Puroresu Love: Navigation Over The Date Line 2004

NAVIGATION OVER THE DATE LINE
September 10, 2004

I’ve wanted to review this particular show for a while, but wound up having to wait for a commercial release of it. For some odd reason, there was never a complete edition TV show of this card. The closest we got were two NOAH TV shows with mass commercials (a huge peeve of mine) and the matches are horribly out of sequence which would mean having to get both shows to see all the good and/or important stuff. The commercial version only has the final four matches on it, but the only notable thing that you miss is a junior eight-man-tag (that got a whole six minutes) the aftermath of which was the surprise appearance of SUWA (of Toryumon and Dragon Gate fame) where he challenges for a GHC Jr. Tag Titles match, and starts a brawl with KENTA.

NAOMICHI MARUFUJI vs. MINORU SUZUKI
For someone who had so much potential back in NOAH’s first couple of years, Marufuji is pretty disappointing here. He seems to have the same issues that I always see in Satoshi Kojima. He just brings his big arsenal out, whether or not it’s helpful to the match, and more often than not, it isn’t helpful. The opening here is fun, with Marufuji trying to both avoid getting taken to the ground by Suzuki and also trying to be as much of a prick heel as Minoru. The first strike in this match is a slap in the face, thrown by Marufuji. The second one is another slap, also thrown by Marufuji. When Suzuki takes control, he keeps it on the ground wearing down Marufuji with a combination of chin locks, and shoulder stretches. I always seem to harp on this in NOAH vs. Outsider matches, but it keeps cropping up. Every time the outsider is able to get control of the NOAH wrestler, it’s on the mat working the submissions. After all this time, you’d have thought they’d figure it out by now. But Suzuki has himself a decently long control segment on Marufuji, just keeping him grounded and working the chin locks and shoulder stretches.

After they get off the mat, Marufuji starts to show his bad habits. Suzuki levels him with a chop in the corner, which Marufuji answers by hitting a superkick and then setting him up in the Tree of Woe and doing the Coast to Coast. Marufuji used one of his big spots, and he gives it nothing in terms of build up. He doesn’t treat his Shiranui with any more respect either. Marufuji is able to block Suzuki’s German suplex, and hits the Shiranui. At the very least he could have done the superkick first, to stun him so he could do the move. Not that it would have gotten the win for him, because he had barely done anything to wear down Suzuki. Marufuji decides to try his super Shiranui off the top rope, and gets himself caught in the choke. It works to perfection, because if Marufuji had just thought about what he could do while he had Suzuki still stunned from the initial Shiranui instead of just trying to one-up it, he could have avoided the whole thing. Even though Suzuki was able to take advantage of that mistake, he isn’t able to avoid making it himself. The next move attempted by Suzuki is his finisher, the flip into the sleeper hold, which Marufuji counters to a backdrop. Marufuji learned from his previous mistake by just digging out the Shiranui, so he his the superkick first to stun him, but still hasn’t learned to wait until Suzuki has taken enough damage, and Suzuki evens the odds by countering the Shiranui into the flip over choke and Marufuji has nowhere left to go and finds himself choked out.

LOW KI vs. YOSHINOBU KANEMARU © (GHC Jr Title)
With this being Kanemaru’s first defense after dethroning Lyger at the Tokyo Dome, you’d expect him to really go all out to show that he’s the man, and that he is the best NOAH has right now. With this being Low Ki’s first major match in NOAH, you’d expect him to be also willing to bust his keister to show what he’s made of. Unfortunately, we don’t get either of these things. There are a few hints early on in the match, but it doesn’t take very long to degenerate down. Much like Suzuki in the previous match, Low Ki uses submissions early on, to control Kanemaru. Ki also likes to do them in the ropes, and on more than one occasion it catches the champion off guard. Ki also heels it up a bit by throwing Kanemaru into the guardrail and then trying his own guardrail leg drop, it misses, and Kanemaru shows him how it’s done.

Kanemaru isn’t very smart in this match though. Ki gives himself an easy opening early on by kicking at Kanemaru’s knee while he was in the middle of a pescado, but once Kanemaru is back in the ring, he forgets all about it. Kanemaru also creates his own opening by taking a cheap shot at Ki’s knee while he’s doing one of his cartwheel kicks, and doesn’t do a single thing to take advantage of it. Kanemaru’s extended control segment on Ki is very meandering as well, because he shows no focus. He’s just doing whatever comes to mind, because he knows that they’ll get to the finish eventually. It’s not just his long control segment, its present in almost everything Kanemaru does, until the finish run. And the only focus he shows there is bringing out his finishers until he finally gets the pin. Kanemaru suddenly decides to sell his knee to explain why he can’t do the brainbuster, but Low Ki took Kanemaru’s hint earlier and just left it alone, seeing as he wasn’t doing anything with it after he got into the ring.

Ki isn’t a whole lot better than Kanemaru is in this match, in terms of working smart. He’s certainly not shy about throwing out the flashy spots. But at the very least he doesn’t just throw out random things for any logical reason. An easy example of that is after Low Ki does his reverse Shining Wizard, he does a simple bridging backdrop pin. Knowing it won’t get the win for him, but it will make Kanemaru expend energy to kick out, as well as soften up the neck some more punishment. After that he goes right for the Ki Krusher with Kanemaru’s neck worked over. Ki tries to put over his fatigue after doing the running throwing Ki Krusher into the ring, by collapsing on the ramp, to explain why he doesn’t go for the pin. But the next move that he uses is the Phoenix splash.

Kanemaru also does quite a job in the end of shitting on Ki’s offense. Kanemaru just kicks out of the aforementioned Phoenix splash, even though he was laying in the corner and a rope break would have put it over as a potential finisher. Or if he thought it was time to go into the finish run of the match, he could just put his knees up as Ki was coming down. Either method saves the match for Kanemaru and still doesn’t devalue the splash. Kanemaru doesn’t just disrespect Ki’s offense though, he does it to his own stuff just fine. By going for the pin after every move he does, Kanemaru only makes his lower tier finishers look weak. In NOAH short reigns are extremely rare, its only Kanemaru’s first defense, and Low Ki’s first ever tour, so nobody is expecting a title change anyway. Kanemaru got on offense by blocking Ki’s attempt at a super Ki Krusher and throwing him off the top. Kanemaru then jumps off the top, spiking Ki with the DDT. After that near fall, which couldn’t be expected to get the win anyway, he does the brainbuster for a much hotter one. Kanemaru follows up with the twisting brainbuster for the win. Now if Kanemaru had gone for the moonsault after the DDT and then spiked Ki with the brainbuster for the win. His near fall off the moonsault would have been just as heated (if not more) than his brainbuster near fall. Kanemaru hasn’t won a big match with the simple brainbuster in ages. The only reason it got any sort of real heat was that it was the second time Ki got dropped on his head. By throwing in the moonsault, they could have also gone for a rope break, to put it over and get the same big reaction, and then go to the brainbuster for the finish. Kanemaru wouldn’t have devalued any of his big moves, and wouldn’t have had to use a step-up of the same move to get the win. NOAH could have put the GHC Jr. Title on anyone else. They could have made either a new star or cemented one (Marufuji). Kanemaru as champion accomplishes nothing.

MASAO INOUE/AKITOSHI SAITO vs. MITSUHARU MISAWA/YOSHINARI OGAWA © (GHC Tag Team Titles)
In his thirteen-year career, Masao Inoue has never been worth anything. He’s always gone to the ring, done his thing, and then left. He’s had zero standout performances, both in All Japan and in NOAH. Even when his longtime tag team partner Tamon Honda decided to start kicking it up a notch, and got shot right up the card, Inoue didn’t take the hint. He just continued his trend of killing time in the mid cards and generally stinking up the joint. What makes this so memorable, is that not only is it Inoue’s first big time opportunity, but that he does his best to try to show that he deserves it. Inoue didn’t get into this match for his talent. This is a push for Saito, as he’d just recently formed the Dark Agents stable and was out to show that he was above being Akiyama’s right-hand-man. Saito at least showed the ability to step up for the big matches, but Inoue had never shown any desire, or ability to step up at all.

At first though, Inoue looks to be about as useful as Makoto Hashi, that being the weak link of the team, who always screws up. Inoue is unable to have any sort of meaningful success against the champions in the early going. Saito helps him out when he can, by taking cheap shots or making the save to give him openings, but as soon as he’s left to his own devices, Inoue is back in trouble. Inoue will hit a lariat and send Ogawa back a millimeter, and then Ogawa will fire back with a jab that sends Inoue reeling back and down on the mat. Misawa and Ogawa don’t do anything to help Inoue look any better either. They stick with their low range offense, like Ogawa’s jabs and Misawa’s standing elbow smashes. The most critical move that is used by Misawa is his standing senton. When Saito is in there, he’s able to keep both of them at bay. Five minutes into the match the first theme has arisen, that Saito is going to be working for two. There is only so much that Saito can do, because he’s got a huge burden on him. He’s in his first big match without Akiyama, he’s got to wrestle Misawa and Ogawa, he’s now the top guy on his team, and now he has to lead Inoue by the hand. Of course it’s only a matter of time before Saito cracks under the pressure. Saito gains one more quick offensive run against Misawa by spraying him with green mist, but after an Ogawa enzuigiri, Saito has to make the tag.

For the first time in his career, Masao Inoue makes himself useful in the match. It starts off small, with him just connecting simple lariats, but then it starts to inflate. Inoue counters a Tiger driver into a backslide, and remembers to drive with the legs for added momentum. Inoue then ducks the charging elbow and does the Pat O’Connor roll up for another two. Misawa tries another charging elbow and finds himself back on the mat after a powerslam. The fans pick right up on what’s going on. They’re watching Masao Inoue finally bust his backside and try to entertain them, and they just babyface Inoue to death, and start chanting his name. Misawa takes advantage of Inoue’s blind charge to tag, but then Ogawa blind charges into a boot and gets a Tornado DDT. Ogawa isn’t able to have any more luck against Inoue than Misawa was having. Saito and Inoue show off a few of their own double team moves against Ogawa as well. Inoue uses Ogawa’s bridging backdrop for a near fall. Ogawa even tries one of his favorite cheap finishers, with the small package and Inoue reverses the move for another near fall. Ogawa does hit the DDT twice, and Inoue no-sells them both, and starts to unload his headbutts before he finally falls to the canvas. The delayed selling here actually makes sense for a change as well, because Inoue was having the best run of his career, and he’s not going to just let Ogawa put a stop to it. Inoue manages to pull himself to his feet and unload his headbutts on Misawa, before he finds himself stuck in a two-on-one.

Misawa and Ogawa finally try to eliminate Saito and take down Inoue together and that also fails. He lariats them both down, and comes off the top rope with a dropkick on them both. Misawa and Ogawa are finally able to get in control after a double Tiger driver, but they still can’t keep Inoue down, and the fans are loving it. Inoue escapes Misawa’s Emerald Frozian and even survives an Ogawa backdrop off the second rope. Ogawa is finally able to score the pin after his third consecutive backdrop. This isn’t a match about dangerous head dropping spots. The match is about a story. It’s about Masao Inoue taking advantage of his first foray into the upper tier. Inoue was supposed to be the supporting player who did the job, and he wound up outshining the rest. It forced Misawa and Ogawa to step up their game as well. All year long they had just been sleep walking through their matches. This match was no different, until Inoue started to show some fire. Then Misawa and Ogawa had to turn it up, in order to score the win. It’s too bad that they didn’t take the hint though and do it with more regularity. ***1/2.

KENTA KOBASHI © vs. AKIRA TAUE (GHC Heavyweight Title)
This is quite easily the best of Kobashi’s title defenses, it’s surprising, although it shouldn’t be. A couple of times every year, Akira Taue gets possessed by his spirit from 1995-1996 and is able to outwork anyone and everyone. It was only a year before that Taue stole the show with Yuji Nagata. It was only a month before this that Taue stole the show with Misawa. As awesome as Taue is in this match, Kobashi also deserves credit as well. He finally learned the secret to being the man. He needs to make his opponents look good, and he does oodles of that.

Every major NOAH main event starts out the exact same way. They start working simple holds, and then segue into the chop trade offs. One look at Taue’s beat red chest vs. Kobashi’s chest tells you exactly who really won that battle. However right after they finish chopping each other’s chests. Taue scores with one of Kobashi’s own spinning neck chops, levels him with several jumping Dynamic kicks that send him to the floor, and then hits a suicide dive. Kobashi is only able to get control on the floor by using the guardrail. Once they’re back into the ring, Kobashi keeps himself in control by working holds. First Kobashi uses a lucha style armbar, and then an abdominal stretch. It’s easy to understand why. Taue just showed Kobashi up with the strikes, and Kobashi isn’t willing to take a chance on Taue showing him up in terms of using bigger moves just yet, so he’s keeping it simple with the holds.

Kobashi eventually does wind up taking it to the outside, and just like he feared, Taue outdoes him. Kobashi attempted the lariat, but wound up laying on his back after taking the Nodowa Otoshi. Taue follows that up with a real blast from his past, Taue attempts the NOMDK. Kobashi remembers all too well how deadly that move is, and blocks it. But then he opens himself up for something even worse. Taue does an Ore Ga Taue, from the apron to the floor. Kobashi gives it the full cadaver sell job, not even moving a muscle, and Taue has to throw him inside, since the title can’t be won via a count out. The fans don’t really react that well to the Kobashi kicking out at 2.9. They’re not stupid, they know that Kobashi can take an ungodly amount of abuse, and suck it all up and level you with one lariat to end the whole thing. Taue’s Dynamic Bomb gets more heat, but ultimately not as much as it was probably intended to get. The fans are definitely heated for the match, and they’re pulling for Taue, much the same way that they were pulling for Inoue. But they know that it’s not enough to keep Kobashi down.

Even after hitting three big bombs back to back to back, Taue is still one step ahead of Kobashi. Kobashi tries one of his famous no-selling comebacks, off of Taue’s German suplex. Only to run smack into Taue’s boot and get planted with another German suplex. Kobashi also attempts a powerbomb, only to have Taue do a hurricanrana. Kobashi does get a short burst of offense, but tries for the moonsault and Taue rolls out of the way. The fans like that Taue is doing this sort of stuff, but are still aware that its Taue’s counters aren’t going to be enough to end the match. As a result the fans treat the near fall as such. There is only one near fall that the fans do give that sort of respect to, and Taue and Kobashi’s execution of it pretty much made it a waste. Taue’s new Chichibu Cement brainbuster. The actual execution of the spot was excellent, with Taue once again catching Kobashi off guard and planting him with it. But he went for the pin too quickly, instead of letting Kobashi sell it like a corpse, the way he did the earlier Ore Ga Taue. So when Kobashi kicked out, the writing was on the wall.

Kobashi’s comeback begins with one of his old bad habits, taking a big amount of punishment like he’d just done and being able to shake it off and hit a simple lariat to be firmly in control. Taue’s selling here is great though, because he even treats Kobashi’s mid range offense like the Half-Nelson suplex, like it’s lethal enough to put him down. Taue’s kick out of the Burning Lariat was able to get the heat they’d been shooting for earlier with Taue’s near falls, and the small package near fall for Taue garners a similar reaction. Kobashi doesn’t even risk Taue kicking out the Burning Hammer and goes straight to the wrist clutch Burning Hammer. It also lets Taue take a bit of a safer bump, and even though he’s victorious and made his tenth title defense, Kobashi knows he was in a battle.

That this match is so good, partly due to Kobashi doesn’t seem like it should be a surprise. Kenta Kobashi has more experience with excellent matches than almost anyone else on the face of the planet. But a quick look at his GHC record up to this point tells a different story. His most notable three title defenses were against Honda, Nagata, and Akiyama. That the Honda match was so good, is more a tribute to Honda’s ability to step up more than anything Kobashi did. The Nagata title defense was pretty much a step-by-step manual for how to make a challenger look like he’s worthless. Finally, the match with Akiyama really only served to cement the notion that Kobashi is the man, and Akiyama isn’t ready (and may never be ready) to ascend to the top. Also this match illustrates one of NOAH’s inherent problems, in not taking full advantage of huge opportunities like Taue in the middle of his annual hot streak. What did he wind up doing after this? Taue and Takuma Sano, a tag team that was quite popular got to put over Misawa and Ogawa the next month at the Budokan. Instead of taking advantage of Taue’s hot streak and putting the titles on them, and having fresh matches for the GHC Tag Titles, as well as at least potentially good matches. Misawa and Ogawa were able to continue to sleepwalk through more title matches. But that’s just par for the course in NOAH, when a huge opportunity stares them right in the face, and nobody lifts a finger to do anything about it. ***3/4.

Conclusion: As a whole it’s a decently fun tape. The two final matches are definitely worth taking a look at. I’d definitely recommend picking up NOAH’s commercial release of Navigation Over the Date Line 2004.