back with a crossface or Nagata breaking out Bret Hart’s old ringpost figure four, but, neither of them does much to work those holds. Even when Nakanishi gets Nagata in the Argentine Backbreaker, he’s content to stand there and let Nagata put the hold over by making pained faces or flailing his limbs. The first time Nagata is able to break the hold by grabbing Nakanishi around the neck for a quasi-sleeper hold, but later on, when he tries that again, Nakanishi “puts more pressure on” and it forces Nagata to break the sleeper. But, everything that we see is from Nagata. Nagata isn’t much better, he uses a little more variety of holds to wear down Nakanishi’s leg, and later his arm, but, aside from the struggle that comes from doing the Nagata Lock III, Nagata shows the same lack of embellishment when he’s working those holds. Well, there is one nice part where Nakanishi tries using a claw to get Nagata to break the Nagata Lock. Nagata puts it over for a minute and then cranks a bit on Nakanishi’s leg to get him to let go of it, but, it works more for comedy than anything else.

As if the pedestrian work wasn’t enough, they also make sure to add in some horrible ideas as far as selling goes. Their selling is fine when they’re actually in the Argentine Backbreaker, armbar, Nagata Lock etc. But, it’s the aftermath of it that’s so frustrating. After Nakanishi spent what seemed like an eternity in the Nagata Lock, one of his first ideas is to go back to the Backbreaker. You’d think that having had his leg worked over for so long might impede his ability to do it, but, he gets it on just fine. It’s only when Nagata flails in pain that Nakanishi’s leg gives out. It’s the same thing later on, after an extended sequence of Nagata using an armbar, Nagata snaps the arm over his shoulder, and Nakanishi decides that it’s the perfect time to grab Nagata for a surprise Exploder suplex. But, the absolute worst comes when Nagata hits a pair of jumping kicks to the head. Nakanishi doesn’t no-sell. Instead, he slumps down like he’s unconscious, but does so while still being on his feet. Of course, a minute later, he’s completely rejuvenated and fighting with everything he’s got to stop Nagata from doing the backdrop. Nagata does the same thing. Despite being in the Backbreaker four separate times, and having his back run into the post, Nagata’s back doesn’t prevent him from pulling off any of his suplexes, or from getting any holds fully applied.

They pretty much run out of things to do as the match winds down, although the crowd reaction for Nakanishi’s German suplex was certainly impressive (despite his poor execution of it), so the last minute or so is them trading flash cradles for near falls until the time runs out. I’ve never seen the one-hour draw between Nagata and Chono from October of ‘02, but, I’d be surprised if it’s as bad as this (not that I’m in a hurry to find out). Nakanishi had issues going for thirty with Nishimura the year before, so why anyone thought he had it in him to go twice as long is beyond me. It wasn’t like New Japan had any big plans in store for Nakanishi that would have been jeopardized by his putting over Nagata. Simply put, it’s a one-hour draw between two wrestlers that had no business having a one-hour draw.

TAKASHI IIZUKA vs. MITSUYA NAGAI

This time they have an actual match, rather than just a couple of short brawling segments. At first it looks like they’re going to pick up where they left off on 3/9, but, then Iizuka catches one of Nagai’s kick and rams it into the post, which works so much better than the tired sequence of Nagai simply missing his target and hitting the post. Iizuka, as expected, goes right after it. When Nagai won’t tap to the ankle lock, Iizuka starts planting him with suplexes, and a second attempt at the hold garners the submission. It’s still really short, but, the intensity was welcome, and it was nice to see them attempt to have a good match instead of just brawling.

ENSON INOUE/MICHIYOSHI OHARA vs. TADAO YASUDA/KAZUNARI MURAKAMI

More continuation from 3/9. Enson and Murakami are dying to get at one another, and their partners let them. Enson escapes Murakami’s Triangle choke and puts on a juji-gatame that looks ridiculously tight. Yasuda saves his partner from a broken arm, Ohara intervenes, Murakami clocks the ref trying to get back at Enson, and the match gets thrown out. The rest of the Makai Club and Crazy Dogs come out to keep brawling, and Hoshino makes sure to stay far away from Enson.

There are plenty of smart bits and things to like about this match, but the no-selling and goofiness drag it down. The idea of them wearing down each other’s legs for their respective submissions, the ankle lock and STF, is perfectly fine. There are lots of smart things they do to work back to that idea, such as Kanemoto’s missed moonsault landing knee-first, which gives AKIRA the opening for the Musasabi, which is easily the most heated near fall of the match. There’s a great moment when Kanemoto nearly gets the ropes to break the STF. AKIRA cranks on the hold a bit and Kanemoto stops, and the crowd reacts, wondering if he passed out. It’s also great to see Kanemoto getting AKIRA into the ankle lock by outsmarting him. The first one comes when he takes him down from the mat, which still lets him put over the STF. The second is a counter to AKIRA’s attempted Dragon suplex, and the one that finishes the match is when Kanemoto surprises him with takedown and rolls into the hold.

Kanemoto has always seemed to enjoy “working stiff” and AKIRA is more than capable of handing it back to him. But, this time it works in a different way than Kanemoto doing what he always does. It’s not on the same level of Iizuka/Nagai, but, it certainly helps establish just how much the former Team 2000 stablemates dislike each other. There’s also spots like AKIRA’s foul to escape the Tiger suplex, and, Kanemoto hitting his senton and punching AKIRA instead of going for the pin, to keep that in mind.

The lack of consistent selling when it comes to their legs having been worked over is the most frustrating thing about the match. Kanemoto has never been the greatest when it comes to selling, and, unfortunately, AKIRA isn’t a whole lot better. They both have their moments when they sell well, such as Koji’s missed moonsault, but, they’re both just as often to be found stiffing each other with kicks. As smart as Kanemoto’s methods of getting to his ankle lock spots were, they were preceded with some stupid things. There had to be a better way to get to the finish than Kanemoto pelting him with kicks and a jumping knee strike, before taking AKIRA down. Between the STF and the first ankle lock is AKIRA’s neckbreaker, and Kanemoto doing a kip up, so that AKIRA can knock him back down, and allow Kanemoto to take AKIRA down into the ankle lock. After the first ankle lock, AKIRA decides that the best way to get back on offense is with a dropkick and then returning the favor and giving Kanemoto a bunch of kicks.

The other really stupid thing here is AKIRA tapping out to the first ankle lock when the ref was out of view. Seeing as he was winning by submission, and he’d been champion for eight months, Kanemoto didn’t exactly need protecting. The hold didn’t need to be protected. Kanemoto had won every one of his title defenses with it. If anything, it should have been Kanemoto tapping out, to give the idea that AKIRA was good enough to beat him. Had they jettisoned silly things like that and the kip up sequence, and both of them sold in a more consistent manner, then this would easily stand alongside the 1/26 IWGP Jr. Tag Titles match as one of the best NJ juniors matches of the decade.

Wow, this is just as ugly as you would expect. If nothing else, the match has the sideshow appeal of seeing both Norton and Takayama take bumps that they’d normally not take, such as Norton taking a backdrop and German suplex, and Takayama going up for a superplex and powerbomb. There’s also Norton’s laughable attempt at giving Takayama the Sharpshooter. Takayama finally ends it with his running knee. As good as Takayama had become by this time, he obviously knew that he wasn’t going to get much out of Norton. So, rather than trying to do something, and not succeeding, both them just did what they like to do.

Conclusion: Some of the clipped stuff was fun, namely the various Makai Club matches. But, the two main matches both failed to deliver, so I simply can’t recommend this in good conscience.