| Simon Watches NOAH - 2000s | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 24 2013, 02:30 PM (5,314 Views) | |
| Big Tuna | Sep 26 2014, 01:29 AM Post #81 |
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The Master and Ruler Of The World
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Kenta Kobashi/Akihiko Ito vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan/Kazuchika Okada, 5/6/2009 The NOAH/NJPW feud continues, as beat up Tenzan brings NJPW's brightest rookie and future of the company in to help fight a similarly beat up Kobashi. Okada wasn't a super rookie like Akiyama or Nakamura or anything, but he's one of the more promising young lions NJPW's ever had at this point. There are some surprises like Nagata getting good or Taue getting good, but with most Ace figures or even future greats of a company, you can see something in them as younger guys. Names like Tanahashi, Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, KENTA, Shiozaki, Ohtani, Kanemoto, CIMA, etc. I haven't reviewed the 80s yet, so I don't know for sure on the Three Musketeers, but probably them too. ANYWAYS, Okada has that certain something. Ito tries hard, but nobody in this crop of NOAH young boys really has "it". Aoki comes close, but NOAH also doesn't seem to want to cultivate that in him. The veterans do some things by by and large, they let the rookies shine in a really spirited affair. There's an awesome Kobashi/Tenzan run at the end, and Kobashi eventually downs the future Rainmaker with the Lariat. *** Mitsuharu Misawa/Go Shiozaki vs. Kensuke Sasaki/Takeshi Morishima, 5/6/2009 This is Misawa's final Budokan Hall match, period. In classical NOAH form, this is the de-facto finals of this year's tag tournament. There's no actual finals match, but this is the end. This is a huge step for Go as the entire story is that Misawa is too old to really hold his own against this insanely powerful team and Go needs to step up if they want it. Kenskee and Mori have some fun stuff based on Sasaki showing off his power by hurling Morishima's fat into the opponents. Go also keeps trying to win strike wars with Kensuke. Misawa looks super super unwell here, and given that he dies in a month and a week or so, it's a little hard to watch. Go vs. Morishima at the end is a lot of fun and Go pulls off the win with another great Lariat.***1/2 Jun Akiyama vs. KENTA, 5/17/2009 NOAH let KENTA book a card, so naturally he gave himself a non-title match with the GHC Champion. And oh my god, this is AMAZING. KENTA takes it right to Akiyama and even controls him for a little bit before Akiyama cuts that right the fuck off with a Brainbuster of sorts on the ramp. He then controls the head and neck with nasty elbows and chinlocks. Akiyama can make these seem like the most violent moves possible. They have a really fantastic finishing run too. The outcome is never really in doubt, but they come so close. Akiyama seems to recognize how high up KENTA is to people despite his Jr. Title, so he lets him kick out of the Exploder AND the Wrist-Clutch Exploder, before using the Sternness Dust Alpha to win. ***3/4 Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Atsushi Aoki, 5/18/2009 This is Misawa's final ever singles match. On some level, it's super cool for me that it's against MY DUDE AOKI. On another, it's sort of a waste, despite Misawa's sickly appearance and lackluster performances in the last few months. Aoki doesh is best and works the arm. Misawa throws some elbows and while there's not a lot behind them, he still sells super well. He can no longer do the elbows or lift for the Tiger Driver, so he again just says fuck it and turns it up to 10 so he can go home early, and uses the Emerald Frosion for the win. **3/4 |
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| Big Tuna | Sep 28 2014, 05:27 PM Post #82 |
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Kensuke Sasaki/Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Akira Taue/Genba Hirayanagi, 6/4/2009 Really fun one. Genba is an asshole and dies. He has some moments of actual real offense like the Benoit Missile Dropkick off the apron to Kensuke, so he IS improving somewhat. His pure heelishness motivates Taue into 90s Taue where he does eye gouging and heelish tomfoolery as a compliment to one of his fired up showings. The K-Office boys are good as usual and this winds up being just entertaining enough to be a low-level great. Genba dies at the end, and the Death Roll finishes him off for the three. *** Go Shiozaki vs. Chris Hero, 6/4/2009 After a few tours of paying dues and comedy tags, Hero finally gets a shot to show NOAH what he's got, and oh my god, this is wonderful. He gets 15 minutes with Go and they have a killer slugfest. Just two really stiff guys trying to prove that the other isn't shit. Lots of fire and some really awesome sells by Hero. This is in no way groundbreaking as it's the type of match Hero was having in ROH and PWG all the time in 2008-11, but it's now in a new environment. It's kind of shitty that Go kicks out of all of Hero's huge things and then wins with his normal finisher, but I get it. Hero needed a big awesome match to get the crowd hot and prove he deserves a real push in NOAH, and they only had so much time, so he filled it with massive stuff and helped get Go over more as a top face (which he'll absolutely NEED TO BE in nine days, sadly). Go Flasher ends it. ***1/4 KENTA [c] vs. Ricky Marvin [GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship], 6/4/2009 KENTA gets another big singles opportunity in 2009 and oh holy shit, it's GREAT. No way. KENTA legitimately may have just been the straight up best wrestler in the world in 2009. He's putting out a lot of different kinds of singles matches with different styled guys and they're all so great. He works more of a stuntshow brawl with Marvin as they have an extended crowd fight where Marvin jumps off a small balcony and they throw each other into stuff super hard. It's totally different than the strike wars with Nakajima or the straight heel/face thing with Kotaro or the Ace vs. Junior Ace deal with Akiyama, while also remaining a lot of NOAH elements to keep the fans super into it. Marvin works it more heelishly once he takes over too, which rules. There's a fairly large botch of a big spot off the apron, but otherwise, killer stuff. They lose some steam in the middle but it picks up a lot at the end with some beautiful counters. KENTA wins with the GTS. ***1/2 On June 13th, Mitsuharu Misawa died. He took a normal ass backdrop hold from Akitoshi Saito in a Misawa/Go vs. Saito/Bison tag title match, and never got up. He gets rushed out but he's dead. It later came out that he was essentially internally decapitated due to 20+ years of heavy neck and spinal cord abuse. It got progressively worse in the last few years due to Misawa pushing himself to keep working big matches to try and help business with Kobashi hurt. This is largely the end of NOAH as a big company. With Misawa dead and gone and Kobashi unable to perform high level singles matches, there are no draws. In the spur of the moment, all the NOAH guys got checked up by doctors after this, and Akiyama was found with injuries too, so he dropped the title to take time off. NOAH never really gives him the ball again for whatever reason, so they basically bench their only actual draw left. As a result, NOAH eventually lost its weekly TV show by the end of 2009 as well, and thus had no real platform to actually build burgeoning next top guys like Shiozaki (who won the GHC Title a day after Akiyama vacated it) and Sugiura and the younger ones. There's a bunch of stuff you can point to. NOAH's weird booking in the 2001-2 run where they basically destroyed Akiyama's hopes of ever being a real Ace type figure. Kobashi's epic run being used to put over Rikio, who nobody really got behind at any point and bombed. Marufuji's mishandling as champion. The overlong Misawa run leading to them trying to force Morishima as the next top guy, which didn't work either. It's a combination of bad booking and not having enough time to rebuild before the biggest disaster happened. Chris Hero vs. Akihiko Ito, 6/22/2009 Hero now gets a chance to beat the shit out of a rookie. It's awesome. He beats Ito up a bunch and Ito is fiery when he comes back. Elbows and boots are thrown, and Hero wins with the Stretch Plum. **3/4 Yoshihiro Takayama/Takuma Sano vs. Takeshi Morishima/Takashi Sugiura, 6/22/2009 Great ten minute clubbering fest. Sugiura keeps coming after Takayama, and they hit very hard. Morishima and Takayama have the random unexplained NOAH beef. Sano is the least of the dudes in this, but he holds his own as back up with sneering and general meanness towards our young generation heroes. Shiozaki has a run against Sano at the end and makes him tap out to the Ankle Lock. *** Go Shiozaki/KENTA vs. Kensuke Sasaki/Katsuhiko Nakajima, 6/22/2009 THIS MATCH. If you're like me and love violence and hard hitting in your pro wrestling, this is a classic. Everyone here hit obscenely hard and they're all super passionate about it. Go has the weight of the world on his shoulders now and he can't afford to be outmanned by Kensuke now that he has the torch and the belt. At the same time, Kensuke clearly thinks this is an opening for him to embarrass the young new champ and get another title shot. KENTA and Nakajima still hate each other. The Go/Kensuke chop wars are super super awesome and Go ends up looking great. Kensuke wins them by experience and it feels like they're building a singles match where Go wins, except that never happens because holy shit, NOAH is dumb. KENTA/Nakajima get their own long run with lots of big counters and sequences playing off previous matches. Those kind of small touches that add a ton of realism. Go/Nakajima is then the finish. It has counters to stuff that's worked earlier in the match too, and at the end, the run of dominance bu Kensuke/Nakajima in 2008-9 ends when KENTA can hold back Kensuke which is a small victory given how Kensuke has dominated him throughout BURNING vs. KO, and Go hits the Go Flasher on Nakajima to win. ****1/4 Go Shiozaki vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima, 6/28/2009 This was 25 minutes. I watched it not 30 seconds before I began typing this. I couldn't tell you a single fucking thing that happened outside of the finish and the early part. The early part had Nakajima, in his customary retarded limbwork choices, going after the arm. They stopped doing that. At the end, Go won with a Lariat. Everything in between that is fucking lost to me. I don't know what to rate this. **1/2 |
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| Big Tuna | Oct 1 2014, 01:56 PM Post #83 |
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Go Shiozaki vs. KENTA, 7/5/2009 Another really big one-off match, and as a KENTA singles deal in '09, IT FUCKING DELIVERS. This is the closest Top Heavy vs. Top Junior match I can ever recall to this point. It's a total war of chops and kicks, as you might expect. KENTA scores a surprising blow to the arm to block a chop and he works the arm all match. Some nasty throws into the post and kicks to the arm and holy shit, Go sells it. He holds his arm after trying chops and really lacks the kind of effect on his chops and stuff that he usually has. KENTA winds up using the arm as a distraction so he can do his big moves a la classic AJPW strategy. This is a gamble that doesn't pay off. Go blocks the GTS all through the match and the other stuff fails, and by focusing on that instead, Go's arm is allowed time to recover. It's not 100% and he never really has the chopping firepower he wants, but it's enough to where he can throw Lariats. Really wonderful finishing run, as KENTA kept surviving stuff that I totally didn't expect him to. They had this amazing exchange where Go nukes KENTA with a Lariat to the face in the middle of a KENTA slap sequence that should have ended it. KENTA kicked out and Go won on the next move with a Wrist-Clutch DND. Fine finish, but not the peak of the match, y'know? Still, amazing stuff here. **** Go Shiozaki/Takashi Sugiura vs. Kenta Kobashi/Shuhei Taniguchi, 7/12/2009 Big Boss Sugi again takes aim at Kobashi. Taniguchi is alright here. He's past pure young lion stages now as he has real gear and enough freedom on his look to get a HORRIBLE Takao Omori style highlight job on 80% of his hair. A lot of this is Go and Sugi smacking and chopping Taniguchi super hard to try and get him to man up. He fails to do so, so this is only good and not great. The parts where he's not in are good, but 2009 Kobashi is NOT 2008 Kobashi and can't be in there as much. Taniguchi fails to man up and this is only average. Sugiura beats him with the Olympic Slam. **1/2 Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Kotaro Suzuki vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima/Kento Miyahara, 7/12/2009 This probably overreaches with a 30 minute draw, but that is the way of the returning junior tag league, and they did a WAY better job than I expected. Kotaro and Kanemaru seemed to be putting on one of their trying performances, which is nice and rare. Miyahara has the lanky young lion deal going really well and is a decent FIP throughout. The opening third before he was isolated for good was much much better than I expected. They actually paced it out and this never wound up dragging before the time limit ran out. I was surprised by this. ***1/4 KENTA/Taiji Ishimori vs. Kota Ibushi/Atsushi Aoki, 7/12/2009 This is a lot of fun, but surprisingly not as good as the previous match. The story is that the two-time tournament winners totally underestimate the team of an indy guy and a barely out of being a young boy Aoki. So there's not a lot of focus and just general beating. Finishing run is fun stuff, and KENTA vs. Aoki especially delivers as it usually does when they get time against each other. Aoki keeps going back to the Jujigatame and it surprisingly pays off when KENTA actually taps out! *** Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama/Akitoshi Saito vs. Kensuke Sasaki/Takeshi Morishima/Takashi Sugiura, 7/25/2009 BURNING SORTA REUNITES! WHILE ALSO BEING STERNNESS! STERNNING. This is a low key great one. Kobashi and Kensuke still hate each other, but Kobashi no longer picks fights due to his ailing health. The four other guys all throw a bunch of strikes. Sugiura keeps picking fights with everybody, especially Kobashi, but showing his steady rise to main event status in 2009, he holds his own and wins a lot. Sugi/Akiyama is just fantastic. Morishima has an awesome hot tag, and he seems way more comfortable as a fun having fat abusing upper midcard hot tag guy than trying to be the top dude. Finishing run is full of big awesome stuff with both Mori and Sugi vs. Kobashi. Saito then gets in to eat the fall from Kensuke and Morishima with a Doomsday Device. *** KENTA/Taiji Ishimori vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Kotaro Suzuki [Semi-Finals], 7/25/2009 Everyone meets again, but this kind of sucked. No real heat for some reason, and they didn't help it by sort of just doing stuff for close to 20 minutes. No real flow or coherent structure like you'd expect with K/K trying a lot of heelish stuff in the last year, but they seemed to abandon that to try a limp dicked face/face match and of course it didn't work, because they're not good at being faces. This is a large overreach that seemed to go on forever. Kanemaru finally ends it with the Touch Out on Ishimori. ** Kota Ibushi/Atsushi Aoki vs. Ricky Marvin/Eddie Edwards [Semi-Finals], 7/25/2009 This is a year or so away from Eddie actually becoming good, but still. This actually uses a proper amount of time with 10-15. It also isn't great, but it's at least good. Aoki has a loose focus on Marvin's taped up elbow, so Marvin works most of this, thankfully. Ibushi ends up beating Edwards with the Phoenix Splash. **1/2 Go Shiozaki vs. Shuhei Taniguchi, 7/25/2009 Taniguchi averages it way the fuck up again, but Go tries his best. They do generic striking and holds in the first half. Go is a great chopper, but Taniguchi isn't really good at any one strike. This is designed to let him show off, but the problem is that he has nothing to show off. Go barely even tries once he realizes this. Taniguchi is like the least dynamic wrestler ever. He and Joe Doering and Takao Omori should form a team. This is the most listless match I've seen this week. Nobody involved seems to care. Go finally ends it with a Lariat. *3/4 Kota Ibushi/Atsushi Aoki vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Kotaro Suzuki [2009 JUNIOR TAG LEAGUE FINALS], 7/25/2009 They were willing to work as actual heels this time, which is great because the other dudes are pretty heavy underdog, despite being like 100x better and more interesting. However, they abandon that after maybe 5 minutes and they go to big moves far too early in a 20 minute match and it never really steps up to the level that it should. Kotaro and Kanemaru have cool ideas, but there's no real fire or anything. This made them great heels as they could be the kind of robotic evil dudes, but they don't seem to want to do that anymore. NOAH is in chaos without a real boss up top, and everyone is just sort of doing what they want. They try and make Kotaro a face in the second half here with Aoki doing a bunch of arm work and Kotaro surviving, and it doesn't work. Putting aside my personal preference for Aoki, ANY TEAM WITH KOTA IBUSHI ON IT IS GOING TO BE THE BABYFACE TEAM. FUCKING NOAH. Kotaro does a lot of Misawa tribute stuff and ugh. I see where this is going. Kotaro wins with the tiger Driver. I hate NOAH again. **1/2 Edited by Big Tuna, Oct 1 2014, 01:57 PM.
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| Big Tuna | Oct 1 2014, 06:52 PM Post #84 |
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Kenta Kobashi/KENTA vs. Go Shiozaki/Akihiko Ito, 8/2/2009 From the annual outdoor show. Although I think this might be the last one, because it's a thing enabled by actually being on TV. This is obviously strike based between Go and the original BURNING guys. Go outchops Kobashi in actual form and violence, if not entirely in match booking. Which is a bad booking decision given that Kobashi simply cannot perform at that level for long anymore, and this is a big casual crowd and a PERFECT time to have Go actually beat Kobashi. Still, Go does really well for himself, and Ito is beat up a lot. NOAH's second crop of grads was Aoki, Ito, Genba, Ota, and Taniguchi. Ota is retired by now, sadly, and Ito is the second best of the class. Ito then breaks our hearts by ALSO retiring at the end of 2009. Go is real good hot tag and then Ito gets back in to lose. Kobashi and Go have a big chop war on the floor and KENTA hits Ito with the GTS in the ring to win. ***1/2 Takashi Okita vs. Kento Miyahara, 8/2/2009 This isn't great, but I'm a big fan of both young boys, so this is interesting to me. Dem basics. Okita is improving a lot as he has some really cool shoulderblock variations and power stuff. He's good enough that he could totally hold his own as a third-string guy in a trio a la SHINGO in 2004/5. Okita tries a Brainbuster, but Miyahara gets out with an inside cradle out of the air, but Okita rolls through that with his own for the win! **3/4 Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Masaaki Mochizuki, 8/2/2009 Kicks. Kicks are thrown. Mochi adds something more by bringing a lot of heated anger to his early assault and he takes Naka on a crowd brawl through K-Hall. Nakajima then decides this won't be good though, as he insists on working the arm. BUT MOCHI DECIDES THAT WON'T BE THE FOCUS AND EXPLODES ALMOST IMMEDIATELY TO STOP IT. NO HANDS TAKER DIVE FROM MOCHI! YEAH! He sells his arm sort of in transition and takes over. Nakajima keeps trying to go to the arm. These two don't seem to agree on what this is going to be. Mochi attacks the knee in revenge and yep, this is gonna suck. They trade limbwork and neither actually really sells for more than a moment. They do things and then sell the body parts. It's like they took internet criticisms of KENTA/Nakajima III that didn't actually happen there and decided to do them for real here and it's the worst. Nakajima hits one Death Roll for a one count kickout AND NOBODY CARES. OH MY GOD, NAKAJIMA'S DOWNFALL IS THE BESTWORST. He hits another for 2 and a Bridging German for three. His leg was fine on all those, btw. Fuck him and fuck this match. *3/4 |
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| Big Tuna | Oct 1 2014, 09:45 PM Post #85 |
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Sep. and Oct. 2009 are HUGE months for output due to the two Misawa tribute shows on 9/27 and 10/3, so those will get their own post. KENTA/Akihiko Ito vs. Atsushi Aoki/Bobby Fish, 9/12/2009 Due to the upset on 7/12, Aoki is getting a title shot! Fish is horribad, so this isn't great, but there's some wonderful KENTA/Aoki build. Ito again holds his own, good for him. Aoki keeps working on the arm of KENTA and KENTA has it taped up by now. KENTA vs. Aoki gets the final run. Aoki again gets the Cross Armbreaker on KENTA, and the positioning of his feet when KENTA tries to push up and out also traps KENTA's other arm. Since he can't possibly tap out and is just DYING, the doctor and referee stop the match and Aoki gets another win. **3/4 Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Kotaro Suzuki [c] vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima/Kento Miyahara [GHC Junior Tag Team Championship], 9/12/2009 Also fallout from the tag league. Nobody could beat the champions, but the K-Office boys came closer than anyone due to the draw, so they get the next shot. This is also a surprisingly good one that builds to an awesome finishing run. Really awesome ideas and crisp stuff, and K/K were definitely trying again in a rarity against the KO guys. Not sure why they couldn't do this in the Tag League semis and finals when they were winning the whole thing, but hey. Kotaro beats Miyahara with the Tiger Driver. *** KENTA [c] vs. Atsushi Aoki [GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship], 9/21/2009 This is another gem from KENTA's 2009. Aoki isn't treated as a large threat, but I liked the story enough to overlook that kind of shitty booking (like seriously, Kotaro and Kanemaru can win everything for a year, but not Aoki? Fuck the future, I guess). He gradually chips away at KENTA's arm throughout with cool stuff while KENTA sells pretty well and generally dominates otherwise. Aoki does his arm stuff at the end, but this time it fails because the title is on the line. And once he blows his shot with the arm stuff, he has no backup plan and KENTA kills him. GTS gets the win again. ***1/4 |
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| Big Tuna | Oct 3 2014, 12:47 AM Post #86 |
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Bison Smith vs. Shuhei Taniguchi, 9/27/2009 This is a short one, otherwise I wouldn't even touch it. Surprisingly good too, in that it doesn't suck and gets above one star/one point. It's basically a Bison showcase where he does all his cool power stuff and then wins. Taniguchi doesn't have to try and shine at all, and he can be the bland fucking crash dummy that he actually is. Bison wins with the Bisontennial, which is his second rate Styles Clash. I love Bison and RIP and all, but his Clash was not great. **1/4 Jun Akiyama/Minoru Suzuki/Takashi Sugiura vs. KENTA/Takashi Rikio/Mohammed Yone, 9/27/2009 Poor KENTA. Yone is now a heel and in dreadlocks, taking away the one piece of himself that was moderately interesting. By this point, Togi Makabe has turned face in NJPW, so MiSu is once again possibly king of all heels. Nakamura MIGHT have him beat, but I have to revisit that. This had strong points, but Rikio and Yone REALLY dragged it down with their sluggish half-assed bullshit. KENTA vs. Sugiura was the best part of this, as KENTA STILL has problems managing Sugi. KENTA vs. MiSu also rules, and KENTA/Akiyama doesn't get that much play. Sugiura gets another big win with the Ankle Lock on Rikio. **3/4 Takeshi Morishima/Kensuke Sasaki/Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Yoshinari Ogawa/Kotaro Suzuki, 9/27/2009 TENRYU. HATES. EVERYTHING. Ogawa is fine as a sneaky coward, but otherwise, everyone pulls their weight. Tenryu sells now more than he would in hos prime, which makes sense, but still makes me sad. Kotaro actually lays in his elbows for once, probably because this is a tribute show to the dude he's trying to "honor". Nakajima/Tenryu is a blast again. Tenryu isn't doing anything but punches and chops, but he is just so fucking expressive and violent, even in his old age. Kensuke vs. Tenryu is still the greatest match up almost a decade after they killed it in the Dome. Surprisingly good Kotaro/Nakajima near finishing run too, which builds up their match up in the coming junior singles league really well. Morishima then gets in and shrugs off the Misawa tribute offense to hit the Backdrop Suplex to win. A Misawa tribute act being cut off with his bullshit and destroyed with a Backdrop Suplex on the Misawa Tribute Show is basically Jumbo's revenge from beyond the grave. ***1/2 Kenta Kobashi/Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Keiji Mutoh/Akira Taue, 9/27/2009 Mutoh has to get it on the tribute fun, because he assumes he and Misawa were the top guys of the two companies in the 1990s, and it's a big deal. In Keiji Mutoh's head, he is Shinya Hashimoto. Mutoh would be more at home working a Kawada or Kobashi tribute show, but at least he gets to fight Kobashi. This is more of a fun attraction than a real barnburner as legends do fun things for 20ish minutes. Takayama is the best of them as he was never super mobile to begin with, so there's not a lot of deterioration. He hits real hard and they gang up on Taue at the end. Kobashi beats Taue with the Lariat. **1/2 Go Shiozaki [c] vs. Akitoshi Saito [GHC Heavyweight Championship], 9/27/2009 This didn''t need to be 20+ when a 15 minute affair would have been much tighter, but oh well. I get WHY Saito got the title shot on the Misawa Tribute Show, but this ends up being Go's only successful title defense, and they should have gone with Kensuke or Morishima or someone actually booked strongly so that their new top face can get a large win on the last NOAH show everyone would be watching no matter what. Yet again, another reason NOAH has nobody to blame for their current predicament in 2014 but themselves. Still, Go did his best version of a classic Kobashi style GHC match. Slow build with a lot of strikes early on and then moving into big offense. It just really really fucking drags in the middle and never becomes what it might as a shorter match. Saito was also kind of aimless when he was in control, as he started arm work and gave it up to just do moves that didn't connect together or look particularly great. Maximum MEMPHIS POINTS for a beautifully tasteless piece of work though for Saito using The Backdrop Suplex That Killed Misawa AND GO KICKING OUT AT ONE AND FIGHTING SPIRITING UP. Go then does a bunch of elbows and stuff and wins with the Go Flasher. **1/2 |
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| Big Tuna | Oct 3 2014, 01:50 AM Post #87 |
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Go Shiozaki/Kenta Kobashi/Masahiro Chono vs. Akitoshi Saito/Takeshi Rikio/Mohammed Yone, 10/3/2009 Another fun legends deal that isn't quite great. It's basically a showcase for the BURNING and Chono trio to do cool stuff on a team of midcarders, so the outcome is never in doubt. There's no real drama and they don't make the mistake of trying either. This is exactly the match you expect and they don't deviate a lot from that. Go beats Yone with the Go Flasher as they legends beat up the others on the floor. **1/4 Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Kotaro Suzuki [c] vs. Jado & Gedo [GHC Junior Tag Team Championship], 10/3/2009 ACTUAL EFFORT HOLY FUCK. You'd never think in a million years that Trying J&G lines up with Trying K/K on the one time the two teams had a match, but holy shit, the stars aligned. J&G do their fun heel act (or rather, fun when they put effort into it) and take it up to 11, AS THEY USE THE FUCKING RING HAMMER TO BUST KANEMARU OPEN. Kanemaru does a real legit bladejob and not the half-assed one that a lot of Japanese people (90% of them way better than Kanemaru) usually do. Kotaro has to become a real boy and carry the team for the majority of a match for once and not just a finishing run. Both Kotaro and Kanemaru have a lot of fire and Kotaro again really gets in there with his elbows. Kanemaru has a big surprisingly awesome run at the end and beats Gedo with the Touch Out. ***1/2 Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Takashi Sugiura, 10/3/2009 This is under ten minutes and a total slugfest, so it's a great great match and works as a culmination of their feud that's gone on in tags over the last few years. Sugiura will not be bullied and demands Takayama's respect, but Takayama doesn't take him super seriously early on. He ratchets up the effort as he fails to keep Sugi down with much and Sugiura comes REALLY close. But Takayama wins in the end with the Everest German after a DISGUSTING knee block to the leg takedown try spot. This is another example of NOAH having a real shot to establish someone and just NOT pulling the trigger. Sugi got over big after a solid 2 years of slow elevation into being a heavyweight, then gained popular support by standing up to NJPW and had been steadily beating midcard heavyweights as he rose. A win over a former GHC AND IWGP AND Triple Crown champ would have fucking MADE him going into his title challenge at the end of the year. But they didn't do it and yet again NOAH sacrifices the next generation for no reason and deserves all of their bad fortunes. But anyways, yeah this is perfect for them. Short, heated, and incredibly violent. One of the best 8-9 minute matches ever. ***3/4 Holy Demon Army [Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue] vs. Jun Akiyama/KENTA, 10/3/2009 This is the kind of once in a lifetime thing that all special occasion tags should aspire to be. I remember that in 2009, pictures of Misawa's funeral came out and in one of them, Kawada just had the saddest look on his face, and it just killed me. Just fucking KILLED me, and it's one of the saddest pictures I've ever seen and I would post it if I could find it again. Context helps a lot. Kawada and Misawa were childhood best friends and schoolmates, and went to the AJPW dojo together and graduated together and did everything until their rivalry. It got legit heated at points because of stuff and Misawa left to form NOAH and Kawada stayed to keep AJPW alive and they just drifted apart. They didn't hate each other anymore, but didn't really talk, and Misawa died before (as far as the public knows) they could really repair the rift. And Kawada just looked absolutely torn up inside about it. So it should be zero surprise that out of the many matches on the two tribute shows, Kawada shows up more motivated than he's been in almost a decade and is just god damned fantastic. Anyways, the match! Three of these guys are defined by the era Misawa was the king of. Taue is known for this team with Kawada, which is forever tied to being Misawa's main opposition. Akiyama is more tied to Kobashi than Misawa, but Akiyama received his first main event spotlight fighting Kawada/Taue with Misawa as his partner. KENTA worked for NOAH and all, but he never had a strong bond to Misawa in a kayfabe sense, so for him, this is business. He's collecting heads, and beating the supreme asskicker of the previous generation (Kawada) is a MASSIVE trophy he wants, so he starts this off with a statement by slapping Kawada. AND HE EVEN DOES KAWADA KICKS ON KAWADA HOLY SHIT. KAWADA COMES BACK WITH A CRAZY SLAP FLURRY AND KICKS HIS FACE OFF WITH ALL THE FIRE IN THE WORLD. Akiyama sort of takes a backseat to this story, but he's great as KENTA's enforcer, working a more respectful version of the same story of trying to take out this legendary team to prove that this is their house now. Akiyama's beaten them before, but it was with Misawa or Kobashi as the leader of a team, so this is a personal victory in the making over former bullies. Taue tries to help out Kawada like old times as the enforcer, but years of comedy matches haven't helped him stay sharp, so he's isolated for once. Really brutal stuff there, but he makes the tag. Kawada gets some awesome revenge spots on KENTA, and Taue gets back in to make good after cutting off a finish for once. Kawada now does Taue's old job of helping clear the path, and there's a fantastic spot where KENTA tries a tribute Rolling Elbow, but Kawada cuts it off with a Gamenguri, because holy shit, who knows better how to counter a Misawa trademark? KENTA surpsisingly avoids and then kicks out of the Chokeslam/Backdrop Driver combo, but then goes down to the Ore Ga Taue. This is a great match going in with only a brief knowledge of stuff. With context, it's even better. If you've actually watched everything and love all the characters and have actually seen and felt all the stuff they want you to, this is a classic. Dem emotions. ****1/4 |
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| Big Tuna | Oct 3 2014, 07:11 PM Post #88 |
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The Master and Ruler Of The World
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Atsushi Aoki vs. Takashi Okita, 10/15/2009 This isn't amazing, but it's two of my favorite younger guys, so I'm giving it a watch. Fun basic stuff without the usual arm focus from Aoki. It happened when he went to NJPW for the BOSJ tournament in the summer of 2009, but this is the first time I can remember in NOAH where Aoki got to be the guy in control of someone else, and he was super super nasty about it. They do basic but still really crisp hard hitting stuff. Aoki uses a cutthroat Northern Lights Bomb for the win. **3/4 KENTA vs. Ricky Marvin, 10/15/2009 The junior league is here, I guess. This is also a short one, in a great and surprising way. This is all of two and a half minutes and is SO good. Marvin gets the jump and they basically just do the last two and a half minutes of a crazy finishing run. All the trademarks are there too. Insane energy and strike battles, counters that are eventually paid off and countered again when Marvin goes to the well too often, etc. KENTA hits the GTS and then hits a running punt to the face when Marvin is on his knees for the win. **3/4 Jushin Liger vs. Taiji Ishimori, 10/15/2009 Taiji starts with a dive and this is also not super long by NOAH junior standards at 10-15. They don't maximize it though because Ishimori doesn't seem to totally understand how to actually control a match. I don't totally understand why he would even be in control given Liger's experience edge and the fact that he's an invader. Decent finishing run, but the middle was very much lacking. Liger wins with a Brainbuster. **1/2 Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama/Akira Taue/Tamon Honda vs. Takashi Sugiura/Takeshi Rikio/Mohammed Yone/Shuhei Taniguchi, 10/15/2009 Surprisingly good, due to the three bland heels deciding to try for once. Sugiura is great as always and again takes aim at the two icons. Kobashi and Akiyama seemingly reuniting as all the old pillars reevaluate their lives after Misawa's death is a wonderful story. This is borderline due to some Honda/Yone and Rikio stuff that isn't on the mat where Honda can still rule, but the great stuff was great enough. Kobashi did an awesome job selling for Taniguchi to try and make him a real thing, and I just do not understand. If they put half the fucking effort into Aoki or Ito (before he quit) that they are into this asshole, it would be amazing. Yone beats Honda with a Diving Legdrop, because this took place in 1998. *** Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Kotaro Suzuki, 10/15/2009 This goes to a 30 minute broadway because neither of them is set to win the tournament (as they've both had prolonged feuds and matches with KENTA during this reign), but NOAH wants to keep them both strong. This seemed super promising in the first five minutes and based on their run in the six man in September, but then Kotaro attacked the knee. I know how this story works. Kotaro does good knee work and there's some cool ideas, but none of it matters because Nakajima doesn't sell any of it once he comes back. It's entirely worthless. He works on Kotaro's arm too, and the same thing happens. Somewhere along the way, juniors began thinking they needed limbwork to make a match epic, because a lot of epic junior matches had limbwork. They also had selling, which was apparently just fucking missed in all of this. Also, don't let someone work a limb that you need to eventually use for big moves for nearfalls. It seems like the most logical god damned thing in the world, but I guess not. Great finishing run though. Should have just done headlock stuff for 15-20 and then gone wild, but hey. ** KENTA vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima, 10/25/2009 I had no idea this match even existed. This is also a time limit draw. It's not as good as their 3/1/09 masterpiece, but better than the K-Office match by virtue of not being a total pile of shit. This is the match the last broadway should have been. they focus more on ass kicking and then general control stuff, because KENTA knows by now what Nakajima can be trusted to do on his own. It still drags on far too long, but at least it's not that flaws psychologically, like Kotaro/Kanemaru. **3/4 On 10/28, KENTA injured his knee in a match with Kotaro in the tournament. KENTA had to vacate the title as a result, because he would need surgery and be out for like 7 months or something. Therefore, the tournament is now also for the vacant GHC Junior Title, which would never again reach the heights of this amazing KENTA reign. Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Keith Walker, 10/31/2009 This is a four minute bombfest, and I loved it. Walker is a generic STRONK 'Murican but Takayama guides him and it's all offense. Takayama is hurling Kobashi around like it's 2004 and Akiyama is doing stuff, and Keith Waker is absolutely a dude who is a wrestler. Kobashi beats him with a short-range Lariat. **1/4 Jushin Liger vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru [2009 Junior League Finals - GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship], 10/31/2009 The winner is insanely obvious because Liger is totally going back to NJPW anyways, and nobody gives a FUCK about Kanemaru. Nobody cares here, and they just sort of do things. In effect, NOAH has decided against rewarding Kotaro Suzuki's recent hard work or doing something cool and giving it to Ishimori or Marvin as a swerve because fans love them, and decided to just hit re-set and try and go back to 2004. Moves are done and Kanemaru wins with the Touch Out. This is the definition of slightly above average. NOAH deserves to die for looking at what they had here and saying Kanemaru was the best choice. **1/2 |
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| Big Tuna | Oct 4 2014, 12:11 AM Post #89 |
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The Master and Ruler Of The World
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Kensuke Sasaki/Takeshi Morishima [c] vs. Go Shiozaki/Akitoshi Saito [GHC Tag Team Championship], 11/17/2009 The belts are defended in K-Office. This isn't great and is too long at 25-30ish, but it had some fun moments of clubbering, and Go vs. both Kensuke and Morishima is always a lot of fun. Crowd also isn't that great, and to be honest, NOAH in fall 2009 is really making me reconsider my "watch everything available" strategy towards Japanese reviews. In a totally baffling decision given that Go is still being built up as top guy, Morishima goes over him clean with the Backdrop Suplex. **1/2 Chris Hero vs. Mohammed Yone, 11/28/2009 This will probably also be super average, but I love watching NOAH Hero because he tries super super hard constantly. Yone does not give a FUCK about this, but Hero really puts forth his best effort. He gets some decent matwork out of Yone at the start and then they do stuff. Yone's control sucks, but Hero comes back and all the elbows and chops are super nasty. Yone wins with the Muscle Buster because NOAH is loyal to its bland and mediocre midcarders to the point of folly. **1/2 Naomichi Marufuji vs. Atsushi Aoki, 12/6/2009 Maru has struggled all year with injuries, and is back now. His 2009 return and 2010 run is him at his absolute worst, and he's pretty shitty from here on out. We'll always have 2001 to early 2009 though, I guess. Aoki dominates with some amazing arm work. He's both doing incredibly smooth transitions and holds with a kind of nastiness, like a bridge between Arn Anderson and Milano Collection AT. It doesn't last very long and Maru comes back. He at least sells it well in transition and this is only 17 minutes with most of that being basics and mat stuff, so this might end up being the best post-injury Marufuji match. Marufuji comes back with crazy offense that Aoki cannot prepare for or really handle, because as great as Aoki is, he's just now starting to try more than the basics. This is a great story until the end when Marufuji jumps the shark when he invents the Tiger Frosion to win. Seriously, youtube it. It's the worst move in the history of professional wrestling. It makes me so god damned angry that it's hard for me to honestly give this three just because this move occurred. Still though, great match until then. *** Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Kotaro Suzuki [c] vs. Taiji Ishimori/Ricky Marvin [GHC Junior Tag Team Championship], 12/6/2009 This is great too! They start off super super hot with Marvin on a roll, and then the champs isolate Ishimori. Some cool big moves, and Kanemaru breaks out his slam off of the ramp onto the floor. Marvin has a KILLER hot tag full of fire and dislike for his ex-partner Kotaro. Lots of cool ideas strung together really smoothly. Then it almost falls apart, as Ishimori botches some key stuff and then Marvin and Kotaro screw up a top rope rana spot RIGHT as they're getting the crowd back into it. It's a real shame because 90% of what they do is cool as hell, and this gets a bad rap because of those botches. Marvin/Kotaro still get a big ass finishing run that gets everyone back into it. This was close to 25 minutes and I think if they went for 15-20 instead, this would be very highly regarded instead of low-level great. It's fitting that the last big NOAH juniors match of the 2000s involves a big dramatic Ricky Marvin run, because while KENTA and Marufuji hit the highest highs of the 2000s, Marvin was the lower key MVP of the division. And because NOAH hates everything cool, Kotaro beats him with the Rolling Elbow. *** Kensuke Sasaki/Takeshi Morishima [c] vs. Takeshi Riko/Mohammed Yone [GHC Tag Team Championship], 12/6/2009 I have zero expectations for this. But it's online and represents NOAH's idiocy, so hey. There's some fun clubbering to be had when Morishima and Rikio fight, but this goes 25-30 and it's just not good for the most part. RikiYone is such a slow and sluggish and fucking BORING team. There's no real drama to this because holy shit, NOAH couldn't be dumb enough to give a team as boring and not over as RikiYone the titles during their most perilous period. Except, they do. Yone knocks out Morishima with some rarely vicious head kicks to win the titles. Again, NOAH absolutely deserves where they are now. ** Go Shiozaki [c] vs. Takashi Sugiura [GHC Heavyweight Championship], 12/6/2009 These two had a trilogy of matches in 2009, 10, and 11, and this is the first. This trilogy is, to me, the last time this title felt at all important. It's a totally mindless bombfest and a competition of toughness and manliness, but it's just so much fun. A ton of huge moves and strikes and at no point does it really become too much. There's a small story that I loved here. Like how Sugiura eventually figured out KENTA in time for their big match in 2006, Sugiura seems to have also figured Go out. Go hasn't really dealt much on his own and has his set sequences and big moves that have worked so far as he's been on his own in 2009, but Sugiura seems them all coming and just hammers him with knees and throws and slaps and slowly and totally overwhelms him. Go is tough as hell, but he's not tough enough yet and he certainly isn't smart enough yet. Sugiura caps off his awesome year by winning the title with a Super Olympic Slam. ***1/2 On one level, this is a bad call. Sugiura is over and stuff but he's never going to be the top dude, most likely. He's too short and is coming off a loss to Takayama at this point, where as Go has a real shot at it. But Go is cut off by his first real big challenger in Sugiura, and NOAH loses its TV slot soon and all the stuff I've already gone over happens. Initial title runs are what make Aces, usually. Misawa held the title for 23 months his first time. Hashimoto held the IWGP Title for the better part of a year and a half. On another level, it's a great fucking story to tell. Both guys are young, but Sugiura has worked harder than anyone and just gotten his fucking ass kicked over and over on his 3 year journey up the heavyweight ranks, and Go wasn't ready. |
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In classical NOAH form, this is the de-facto finals of this year's tag tournament. There's no actual finals match, but this is the end. This is a huge step for Go as the entire story is that Misawa is too old to really hold his own against this insanely powerful team and Go needs to step up if they want it. Kenskee and Mori have some fun stuff based on Sasaki showing off his power by hurling Morishima's fat into the opponents. Go also keeps trying to win strike wars with Kensuke. Misawa looks super super unwell here, and given that he dies in a month and a week or so, it's a little hard to watch. Go vs. Morishima at the end is a lot of fun and Go pulls off the win with another great Lariat.




6:53 PM Jul 10