BEST OF SUPER JUNIORS XII FINAL

June 19, 2005

There haven’t been a whole lot of New Japan shows this year that I’ve thought were worth watching. But their junior heavyweight division is usually good for some entertaining viewing.

Jyushin “Thunder” Lyger . . . is old and grumpy now, and who’d want it any other way?

Hirooki Goto . . . is quickly becoming a highlight of the NJPW junior division.

Tiger Mask . . . isn’t the same worker who had that fabulous match in the first round of the third Super J-Cup.

NAOFUMI YAMAMOTO vs. TATSUTOSHI GOTO

There are many ideal ways to start a show, and a two minute squash isn’t among them. Goto is just as slow and plodding as he was the last time I had the “privilege” of viewing his matches, only now he’s got his natural hair color, and no facial hair. Yamamoto gets about thirty seconds of offense, and Goto does very little to sell, or give the impression that the kid has a prayer, and slaughters him with the backdrop.

JYUSHIN LYGER/JADO/MASKED CTU-MZ vs. TAKASHI IIZUKA/MASAHITO KAKIHARA/KATSUSHI TAKEMURA

Despite the fact that he’s getting up there now in terms of age, and that the focus of the junior division has mostly shifted off of him, it’s good to see that Lyger is still awesome. While he doesn’t bring a lot of the flash and flare like he did back in the day, he compensates with sheer grumpiness. He shows complete contempt for Takemura, and even though he can beat him whenever he wants, he just opts to hurt him and humiliate him. While Takemura is certainly no KENTA, in terms of realistically selling, he does a nice job at putting over the torture that the heels make him endure. Beyond that, this is pretty much a sprint, with a lot of spots, and not a whole lot else. The only one who really isn’t given much to do is Jado, which is odd, because with his shoulder taped up, it seems like he’d be an obvious target. Kakihara and Iizuka are both ‘on fire’ early on, they really dish it out to the heels, after Takemura finally makes a tag. But the match never really goes anywhere after that, because of the Go-Go-Go structure. Hirata to getting the win for the team over Kakihara certainly seems odd, considering NJPW’s biggest bragging right is their dojo system and all their great young prospects. But we’re two matches in, and both times it’s been the grizzled old man, who gets the win.

TIGER MASK vs. MINORU TANAKA (Best of Super Junior Semi Finals)

The heel turn, and removal of the Heat mask, seems to have done wonders for Tanaka’s motivation. Although he’s not as intense as Lyger was in the previous match, he’s really close, and he gets more to do while he punishes Tiger Mask. In addition to his usual forte of roundhouse kicks, he also employs several suplexes, and when they don’t do the trick for him, he uses a fisherman buster from the top rope. Tiger Mask, is just sort of ‘there’. He takes the punishment, and sells it decently enough at first, but moments after taking the fisherman’s buster off the top, he levels Tanaka with a tombstone, which Tanaka sells like death, and follows up with a German suplex for a near fall, and then Tiger Mask just stands there, as though he’s not tired, or hadn’t just taken a big beating.

When Tiger Mask gets control, this looks almost identical to his Dome match in terms of setting up the finish. Tanaka got to dish out his beating, and now Tiger Mask gets to take it home, and he does so with a minimal amount of effort. The chickenwing counter to the Minoru Special was nice, and it’s much more preferable than just kicking around in pain and then inching to the ropes, like everyone else does. Tiger Mask does hold the chickenwing on for a bit too long, but Tanaka’s selling of it, did manage to compensate that a bit. But instead of using that opening to build to the finish or keeping the focus on Tanaka’s shoulder, Tiger Mask just hits his own suplex off the top, and his Tiger suplex to get the win, sure the chickenwing softened up Tanaka’s shoulder for the move, but there was so much more Tiger Mask could have done before he finished him off. It’s scary to see that the guy who tore the house down with Lyger in the third Super J-Cup has turned into this lazy worker.

KOJI KANEMOTO vs. GEDO (Best of Super Junior Semi Finals)

Despite some fun parts, and the upset booking, this wasn’t able to surpass the previous match. Koji mostly treated Gedo like a jobber, which isn’t all bad, because Gedo seems to have no prayer of winning anyway. But as fun as it is to see Koji torturing his former stablemate and partner. Neither Koji nor Gedo, do anything to put any sympathy on him. Koji’s kicks and slaps at Gedo show how seriously Koji takes Gedo, but the finish looks like a ‘Shinsuke Nakamura in 2004' type finish, where Gedo takes a ton of punishment and wins by total fluke. So what they really needed to do was either have Kanemoto really go all out with the heelish tactics and babyface Gedo to death, or have Gedo do a really good sell job, to get the fans behind him.

Of course Gedo’s only real advantage comes from him using his own heel tactics, like choking and using the ring post and guardrail to his advantage, so he’d have a hard time getting the fans on his side anyway. But considering that Koji was using his trademark moves like the moonsault and Falcon Arrow, Gedo should probably have sold them as close near falls. The only real time he gets the fans going is when he’s trapped in the Ankle lock, and the escape and Gedo clutch for the upset win come right after that. The best time to use your signature cradle (which requires leverage generated by the legs) is definitely not when you’ve had your ankle twisted and wrenched.

EL SAMURAI/AKIYA ANZAWA vs. HIROOKI GOTO/STAMPEDE KID

Goto’s huge win at the Dome has obviously given him some confidence. Goto really dishes out the punishment to Anzawa, and controls him both on the mat and when they’re on their feet. Even when Anzawa finally gets Goto in a compromising position, he doesn’t hold onto the advantage for very long, as Goto finds a quick counter and regains control of the action fairly quickly. Anzawa tries his hardest with Stampede Kid, but he couldn’t even hack it against Goto. Samurai and Wilson finish things rather quickly, which is a bit disappointing, since Samurai was showing shades of Lyger’s grumpiness, and just like Wilson wasn’t giving anything to Anzawa, Samurai gives nothing to Stampede Kid, and quickly finishes him off with the reverse DDT off the top. This was obviously heavily clipped, as it’s listed as going nearly twenty minutes, and it wasn’t much more than five or six that were shown, which is too bad because both Goto and Samurai were lots of fun.

TOGI MAKABE/TORU YANO vs. BLUE WOLF/HIROSHI NAGAO

If not for Nagao being the only of the young lions to actually get a decent run against the established guys, this would be really unremarkable. Yano, Makabe, and Wolf all do a lot of grunting, smacking each other, and not much else of note. Makabe also has a decent looking spear to his credit, he can hit the move and then actually flip himself over. But Nagao is the one who winds up showing off the most, early on he takes a lot of punishment, and Wolf needs to save him, but after Wolf takes a much smaller beating and tags back out, is when Nagao gets the moment in the sun, that both Anzawa and Yamamoto were denied in their matches. Nagao’s dropkick is impressive for his height, and his neckbreaker drop is shades of another of puroresu’s giants. Nagao’s offensive run is nothing state of the art, but it’s nice to see Nagao not getting completely blown off and squashed. Makabe and Yano need to double team him to finally stop him, and their 3D is very nice looking, and would have made a better finish than the rather sloppy looking powerbomb from Yano.

MASAHIRO CHONO/HARRY SMITH vs. HIRO SAITO/YUTAKA YOSHIE

The world didn’t need to see all of this, at the expense of the rather fun Goto/Anzawa tag match. There isn’t anything to see here, other than Harry Smith, bumping like a pinball. Chono shows how motivated he is, by actually screwing up a sunset flip, and Yoshie totally no-sells everything Harry throws at him, and nearly kills Harry with a senton, complete with a nice sell job by Harry. In fact that catalyst to the ending is Yoshie being fat, as he accidentally squashes Hiro with a Thesz press, and Chono just takes the opening and finishes off Hiro with the Shining Yakuza kick.

HIROYOSHI TENZAN/OSAMU NISHIMURA/SHINSUKE NAKAMURA/HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. YUJI NAGATA/KAZUYUKI FUJITA/MANABU NAKANISHI/KENDO KA SHIN

When the booking is largely focused on the power and strength of Fujita, one wonders why there are so many other workers in the match, when the same thing could be accomplished in a straight tag match. Not that everyone else in the match is useless, there are several fun moments that don’t involve Fujita, but nothing that really has any real depth or meaning. Sure, it’s enjoyable when Nakanishi puts Tenzan in the corner and lays into him with the chops, and then when Tenzan gets Nakanishi in the corner and returns the favor with his headbutts. Nishimura and Ka Shin going at it on the mat is also rather enjoyable, as is the shocker of Ka Shin offering a handshake and not giving Nishimura a cheap shot. But while it’s all good fun, it doesn’t particularly get the match anywhere.

Fujita looks like a monster though, nothing can phase the man. Fujita gives Nakamura a few free shots, and Nakamura certainly connects, you can see the sweat fly right off Fujita’s face. But he just stands there, completely unaffected. Not even the IWGP Champion is able to get anything of note going to take Fujita down, and when Fujita hits Tenzan with a shoulder block, he hits the mat like a safe. The only success against Fujita comes in the form of some quadruple teaming, leading to Fujita getting locked in Nishimura’s Cobra Twist, and Octopus hold, but Fujita just tosses Nishimura right off of him. With Nishimura left alone with Fujita after the obligatory brawl that gets 6/8 of the workers out of the ring, Fujita plants him face first, and then hooks a sleeper, while sitting on Nishimura’s back, for a quick tap out. When none of the workers including the IWGP Champion are able to get anything going against Fujita, the direction the title is headed in is both telling, and a bit sad.

TIGER MASK vs. GEDO (Best of Super Junior Finals)

Gedo making it to the finals of a BOSJ is right up there with Jado winning the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title, on the list of things you’d never think would happen. With Inoue getting hurt and messing up the booking, NJPW should have tried to go the extra mile in order to elevate Gedo, even in defeat. Nobody thought he’d even make the semi finals, let alone the finals, and nobody certainly thinks he can beat the champion twice (Gedo having won their league match), but creating doubt is the point of a wrestling match.

While Tiger Mask definitely deserved a good chunk of the reason for Gedo’s non elevation, with the same uninspired performance he gave in his own semi final match, Gedo also has to shoulder some blame too. Gedo’s choice of Tiger Mask’s midsection to work over is a nice one in theory, it allows Gedo a wide range of way to attack, and still use the cheating and heelish tactics that he’s become well known for using. Tiger Mask’s selling isn’t too shabby in the early going, whether Gedo is dropping an elbow on his stomach, or slamming him into an exposed turnbuckle, Tiger Mask finds a nice level to sell at. Tiger Mask even sells the stomach when he catches Gedo by surprise with a spin kick. When they brawl onto the floor is the first sign of trouble, Gedo misses a punch and hits the post, and then Tiger Mask does the same thing on a kick, and neither of them does a single thing to put over their new hurt limbs, even moments afterward. Tiger Mask also comes off the top with a diving headbutt but misses, despite Gedo working over his ribs not long before, he doesn’t sell any pain in his midsection whatsoever. Gedo effectively kills his super fly Splash dead in the water as an effective finisher. Gedo is able to connect the splash twice, and both times Tiger Mask kicks out, no reason or catalyst needed. Gedo could have stalled and played to the fans before covering, or Tiger Mask could have gotten the ropes, or put the knees up. It’s hard to try to change the outlook of a non contender, when their big move (which hurts the targeted area) can’t get the job done, even after being hit twice.

Just like the last match, after Gedo has done enough offense, Tiger Mask takes over, so they can work the finish. This is the third Tiger Mask match I’ve seen from this year, and all three have had the same formulaic structure. The heel works over Tiger Mask, Tiger Mask gets a quick hope spot, The heel works over Tiger Mask some more, and Tiger Mask comes back and finishes off the heel with the Tiger suplex. Tiger Mask should probably have been in control a lot more early on, to continue making Gedo seem like an underdog, and *then* let Gedo go into his assault on Tiger Mask’s midsection. At least then the match would have strayed a bit from the formula and hopefully garnered some fan reaction or put some sympathy on Gedo. It’s nice that Gedo gets this match as somewhat of a reward for being a halfway decent worker (unlike his tag team partner). But it’d have been better if some rub or elevation came with that reward.

Conclusion: There are some fun performances here from the usual suspects like Lyger and a couple of surprises from the likes of Tanaka and Hirooki Goto. But they’re not enough to save the show.