2176 replies to this topic

[Spoon DogG]

Resident Evil, on Jan 28 2009, 05:59 AM, said:

KENTA vs. Kotarou Suzuki from 1/25 I enjoyed a lot. There's something for everyone in this one.

Ditto. Thought it was an awesome match. Only complaint I can see people having is saying that it went too long.

[Alan4L]

I ADORED Kotaro vs. KENTA!!!!

Even better than SUWA/KENTA in my opinion.

The twists and turns were unreal, and they uncorked some of the most mindblowing counters down the stretch.

[Crew]

I happily 2nd Alan regarding KENTA-Kotaro.  KENTA is without a doubt, The Man, I don't care what anyone says, and anyone who borrows from the Eddie Guerrero Heel Playbook is alright by me.

[Sam K]

I managed to get over to Japan from South Korea for the last week and was able to hit up the 1/25 NOAH show with KENTA/Kotaro.  AMAZING.  I hadn't seen much NOAH or puro in general since '05, so I was quite surprised at seeing some "actual storylines" taking place in NOAH and seeing Kotaro Suzuki with a freaking personality.  Fantastic match, one of the best I have seen live.  

EDIT: Not sure if this is a spoiler-free forum.  So I took out the spoilers just in case.  Apologize if anyone saw them.

[Alan4L]

Sam K, on Jan 30 2009, 12:47 PM, said:

I managed to get over to Japan from South Korea for the last week and was able to hit up the 1/25 NOAH show with KENTA/Kotaro.  AMAZING.  I hadn't seen much NOAH or puro in general since '05, so I was quite surprised at seeing some "actual storylines" taking place in NOAH and seeing Kotaro Suzuki with a freaking personality.  Fantastic match, one of the best I have seen live.  

EDIT: Not sure if this is a spoiler-free forum.  So I took out the spoilers just in case.  Apologize if anyone saw them.

Nah, it's cool. Only in the matches forum is it frowned upon.

[Kevin Wilson]

Yea, only rule here is we try to keep topic titles spoiler-free.  Beyond that it gets too confusing.

[Broken Lamp '88]

Alan4L, on Jan 28 2009, 01:01 PM, said:

Even better than SUWA/KENTA in my opinion.

This ruined this match for me, seeing as KENTA/SUWA is, right now, #5 on my list of best 00-05. It's okay, though. Just... nowhere near that level.

[Alan4L]

Broken Lamp, on Jan 31 2009, 07:20 AM, said:

Alan4L, on Jan 28 2009, 01:01 PM, said:

Even better than SUWA/KENTA in my opinion.

This ruined this match for me, seeing as KENTA/SUWA is, right now, #5 on my list of best 00-05. It's okay, though. Just... nowhere near that level.

I actually just watched the SUWA match again last month. I LOVED it, but I wasn't jumping up and down going nuts quite as much as I was when watching the Kotaro match.

[Evil Otto]

I enjoyed the holy hell out of that KENTA-Kotaro match.  

Blood and heels, it's a wonderful thing.  But man, Kotaro really went above and beyond, and that legit surprised me.  Pulling out everything but the kitchen sink to beat KENTA is not only amusing, but makes KENTA look like a total ass-kicker to boot.    

1/25 was a fun card all around.

[Broken Lamp '88]

I think my main problem with KENTA/Kotaro, upon second viewing, is my problem with the heels in DG: They seem ironic, and not dangerous/uncontrollable. It's this sense that they're "playing the heel" instead of actually being a proper asshole. That's what makes KENTA/SUWA so amazing. SUWA is just a goddamn wrecking machine, lashing out at everyone at ringside, and at the people watching the match by causing the DQ the first time. SUWA comes across as being unstable and unmanagable, which makes KENTA beating him even better.

Kotaro's stuff seems playful, and in a few respects, kind of lazy. As in, he doesn't want to wrestle to his highest so he resorts to that stuff. But unlike the sense of desperation that accompanies the best heels, he then starts wrestling really well, completely undermining the idea that he has to do this stuff to get ahead. Also, it's strange that Kotaro goes with the ceremonial crap, THEN starts trying to get KENTA DQed, which says he wants the title. Where as SUWA just wants to fucking ruin everything with no regard to the consequences. He wants to cheat people, he wants to hurt people, he wants to waste money and time, and rub it in every single time he does it.

[Ditch]

My feelings on KENTA vs Kotaro pretty much mirror my feelings on the December tag. Liked the finish, thought the first half dragged way too much. KENTA vs SUWA was so much tighter.

[Towney007]

Broken Lamp sort of hits on a point that I notice A LOT in Japanese wrestlers in general, which is that playing the part of the heel a lot of times is just that. A wrestler playing a heel in a match. Not that it kills this match or anything, because its a lot of fun, especially to see that kind of stuff in NOAH, but just feels so forced overseas. Maybe its the language barier and me focusing so much more on the 'visual' per sae, but I didn't have any kind of hate for Kotaro, just 'wow, neat Eddie Guererro-esqe cheating spot'. I dunno, doesn't do a lot for me.

[Shuriken]

NOAH, Korakuen Hall, 1/25/09

I haven’t really watched much wrestling for the past 2-3 years so please bear with me.

Takeshi Morishima & Mohammed Yone vs. Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli

Man, for a former GHC heavyweight champ and Star of the Next Generation, big Morishima gets no heat whatsoever and doesn’t exactly handle himself like a star. Or maybe he just had an off-day, who knows. Anyway, this was an all right little tag match. Kings of Wrestling showed off some cool double-teams and Hero did a good job playing the crowd thoughout. Claudio’s big power moves on Morishima looked great, as did his various European uppercuts. That’s about it, really.

Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Jun Akiyama & Shuhei Taniguchi

I’ve never seen any Taniguchi before but from his performance in this here match he seems to be a really promising young lad. Not only did he take all of Nakajima’s nastiest shots and relentlessly came back for more, but he also showed a shit-load of fire and displayed some gnarly-looking power moves including a badass Arn Anderson-esque Spinebuster. Nakajima was pretty awesome too, just beating the shit out of everyone and showing off some ridiculously great offense. The big Sasaki/Akiyama showdown was a bit of a letdown, honestly. It wasn’t bad or anything, but most of their stuff was fairly through-the-motions. Also, Jun never looked like much of a threat to Kensuke for any of this, as he was on the receiving end of most of the exchanges and spent the rest of the match completely emotionless. Still, the young guys kicked some serious ass and made this a rock-solid match. Oh, and holy shit @ the Kensuke Office double German suplex.

KENTA vs. Kotaro Suzuki – GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title

This was my first look at heel Kotaro and I gotta say I enjoyed him a lot more than flippy-junior Kotaro. I really dug the whole section where he busted KENTA open and worked over the cut in classic heel fashion. That being said, this new Kotaro doesn’t seem to have much more personality than the old one. He does a lot of heel stuff, but doesn’t act the part that much in terms of facial expressions or crowd playing and all that. It’s all a bit bland. What followed the rudo beatdown was standard-fair back and forth big junior match action, with lots of near-falls and tricked out reversals. A lot of big moves came off a bit flat because of the complete overload of action, but KENTA’s crazy-ass turnbuckle Powerbomb -> running knee of Death sequence was undeniably epic. Basically, the blood and hate of the first part didn’t really carry on to the second part, which would’ve probably made things more interesting. As it was, a fun enough match with an exciting ending stretch, but nothing you haven’t seen before from these guys.

[Ditch]

Wow I didn't know someone combined Morishima's DNA with a cat's.

[Shuriken]

Yeah man, glad you dig the obese feline action. I watched more stuff:

AJPW, Korakuen Hall, 1/3/09

Tag tournament madness.

Satoshi Kojima & KAI vs. Osamu Nishimura & Masanobu Fuchi – All-Asia Tag Tournament

The story here is that Fuchi is old as florg and simply cannot keep up with the youthfulness of F4. A mere body slam from KAI proves to be too much for him and the whole thing turns into a handicap match with Nish forced to have a bunch of wrestling on his own. This worked pretty well as the crowd really got behind the broken down old man who kept selling everything like instant death. This was also my first look at KAI and he was pretty impressive. Dug the smug facials while taking it to Fuchi and the super clean-looking high-flyer offence. Perfectly acceptable wrestling with a logical flash pin finish.

Minoru Suzuki & NOSAWA Rongai vs. Keiji Muto & Kaz Hayashi – All-Asia Tag Tournament

Aren’t Suzuki/Nosawa the weirdest team? Anyway, this was all about Rongai messing up his knee and Muto/Kaz going after the injury like sharks. NOSAWA definitely sold his ass off but the action itself got rather plodding at times due to Muto’s insanely-repetitive offence and Kaz not being terribly compelling (LOL @ “F-YOU!” spin kick). Lots of down-time and submissions-used-as-rest-holds whenever Muto and Suzuki got together certainly didn’t help things. Nothing straight-up offensive, just sort of forgettable despite an all right storyline.

Suwama, Shuji Kondo, Ryuji Hijikata & Ryota Hama vs. TARU, Hate, Zodiac & Brother YASSHI

A few things I need to say: the VM theme songs = hilarity, eternal midcarder Nobukazu Hirai as a face-painted heel is rather weird, Ryota Hama is fucking enormous. Right, so this was pretty short but it had some good things going, namely Suwama wanting to kill TARU dead and then getting over huge by cleaning house and looking like a proper Top Guy. Also, for such a fat dude, Hama didn’t look half bad, wrestling like a lowgrade-Yoshie for most part. Hirai’s new heel act seems to consist of flipping people off at all times. Kondo got zero ring time. Decent but too short.

Osamu Nishimura & Masanobu Fuchi vs. Minoru Suzuki & NOSAWA Rongai – Finals

Right off the bat, one thing this had over the other two tournament matches is that Suzuki was back to being a world-class dick. He laughed off Nishimura’s polite Muga wrestling, played off his dysfunctional partnership with Nosawa by constantly yelling at him from the apron, and beat the ever-loving shit out of poor old man Fuchi. Another good thing about this match is that Nosawa walked in selling the injury from the prior match, setting-up some solid leg work from Fuchi and Nish. Sadly, the finish was pretty anticlimactic as Suzuki and Fuchi kind of traded small packages until Minoru managed to get the old dude with his Gotch Piledriver, all the while Nish and Nosawa rolled around in a Figure 4. Not bad but not something I’d want to rewatch.

[Shuriken]

NJPW, Tokyo Dome, 1/4/09

I’m not gonna pretend I actually wanna see the Dudleys tag title match or the other TNA 6-man tag.

Yujiro & Tetsuya Naito vs. Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin – IWGP Jr. Tag-Team Titles

New Japan juniors are infamous for getting no heat whatsoever in Dome matches, but the crowd was pretty receptive to the No Limit youngsters in this one. Pretty enjoyable, compact little spot-fest here, with a whole lot of action jam-packed in those 13 minutes. Shelley did his best to make up for Sabin’s complete absence of personality by heeling it up and bringing some actually hurty-looking offence to the table. Lots of whacky double-teams from both sides, which the crowd completely ate up. I loved the no non-sense offence from the No Limit dudes, what with Yujiro’s awesome power slams and the amazing flying forearm from Naito. Definitely fun for what it was, with a crazy double-team finish to boot.

Tiger Mask vs. Low Ki – IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title

TM’s Tokyo Dome gear is pretty freaking glorious, let it be known. That was the only thing glorious about the match though. Outside of Ki’s early punking-out session, this was your usual boring Tiger Mask affair. The guy is just utterly bland and completely redefines the expression “going through the motions”. Low Ki tried but couldn’t get anything out of him. Uneventful back and forth bore. Not good.

Yuji Nagata vs. Masato Tanaka – World Heavyweight Title

11 minutes of high-impact, hate-filled brutality right there. Could’ve definitely used a few more minutes, but man did they ever go all out with the time they had. They went for the big bombs right off the bat yet somehow managed to decently pace all the big moves and kickouts, avoiding un-necessary overkill. Loved the heelish beatdown from Tanaka in the early part of the match, setting up some of the beloved Nagata revenge spots (I’ll never tire of that climbing knee to the face). Loved the blood-soaked strike exchanges and mind-blowing Sliding D reversal from Yuji, complete with Killer Nagata evil eyes and everything. Terrific finish with Tanaka doing a surprisingly great sell-job for Nagata’s nasty-ass Backdrops. Pretty much the ideal “turn your brain off” action-packed Tokyo Dome singles match. Really good.

Manabu Nakanishi vs. Jun Akiyama

Way better than it had any right to be. Akiyama actually looked motivated for once and seemed to genuinely want to beat the shit out of Manabu in the opening minutes. EMOTIONS. Nakanishi busted out the Tokyo Dome high spots, including a freaking plancha which had me marking out. Other than that, he played his big powerhouse role really well, just tossing Akiyama around and popping the crowd with loud-as-florg chops. They sort of went for a brains vs. brawns type of thing, with Akiyama eventually overcoming Nakanishi’s big power offense by coming up with some crafty counters. Exploders R’ Us for the finish, but nothing too aggravating. Solid heavyweight pro-wrestling.

Shinsuke Nakamura & Hirooki Goto vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Takashi Sugiura

Believe the hype, this was tremendous. Big-time “important match” feel all the way through with the young New Japan superstars defending home turf against the NOAH legend and henchman Sugiura. From bell to bell, this was pretty much Nakamura’s match, as he looked world class and came off looking like a total star. From the early exchanges with Misawa where he sold the elbow strikes like a king, to the eyebrow-sweat-swiping mock spot, all the way to the insane ending stretch with Sugiura (CLOSED. FIST.), he really made me a believer. Sug was right behind him in terms of serious ass kickery. I can imagine people initially considering him a disappointing choice of partner for Misawa, but he definitely proved everyone wrong in this one. Totally handled himself like the baddest dude on Earth, throwing the nastiest strikes you can imagine and carrying large chunks of the match on his back. Other than the iffy tope con GIRO, Goto looked solid and played his role well enough. The out-of-nowhere Shouten and lariat-dodge-mania with Sug were good stuff. Misawa pretty much mailed it in, but it didn’t matter considering his presence alone was required to fire up Team NJ and make this match work. I swear, the last few minutes of this match are some of the most exciting you will see in wrestling today. And this comes from someone who hasn’t watched wrestling in 2 years. Hyperbole! The post-match celebration with Shinsuke and Goto posing to the New Japan theme song and then slapping hands with the fans was a major feel good moment. See this.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Keiji Muto – IWGP Heavyweight Title

Can’t say I was really looking forward to this one for two big reasons: I knew it went 30 minutes (which is ridiculous for these two), and Muto gargles my balls. Turns out my dread was mostly warranted, as this was seriously uneven. Things took a loooong while to get going, then Muto worked his usual leg-demolishing formula and it got old fast as he recycled the usual knee dropkick/dragon screw/figure 4 shtick over and over and eventually started taking naps during the figure 4. Granted, Tanahashi did an actually pretty fine job putting over the injury, going as far as limping around during the post-match ceremony. I also quite liked the bit where he desperately tried to slap the life back into his knee after letting go off a suplex due to the pain. There were some exciting exchanges during the final stretch, but also some iffy stuff like Muto blowing a springboard and Tana weirdly rolling around during the final Moonsault. Anyway, the crowd seemed to dig most of it, so hopefully now both Tanahashi and New Japan will benefit. PS – Gotta love Muto walking out hurriedly post-match and slapping hands with fans as if nothing happened at all. Yeah.

[Mecha Chuchu]

Osito, on Jan 19 2009, 10:07 AM, said:

Men's World: MEN's Teioh, Makoto Oishi, Shinobu & Yuki Sato vs. Onryo, KUDO, Tsutomu Oosugi & Hercules Senga - BJW 1/2/09 - INSANELY fast match. This was men´s club on speed. Very very good match.

Fluorescent Lighttubes Death Match: Ryuji Ito & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Yuko Miyamoto & Takashi Sasaki - BJW 1/02/09 - This show was PACKED with good match. Loved this match too. They used a lot of light tubes for this match, but made it mean something. Very good main event.

I watched BJW Death Match Wars 203 and it had both of these matches and I thought both weren't that good considering the love they're getting.

The Men's World Match wasn't half as a fast paced or fun as their past matches from last year.

The Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match wasn't good either. Shuji Ishikawa was interesting in there, but the rest of the guys did nothing for me. Really forgettable and BJW continues to put on crappy Death Matches.

[WrestlingPower]

I used to be a stickler for watching stuff in order. Then things got crazy as I was getting so many videos in that I fell years & years behind so then I started just randomly watching stuff. So I haven't watched a whole All Japan show in forever. I was kind of curious about the shows that I had read about George Mayfield & various others attending live last month in Japan. Dean let me dub these downloaded shows, and as a stickler for VQ as well, these actually made the cut for being watchable on DVD despite being a download.

1-Araya vs. Hiroshi Yamato
Never seen Yamato before and he's got a great look. Reminds me of KENTA as a rookie. Araya, quite frankly, looks like sh*t. Only in Japan is look so NOT a concern that you can literally come out looking like you just woke up and need to take a dump. It's like a job to these guys where it appears Araya is trudging off to the office despite going on a bender the night before and living a depressing life for years now after the wife left. Except his office is in a ring and he's not wearing a suit. Anyway he's fatter than ever, has unkempt hair turning gray, and he just does comedy now it appears. And a moonsault. This wasn't much to speak of but I'd like to see more of this Yamato guy, he appears promising. *

2-TARU/Joe Doering vs. Seiya Sanada/Manabu Soya
I've seen Doering before and he's got the look for sure. He seems perfectly fine, and here is not channeling Curt Hennig like I thought he was the first time I saw him. Since I don't have time to watch as much wrestling as I used to I mostly stick to the familiar to the point I really have no desire to see guys I've never seen before. Well now we're up to 3 young guys on this show I want to see more of. Sanada is wearing long blue & red American Dragon-in-the-mask style pants and Soya is gassed up and reminds me a bit of Hirooki Goto. These guys appear to be quite athletic, have a good look, and seem pretty good in the ring. Once again, they appear held back by the slow methodical style of match their opponents want to work. Nothing to remember here either. *1/4

3-Takayama vs. Zodiac
Aaron Aguilera's idea of looking crazy I guess is having some red hair and some blond hair, and coming out looking like he's been hanging out in the boiler room doing acid or something and hasn't slept in days. Takayama pretty much mauled him. Nothing to see here. DUD

4-Fuchi/Nishimura vs. Kea/MAZADA as the All Asian tag tourney begins.
As dull as the first 3 matches were, this one was just downright boring and put me to sleep. *

5-Suzuki/NOSAWA vs. YASSHI/Hate
This at least held my attention, but still dull. I can't believe there's no better talent available in 2009 than having to repackage Hirai as Hate. Don't remember much about this. *

6-Kojima/KAI vs. Suwama/Hijikata
KAI was the Observer rookie of the year and has a big helmet of bright red hair. This promotion has more guys with f'd up hair than anywhere in the world. Suwama's hair is mostly blond, some not. Kojima has like 2/3 black and 1/3 brownish. Enough about apperances, this match was kind of fun. Hijikata was a boring mid-card guy in Battlarts who I could take or leave but he's pretty solid now. KAI has a good look and is a bigger junior type. Good match that held my interest. **3/4

7-Mutoh/Kaz Hayashi vs. Ryota "Buddy Kong" Hama/Kondo
Kondo is still jacked. Kong is one of the more amazing men you'll ever see. He's practically spherical and it's really amazing he can even get in the ring let alone bump like he does. His offense is pretty limited but for his size and experience level it's really amazing what he does. This was really good with Kondo & Hayashi were in together. Just a fun match. **1/2

8-15 man battle royal
Everyone craps on the battle royal. It's not meant to be anything more than fun. I've seen several of these live and they are just played for comedy more than anything. I'm pretty sure they must just draw a name out of a hat as the winner really doesn't matter for anything. Some cute stuff near the end with Kong & Araya as fat men helping each other out. 3/4*

Overall, extremely missable show. The style is just so dull that it really seems like most of these guys are just collecting a check. Really the only pluses on here are the fascination of watching a 500 pound guy wrestle, and seeing the young guys. I'm really curious to follow the careers of the 3 young guys on this show, plus Suwama who they will probably be building around.