CIRCUIT 2008 NEW JAPAN BRAVE

April 27, 2008

New Japan continues the interpromotional fun, with participation from All Japan, ZERO1 MAX, and TNA. Tenzan is after GBH and wants two things, revenge and gold! Shinjiro Ohtani and Masato Tanaka treat Ryusuke Taguchi like they own him. And he may have dethroned his generation rival to win the title and then bested the American Olympian to retain it, but one challenge remains for the Supernova . . .

Tetsuya Naito . . . appears to be one of the New Japan Young Lions to be keeping an eye on down the road.

Togi Makabe . . . makes Tenzan bleed like he’s trying to make Muta jealous.

Keiji Mutoh . . . proves that younger is not always better, by more or less schooling young Nakamura.

GEDO/JADO/KARL ANDERSON vs. YUJIRO/MITSUHIDE HIRASAWA/KAZUCHIKA OKADA

Who are these two guys teaming with Anderson and what did they do with Gedo and Jado? Hopefully the real Gedo and Jado are locked away in isolation, because I like these guys better. Jado and Yujiro start off by working the mat and Jado keeps right up with him, and it rules. Gedo and Hirasawa have exchanges to get over Hirasawa’s gimmick of having a hard head. The only one who doesn’t look good is Anderson, if he put as much effort into wrestling as he does into yelling and stomping around he’d probably be pretty good, but he looks like a smaller version of Giant Bernard while he was in All Japan. The only thing that Anderson does to make the other team look good, is get caught in a dead lift from Hirasawa and let Okada hit a big slap to the face, and right after the slap Okada runs into a sloppy spine buster (from an Anderson of all people!) and then Anderson does the “stun gun” a cross between an RKO and Stone Cold Stunner to finish him off. Okada is the only member of the young boys team that doesn’t really get to stand out, but that’s to be expected with him losing the match. Five minutes doesn’t really seem like enough time for six wrestlers to work, but they made the most of it by cutting out any real filler.

MINORU TANAKA/MILANO COLLECTION AT vs. SHIRO KOSHINAKA/AKIRA

The second match of the night that doesn’t bother with time killing filler and gets right to the point. The point being establishing Koshinaka’s hip attack as a dangerous move. Milano and Koshinaka have a brief moment of silliness with chop exchanges and no-selling, and then Milano dropkicks Koshinaka’s knee and sends him to the floor where he mocks Koshinaka and tries the hip attack and misses. Koshinaka then shows him how it’s done with a hip attack off the apron that sends Milano tumbling over the guardrail. Koshinaka’s hip attack also indirectly leads to the finish when Tanaka reverses the Irish whip and AKIRA gets hit with the hip attack and enables Milano to get the win with the Victoria Milanese. Other than the hip attack stuff, there’s not much else of note, Tanaka and AKIRA have a quick flashy stand off sequence and then Koshinaka has his way with Tanaka for a bit, but there’s nothing of any real consequence. The match makes its point about Koshinaka’s hip attack and gets out of the way.

HIROOKI GOTO/GIANT BERNARD vs. TOMOHIRO ISHII/TOMOAKI HONMA

If you’re a fan of pedestrian brawling then this will be right up your alley, since that’s what about nine-tenths of this match is made up of. It’s supposed to be GBH’s specialty, but doesn’t always make sense. Why would the GBH B-Team give this much trouble to the gaijin ace and one of the top young guns in the company? Let alone that Bernard is probably bigger than Honma and Ishii put together. But that’s just what happens, GBH seems to have no problem knocking them both around, and the RISE duo can do the same without much trouble. It’s a recurring issue with the match, when one team wants to take control, they just do so. An example of that is when Goto hits a nice lariat on Ishii and then attempts a suplex, only for Ishii to do it first. No, Ishii didn’t block or counter it, Goto hooked him up for it but Ishii did the move first. It’s the same thing with the finish, Honma had Bernard reeling with lariats and then ran into a boot and Bernard spiked him with the Bernard driver as though he wasn’t in trouble a minute before. It’s fine that GBH controlled so much, even if they weren’t that interesting, but they’d have better off to try to be a bit more formulaic and build to a hot tag to Goto or Bernard. Ishii attacks Goto and Bernard with a chair afterwards, which is not only more interesting, but gets more of a crowd reaction than anything during the match.

MASATO TANAKA/SHINJIRO OHTANI vs. KOJI KANEMOTO/RYUSUKE TAGUCHI

Even without the video package beforehand, one only needs to watch about ten seconds of this to understand that these two teams do not like each other in the least. Everyone has their own little role, the Z1 MAX team are the invading punks, Kanemoto is the home team punk, and Taguchi is the whipping boy. After all four have a quick brawl on the floor, things calm down and the Z1 team commences to laying a beating on Taguchi, and boy do they ever. Ohtani puts him in the tree of woe and dropkicks him twice. Tanaka and Ohtani even whip out the Kai En Tai trademark camel clutch dropkick. The fun continues when Kanemoto gets in and gives Tanaka the boot scrapes in the corner, while looking at Ohtani the whole time, of course Ohtani gets in and gives Koji a taste of his own medicine. Other than the heeling up of things, there are several cool moments, such as Koji’s save when Tanaka is charging for the Sliding D. Almost as great is Tanaka’s revenge, when he holds Koji in place and Ohtani hits Koji with the springboard dropkick in the back of the head. With Koji out of the way, nothing can save Taguchi and one Sliding D later, the Z1 team scores the win.

As fun as it is to watch Koji and the Z1 team heeling things up, the match isn’t without problems, namely in the selling area. Koji is the biggest offender in that regard, taking several shots from Tanaka and just standing there, but Tanaka also takes a release German suplex from Taguchi and pops right up. Ohtani is the best by a country mile, and Taguchi isn’t bad, but he’s not really expected to more than take the beating. It was also hard to buy into Taguchi’s near falls on Tanaka toward the end, partially because Taguchi did little more than kick his ass kicked, but also because Koji didn’t do much more than heel things up to stick it to Ohtani and Tanaka, and as a result, it didn’t seem like Tanaka had taken enough punishment to be in any real danger of losing. The most effective thing that Koji does is his Ankle lock, and that’s done to Ohtani, not Tanaka. Tanaka no-selling the German didn’t help, but when Tanaka stays down for the Tiger suplex and Dodon, it still doesn’t feel like Taguchi has any more of a chance. Of course, he probably shouldn’t, he’s the low man on the totem pole against two of the rival company’s top wrestlers, but creating doubt as to the outcome is supposed to part of working the match. ***

MASAHIRO CHONO/RIKI CHOSYU/JUSHIN LIGER vs. MANABU NAKANISHI/TIGER MASK/TETSUYA NAITO

Thank God for Naito being in the match, he was the only one who appeared to be fired up at all. Lyger wasn’t bad,

he brought most of the good work, but the other four weren’t anything special. Naito’s intensity was the best thing about this match, he’s wasn’t afraid to bring the fight to the legends and even has the grapefruits to knock down Chosyu and try to give him a Scorpion Deathlock. Naito also does a great job selling Lyger’s offense. The backbreaker and his shotei bump are both highlights of that. Nakanishi was just embarrassing, he was striking like he was trying to not break a nail, and his spears barely made contact. The only worthwhile thing from Nakanishi was his stomping and yelling before his spear, and that’s only because Lyger mocked him for it before hitting a shotei on Tiger Mask. Tiger Mask spends most of the match on the apron, his only real contribution was a powerbomb counter to Lyger, and then tagging in Naito so the young lion could try to pick up the win, but he winds up on the wrong side of a shotei, Riki Lariat, and Yakuza kick and finishes the match on his back. Without Lyger and Naito this would have probably hit NOAH levels in terms of dullness and pointlessness.

WATARU INOUE © vs. CHRISTOPHER DANIELS (IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title)

Their previous match wasn’t exactly a barn burner, but even that is well ahead of this. Daniels and Inoue had plenty that they did. They just do any of it in especially interesting ways. When Inoue is first going after Daniels’ arm, it seems like the usual early stuff you always see, but a little later on Inoue starts working back to the arm, and it looks like the match might be going somewhere. It’s not. Inoue just gives up on the arm after his second round of various holds, despite the fact that his primary submission targets the arm/shoulder area (and Daniels’ quick tap out when Inoue puts it on after the ref bump seems to indicate that Inoue’s holds did some damage). Daniels is a little better when targeting Inoue’s midsection, his offense is more interesting, such as dropping Inoue across the ropes, and the shoulder tackles in the corner, but, again, Daniels never follows up on it, despite winning their last match with his moonsault. The lack of real intensity in the most jarring, Daniels wants the title and Inoue wants to avenge his previous loss, you’d think they’d be at each other’s throats.

Of course, NJ juniors have a long history of the early stuff not explicitly factoring into the end, so Daniels and Inoue’s methods aren’t unprecedented, but it doesn’t make their ideas any better. Neither one is especially charismatic on this night. Daniels doesn’t do anything to heel things up a la Ohtani and Tanaka in the previous tag match. The only real heel tactics from Daniels is his use of the chair, and he has the great idea of following up a near fall after cracking Inoue with a chair by doing a jumping forearm and then going for a cover, instead of going for the cover after doing something that looks like it could actually beat Inoue. Inoue isn’t very spunky or fired up like Naito was in his match. The move stealing bit was a nice idea, but they needed to show personality to really make it work, and neither of them seemed willing or able to. There’s zero as far as any build up or anticipation to the finish, Daniels avoids a superplex, and Inoue rolls through a sunset flip, and then Inoue hits a spear and plants Daniels with the Oracion Flame for the win, considering how hot the NJ/TNA stuff was in November, and how far from hot this is, it’s a good thing that NJ and TNA took a break from each other for a while after this.

Aside from Tenzan’s gusher and Iizuka’s heel turn, there isn’t much to see here from a wrestling standpoint. It makes sense that there isn’t a strong wrestling presence to the match, it’s supposed to be a blood feud, and while it’s more hate filled than the last match, its still left in the dust by the Ohtani/Tanaka tag. When Tenzan gets busted open from Makabe’s chain, GBH does little else than punch at the cut and choke him. It makes sense for them to do, but it gets old fast. Yano briefly breaks up the monotony with a spike to his head (with great reaction from Tenzan) but it’s a really quick thing. For his part, Tenzan does a good job of putting over the beating and the blood loss, including a nice touch where Tenzan hits Makabe with a headbutt, and it looks like Tenzan hurt himself more than Makabe.

The Iizuka turn is, indeed, a shocker, but a logical one, Iizuka has been around forever, but has rarely done anything of note, this instantly freshens him up. There a few moments sprinkled throughout the match to lead to it, such as Tenzan throwing himself on top of Iizuka to take the brunt of a chair to the back, and Tenzan getting to the corner to tag, and finding Iizuka not there, but on the floor with Makabe. The actual moment where Iizuka turns winds up falling a bit flat, Tenzan finally gets a chance to tag out and Iizuka refuses the tag. Tenzan knows what’s happening and adrenaline kicks in, he makes his fired up comeback, and plants Makabe with the TTD. Iizuka chokes him out with the sleeper (which is smart with Tenzan’s blood loss) and Makabe hits his King Kong Kneedrop for the win. The turn falls a bit flat thanks the tag refusal being a few minutes before the choke. It’d have been more effective (and surprising) to have Iizuka take Yano out of the match, and then choke Tenzan out after the TTD. If you’re the type who only cares about match quality in terms of star ratings, this won’t be anything you’ll care for, but it’s perfectly acceptable for what it is.

Like Iizuka’s heel turn, the title change here was a surprise, but when one thinks out the landscape of NJPW at this time, it really wasn’t a surprise. Nakamura had already done two rounds with Tanahashi and the unification match with Angle. Who was left to challenge him? Goto and Bernard don’t make sense since they’re stablemates. Nakamura/Nakanishi and Nakamura/Chono would be horrid and probably not draw that well. The only real match for NJ is Nagata/Nakamura and Nagata was on the shelf at this time. Mutoh as champion simply creates more fresh matches.

The match itself is your typical Keiji Mutoh match, he focuses on Nakamura’s knee to get him into position for the Shining Wizard and lets loose with them whenever Nakamura gives him the chance to. He baits Nakamura into diving to the floor, sidesteps him, and dropkicks his knee to kick things off. He continues with the usual array of dropkicks, Dragon screws, and the figure four. In addition, Mutoh once again breaks out the Dragon screw neckbreaker, and when Nakamura won’t stay down after the series of Shining Wizards, he drops the Moonsault and wins the match. After working his formula for so long, Mutoh has it down to a science, as shown here, there’s very little from Mutoh that can be considered ‘filler’ outside of, arguably, the opening stretch where they work on the mat, and even that leads to Mutoh bailing to the floor and getting Nakamura to go for the dive.

The biggest failing of the match isn’t from the forty-five-year-old who’s broken down and years from his best work, no, it’s from the so-called ‘savior’ of New Japan. Nakamura’s selling of his knees is simply not there. He’ll wince and clutch at his knee after a Dragon screw or when Mutoh releases the figure four, but there’s nothing from Nakamura in the long term. Contrast with Mutoh after spending some time in Nakamura’s Triangle choke, he gets to his feet and wobbles, like he doesn’t quite have his bearings together. At one point, Nakamura gives Mutoh an opening for a Dragon screw by throwing kicks, but it never dawns on Nakamura to put over his knee to any great extent.

While Mutoh showed that he had a well-thought-out game plan and followed it closely, Nakamura goes a different route. He seems to want to more or less throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. He tries for big guns early and moves to wearing down Mutoh with submissions to lead into the big guns. When he’s still not able to pull it off, Nakamura reverts to attempting to win via flash submissions. Nakamura’s stuff lends itself to some nice moments, like Mutoh’s escape from the second Landslide, Nakamura attempting a Moonsault, and Nakamura countering a Dragon screw into a Triangle Choke but nothing that especially lasts and has any real impact on the match. Of course, it’s probably for the best that this is so simplistic, had Nakamura been in full blown quasi-shooter mode, this could have been eons worse, it’s not a very deep match, but Mutoh’s performance and Nakamura’s contributions are still good enough to make this worth checking out. ***1/4

Conclusion: Lots of fun to be had here, with the two main events, and the NJ/Z1 tag. The only real negative is the Wataru/Daniels match, and that’s not so much bad as it is unspectacular. Recommendation to pick up this one.