CIRCUIT 2009 NEW JAPAN GENERATION

September 27, 2009

Autumn is usually a cooling off period after an action packed summer, but not in New Japan! Nakamura and Makabe go to war one more time, this time with the IWGP Title hanging in the balance! CIMA and Fuji from Dragon Gate pop in to say hello. Masato Tanaka continues being awesome, and Koji Kanemoto beats on young boys!

Tiger Mask . . . thinks he’s Eddie Guerrero and that he can outsmart Giant Bernard and Cheat 2 Win.

Wataru Inoue . . . thinks he’s a bad ass on the level of Steve Austin, and he’s as wrong as it gets.

Shinsuke Nakamura . . . isn’t even a decent Chono knock off, let alone in Tanahashi’s league as the man.

Before the matches begin the injured Hiroshi Tanahashi appears and officially vacates the IWGP Heavyweight Title. The main event is made official with Shinsuke Nakamura and Togi Makabe signing the contract for the vacant title. Unlike when this sort of things happens on this side of the Pacific, the table stays up and it goes on without incident.

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. NOBUO YOSHIHASHI

This is your average young boy match, the same sort that Tenzan (as Yamamoto) would have with Kojima in ‘91, that Tanahashi and Inoue had in 2000, and that these two are having now. The intensity they both show is nice, and their work is competent enough, but there’s no reason to care one way or the other about the outcome of this. There’s some nice stuff toward the end with Okada’s armbars, and they create a little bit of doubt with the Okada getting the young boy killing crab hold on, only for Yoshihashi to make the ropes. But, Okada just casually yanks him back and puts it on again for the submission. There’s nothing bad here, but this isn’t anything that hasn’t been done a hundred times before by two other generic looking wrestlers in plain black tights.

TAKAO OMORI/KOJI KANEMOTO vs. SUPER STRONG MACHINE/MITSUHIDE HIRASAWA

Hey, it’s a young lion being used in a manner in which the fans can actually get behind him! Kanemoto and Omori are a couple of royal dicks to Hirasawa and the fans get behind him to make the comeback and hand it back, which does finally happen. Beyond that there isn’t much to see here. SSM looks pretty rough when he’s in the ring be it age, injuries, or lack of shape. The only thing he can really do is trade chops with Omori, and even that is hard on the eyes. Hirasawa does make his little comeback, although Koji makes sure he doesn’t look too good before going down. Hirasawa pops up and spears Koji as he tries the running boot scrape, and then gets a nice near fall on a German suplex. Koji makes his own save on an attempted double team and then counters a second German into the ankle lock, which Machine saves, before applying another one that makes Hirasawa tap out. It was nice to see Hirasawa used in a capacity that makes him matter, but it’d have probably come off better if he had he been paired off with Nagata or Inoue, rather than SSM.

TAKASHI IIZUKA vs. TOMOAKI HONMA

For the second time now, Honma faces a CHAOS member on the same card that Makabe is scheduled to face one in a high profile match. This isn’t much different than Honma’s match with Nakamura from July, although Iizuka is more willing to let Honma get in some offense and make him look good before he loses. I do wish Iizuka would show off more of his wrestling ability though, the brawling aspect is fine for chain matches with Tenzan and Nagata, but it gets tiresome in this setting. Again, it’s nice to see Iizuka bumping and selling for Honma, and the fact that he needed to resort to using the glove to win puts over Honma to an extent, which seems to be a lost concept on most everyone else.

MASAHIRO CHONO vs. KARL ANDERSON

If this is indicative of Chono’s motivational state and/or his abilities at this state in his career, then it’s time for him to hang it up. He does next to nothing other than casual brawling and his usual three spots (Yakuza kick, STF, shoulder block). He also doesn’t seem to think Anderson is worth the effort of any selling beyond minimal. Anderson isn’t a genius himself here. He seems to have the idea to work over Chono’s neck area, which seems fine, but all he uses are headlocks and the occasional elbow. A headlock strategy has proven to be effective against Chono, as shown by Kobashi, but Anderson is no Kobashi and it shows here. Anderson also has the bright idea of getting the ropes to break the STF and the popping back up like he’s completely refreshed. I suppose it’s worth praising Chono for using the Shining Yakuza kick to finish off Anderson, after he’d kicked out of the regular one earlier in the match, but that’s stretching for positives.

MASATO TANAKA/GEDO/JADO vs. HIROOKI GOTO/RYUSUKE TAGUCHI/PRINCE DEVITT

This isn’t bad, although it’s nothing special either. Tanaka and Goto mostly stay out of this, aside from the occasional cheap shots at each other on the apron, and the let the four juniors work the bulk of the match to continue their feud. It’s mostly by the formula, which is usually best for Jado and Gedo, but it comes off a bit flat because Tanaka seems to be the only one that’s really motivated, and he’s not in the match a whole lot. Hell, the best moment of the heel control segment on Taguchi was Jado’s misfiring lariat that hits Gedo, and Gedo’s huge oversell.

The action picks up a bit after the hot tag and subsequent breakdown of the match, which sees the junior tag champs taking it to Tanaka, and Devitt getting several close near falls on him. The only real mark against the match comes after Jado clocks Devitt with the kendo stick for a great near fall, Devitt pops up and hits a big spinning kick to Tanaka and then slumps back down. I’m not sure what he was thinking on that one. Thankfully, Tanaka takes charge just after that giving Devitt one more good near fall from a brainbuster and then finishing him with the Sliding D. It’s probably not a good thing that the best worker in the match was the one who wasn’t in the ring all that much, but maybe a few months of teaming with Tanaka will rub off on Gedo and Jado.

MANABU NAKANISHI/AKIRA vs. CIMA/DON FUJI

I wonder who had the brilliant idea of putting Nakanishi in this match? The only person who could do a worse job of making CIMA and Fuji look good would be Sasaki. This actually isn’t too hard on the eyes when AKIRA in involved, he and CIMA work all of the good sequences, and it’s fun to watch him heel things up with Fuji. But, like Tanaka in the previous match, he spends far too much time on the ring apron while Nakanishi tries to work comedy with Fuji (well, it was funny to see him try to take a rana from CIMA) and generally makes the DG guys look like jobbers. For the most part, the DG guys try to make do with what they have, but the usual result is them throwing a to of chops at Nakanishi to no avail. It probably should have dawned on one of them to channel SUWA and punt Nakanishi in the grapefruits. CIMA and Fuji don’t do anything especially new or exciting if you’ve seen their work before, although Fuji’s assist on CIMA’s Tornado DDT was nice, and with AKIRA mostly on the apron, the finish doesn’t really have much more meaning beyond CIMA hitting the Meteora at the right time so AKIRA couldn’t be saved.

GIANT BERNARD vs. TIGER MASK

I don’t blame Bernard and TM for trying to do something other than a typical squash, but I think I’d have preferred the squash, at least it’d have been short. Instead we get this being dragged out for almost twelve minutes, most of which is overbooking cribbed from the main event of a 1989 episode of WWF Prime Time Wrestling. They plod along with Bernard not really needing to put in much effort and TM not having much luck getting anything going, aside from almost winning via count out. The ref goes down (in typical U.S. fashion, after barely being grazed) and Bernard brings in a chair and then forgets about it so he can take off the mask. While he and Anderson are celebrating, TM has re-masked and hits Bernard with the chair to finally hurt him. The ref comes to and TM tries pulling a Guerrero, but it doesn’t work, although he does kick the chair in Bernard’s face while Bernard is complaining to the ref. But, it only angers Bernard and he winds up upping the intensity and finishing off TM with the Bernard driver. If nothing else, Bernard’s reactions to the near falls toward the end were nice, but that’s about all worth praising here.

YUJI NAGATA/WATARU INOUE vs. TORU YANO/TOMOHIRO ISHII

For the first five minutes, this looked like it was going to be something special. It started with a quick brawl with all four, and then it settled down to Nagata and Ishii exchanging strikes, with Ishii being smart enough to sell his arm after a bit, and leading to Nagata and Inoue focusing their strikes to his arm and give some meaning to a usually prerequisite segment in New Japan matches. But, that’s about as good as the match gets. Once Ishii gets out and it’s CHAOS’ turn to have some fun at Wataru’s expense the match plateaus in a hurry. Inoue just isn’t very sympathetic while Yano and Ishii are working him over. The only really nice moment comes when Yano tries to get the cheap win by count out, and Inoue just makes it into the ring, and even that was done more effectively by Bernard and TM. There’s nothing notable from Inoue as far as selling goes and he’s hellbent on making his own fired up comeback instead of letting the heels build the heat and then making the big tag.

When Nagata does tag in and start cleaning house, the crowd barely even makes a murmur and Nagata tags Inoue back in after a relatively short thrashing of Ishii and Yano. Inoue’s second run is a bit better the second time, because he lets the heels do their thing, but it’s also rather short lived because Nagata makes the save soon after. Nagata tries to back off and let Inoue get the win over Yano, but Ishii thwarts that with a well-timed chair shot to save the day for CHAOS. If Inoue was replaced by Hirasawa (as weird as that sounds) or if Inoue knew his role, this could have been the standout match of the show, but it’s just another mostly forgettable heavyweight tag match.

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. TOGI MAKABE (Decision Match for the vacant IWGP Heavyweight Title)

If nothing else, this shows what a consistent and sustained push can accomplish, which is something of a problem in Japan when it comes to pushing younger wrestlers. Three years before this, Tanahashi was new IWGP Champion and didn’t have an ounce of credibility as the title holder, but he grew into the role over time. By the time the final bell rings, Makabe, the G1 winner, is a total non contender and Nakamura can’t even lay claim to being Ronnie Garvin, because Garvin at least beat Flair for the title, not Tully.

Nakamura’s main problem is that he seems to have taken his role as the next generation’s Masahiro Chono too much to heart. For all his physical limitations, Chono had charisma to burn and he could always be counted on to add a sense of importance to matches when needed. Nakamura looks a bit Chono-esque when he throws kicks at Makabe’s arm, but there’s no personality at all, and Tanahashi of all people leaves him in the dust when it comes to being a dick heel and sharking a body part. Nakamura isn’t really all that different here than he was in July against Honma, except that Makabe doesn’t fold as easily, so Nakamura has to do more to keep him down. The long stretch of arm kicking doesn’t lead to anything beyond some decent heat when Nakamura will catch Makabe in an armbar, and it has zero impact on the finish.

This has other problems aside from Nakamura though. There’s the boring opening portion where they lay on the mat and accomplish nothing, not to mention that almost nobody, least of all Makabe, should be winning mat exchanges (no matter how basic they are) with Nakamura. There’s the beyond stupid no-selling and pop-up sequence. There’s Nakamura channeling the spirit of Curt Hennig with overdone bumps, normally not a bad thing, but two minutes before the finish isn’t time for the next champion to be bouncing like a pinball. Then there’s the finish itself, which is Nakamura hitting the Boma Ye out of nowhere (not in a good way) and has zero build, other than the fact that Makabe blocked it earlier and had just missed his diving knee drop. I’d said before that I was waiting for the heel turn to bring something out of Nakamura, five months later and I’m not only still waiting, I’m missing the old Nakamura, at least he seemed like he gave a damn.

Conclusion: Very disappointing stuff this time around, none of the match really seemed to click all that well. There are a few bright spots, Masato Tanaka and the CIMA/AKIRA exchanges for instance, but there is nothing here to go out of your way for.