Furious Flashbacks: All Japan New Year Wars 2015 Day 2

AJPW New Year Wars Day 2

 

3^rd January 2015.

 

We’re in Tokyo, Japan at the Korakuen Hall. DDT ran the same building the same day and drew over 2000. AJPW’s crowd is 1,431. However DDT did run a cheap tickets gimmick so that might explain the difference.

 

Masanobu Fuchi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Ultimo Dragon vs. Yohei Nakajima, Naoya Nomura & Yuma Aoyagi

 

Check out the Young Boys team. Nakajima is easily the most experienced and he’s been treated like a jobber since signing for AJPW. Across the ring are three veterans but ones who don’t have big egos. Ultimo is the only one of the three who’ll want to look good. The other two are just happy to slap some young punks around. The trouble with the veterans being so giving is that I don’t get to see youngsters get the shit kicked out of them, which is my sole purpose for watching these opening bouts. Kanemaru is more systematic and just dismantles poor Aoyagi. Nakajima is the only guy on his team likely to get any meaningful offence and he does take it to Ultimo but he’s easily shrugged off. It takes all three kids to even get Kanemaru off his feet. I do like the idea of the kids working veterans rather than just each other though. The only major issue with the match is it runs too long, at almost 15 minutes. They have a habit of letting the Fuchi matches go too long. Kanemaru eventually puts Aoyagi away with a Superfly Splash. A good respectful showing all round. I’d have preferred a more violent approach.

 

Final Rating: **

 

Atsushi Aoki vs. Soma Takao

 

This was supposed to be Keisuke Ishii but he came down with a fever and couldn’t compete so his stable-mate is stepping up to the plate. Because it’s not Aoki’s scheduled title defence the junior title isn’t on the line. The potential for this match to be a sleeper hit is confirmed by Aoki going absolutely fucking crazy and running Takao into EVERY GODDAMN GUARDRAIL HE CAN FIND. He might as well be screaming “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY COMPANY” during each one. Aoki works over the back and Takao sells it, a bit. Dropkicks count as selling right? The trouble with Takao is most of his move set is speedy, high octane stuff and if you take it away all he’s got is pulling sympathy from the ladies. So he can’t really sell the whole match AND lose. When he’s scoring near falls here, off rope moves and kicks, the fans are genuinely into it. Aoki won’t give up on the spinal work though and that leaves Takao the medium of countering to get himself over. Aoki is a bastard here; backbreaker, crab, back suplex, another crab, CRANKED to the max. Eventually Takao can’t take it any more and submits. Hey, logic, nice to meet you! Aoki is a motherfucker when he’s got someone flippity to offset his surly junior style. I enjoyed this.

 

Final Rating: ***1/4

 

GAORA TV Championship:

KENSO (c) vs. Ryuji Hijikata

 

This is a spectacular rib as they’ve actually put a title on KENSO, perhaps to keep him away from everyone else. If I had the choice between a ten minute KENSO match and just about anything else, I’d usually plump for the latter. The GAORA title has been around for only a few years. KENSO is the 5^th champion. Seeing as this show is live on GAORA the title gets defended. KENSO, as per usual, does his slap a lot while Hijikata shows him some different wrestling moves. The match gets fairly heated toward the conclusion, which is traditionally the way all Japanese matches work, but sometimes expectations are low. This leads to KENSO bumping the ref and killing all that expectation dead. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. KENSO uses a rope to choke Hijikata out before finishing with a Savage Elbow. Well, this sure was a KENSO match. No doubt about it.

 

Final Rating: *

 

Jun Akiyama, Takao Omori & SUSHI vs. Akebono, Shigehiro Irie & Shuji Ishikawa

 

There’s nothing to get the taste of KENSO out of your mouth than one of Akiyama’s mismatched 6-man contests. This originally featured Soma Takao until he was shifted into the junior match and he’s been replaced by Shuji Ishikawa. Presumably because he was already in the building to work for DDT. The addition of Shuji makes the one team very heavy and poor SUSHI has got no one even close to his size. Akiyama & Omori are on a regular old tear as a team though and finished 2014 with the AJPW MOTY to win the Real World Tag League. Here Irie plays the role of plucky upstart and Akiyama plays the role of Akiyama…who hates plucky upstarts. Team Dream Futures would get seriously over working Akiyama & Omori on a regular basis. Akiyama is so goddamn ballsy too, even at his age and he instigates a HEADBUTT DUEL with Irie, who does headbutts all the time. He’s even great when he’s not in the match as he yells at SUSHI to DROP MORE ELBOWS. SUSHI ends up blowing himself by dropping elbows on Irie. It’s fantastic. Then Akiyama throws SUSHI to the floor so he can pin Irie. He’s like a miserable, angry, self-aware Triple H who actively wants people to get over by working with him. This might be the best Akebono match I’ve ever seen as he’s hardly involved, leaves the leg work to everyone else and works as hard as possible during his brief ring time. I love that SUSHI hurts his arm giving Akebono a lariat. Akebono kills him with a slap and a splash for the…KICKOUT! That was unexpected. Akebono looks like the exertion finished himself off. He just about manages a Russian legsweep for the win and has to missionary pin SUSHI to keep the poor guy down. Akiyama is just owning these trios matches. He was fantastic here.

 

Final Rating: ***1/2

 

Suwama & Hikaru Sato vs. Shingo Takagi & Zeus

 

Shingo is repping Dragon Gate and it’s nice to see Dragon Gate talent outside of that promotion. His opening exchanges with Suwama have me craving a singles match. That’s the thing with Japan though, just when you think a promotion is stale and has limited options, they just draft in someone else and it freshens everything up again. NOAH spent the whole of 2014 doing just that. Sato is great to watch, in case you’ve not seen him. He’s a small guy but he’s tactically astute and you can see him shaping up Zeus before throwing some leg kicks, which don’t work, so he switches to a single leg, which doesn’t work. He’ll find a way around Zeus eventually because Zeus is a big musclehead and Sato is a wrestler. He seems to enjoy selling for muscleheads though. Like he wants to emphasise the size difference all the time to amplify his achievements. Shingo & Zeus end up running heat on Sato. Shingo seems in his element bullying a smaller opponent. When Suwama gets in there it’s a different story. Shingo against big guys is actually a lot of fun as it’s a total role reversal and the wimp inside him comes spilling out. Suwama has no trouble going toe to toe with either opponent but Sato hasn’t got any power in his arsenal to get the same level of respect. He finally gets Zeus into trouble with an armbar. Zeus overpowers him though, which is unfortunate and hits a sloppy Jackhammer for the win. I was expecting to like this a lot more than I did. They stuck to formula for a lot longer than they should have and poor Sato got the shitty end of the stick as well as the majority of the match taking a beating. I understand why, as they’ve suddenly decided to push Zeus into a title match but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

 

Final Rating: **1/2

 

All Asia Tag Team Championship:

Xceed (Kento Miyahara & Kotaro Suzuki) (c) vs. Dark Kingdom (Mitsuya Nagai & Takeshi Minamino)

 

The feeling is that Miyahara is now too good to be carrying this title around. When Xceed won the titles back in August it was to establish the group as genuine players but now Kento is rubbing shoulders with Akiyama all the time so he doesn’t need it. This is a match to demonstrate his skills as Dark Kingdom inevitably cheat allowing Miyahara, easily the top guy in this match, to still fight from underneath. Dark Kingdom’s offence comes in the form of brawling, low blows, double teams and the arrival of GAORA TV champion KENSO (hey, the match is taking place on GAORA TV, I’d expect nothing less). Xceed look positively exciting compared to Dark Kingdom firing off speedy, high impact offence. The refereeing is absolutely shocking as he misses all of Minamino’s vast amount of low blows but also KENSO getting in the ring and hitting a brainbuster. KENSO even pulls the ref out of the ring to stop a pinfall. What a load of bullshit. Somehow all of this doesn’t equal a DQ AND I have to sit through more of KENSO’s lousy wrestling. As if one of his shitty matches wasn’t enough. Miyahara goes missing and Suzuki gets triple teamed into defeat. What a drag this match was. Flashes of good stuff from Miyahara was lost in the mix thanks to all the crap from Dark Kingdom. I really hate that stable. They’re worse than Bullet Club and Cho Kibou-gun put together.

 

Final Rating: *1/2

 

AJPW Triple Crown Championship:

Joe Doering (c) vs. Go Shiozaki

 

Doering won me over when he captured the Triple Crown. I thought he’d announced his arrival as a talent and a main event. What’s happened since has been quite disappointing. Joe hasn’t lived up to the champion tag and has under-performed in his big title defences. He’s not been terrible or anything but he’s definitely not hit the giddy highs I was hoping for. He’s clearly not going out without a fight though and will force Shiozaki to earn the title. Joe’s particularly keen to chop Go’s chest beet red. It’s a display of early dominance from the reigning champion and he’s generally bossed matches while defending. He has the size and power to do so. Shiozaki himself has come up short once and it doesn’t look like he’s formulated a plan B to get the belt here. As if that’s not enough of a hill to climb, Doering starts to no sell DDT’s! Even when Shiozaki is landing stuff it doesn’t work for him. He hits a suicide dive and ends up crashing spine first into the rail. It looks like he took more of the brunt than Doering. The move does seem to drain Joe of all his energy and his effort levels sink from dramatic no selling to sprawling on the mat waiting to be picked up. The tension is there though and Shiozaki runs into a spinebuster for a dramatic double down. I’m not sure the selling is right but the atmosphere is. The pacing picks up, along with the volume of the crowd and now every near fall gets a massive reaction. Spiralbomb is countered into a DDT, which Joe actually sells, and a LARIATOOOOOO gets 2. GO FLASHAAAAA…gets 2. Xceed are going mental at ringside, screaming encouragement to the challenger. Go does some wicked selling around this point, stumbling around the ring, showing how much the match has taken out of him. It allows Doering to make his comeback, it makes it believable. Go had just expended too much effort. Doering looks like his tank is on empty too so Shiozaki just smacks him around with spinning chops until Joe, stumbles across the ring glassy-eyed into position for the LARIATOOOOO. SHIN CHAMPION! These guys had themselves a war. It wasn’t as hard hitting as it could have been but they still did a fine job of telling the storyline of a battle. In the end Doering ran out of steam, much like his title run had. Go Shiozaki winning feels like the start of a new generation for All Japan. Xceed on top!

 

Final Rating: ****

 

 

BOOK PLUGS:

COMPLETE WWF VIDEO GUIDE

http://getBook.at/WWFGuide1

http://getBook.at/WWFGuide2

http://getBook.at/WWFGuide3

http://getBook.at/WWFGuide4

http://getBook.at/WWFGuide5

 

THE RAW FILES

http://getBook.at/RAWFiles93

http://getBook.at/RAWFiles94

http://getBook.at/RAWFiles95

http://getBook.at/RAWFiles96

http://getBook.at/RAWFiles97

http://getBook.at/RAWFiles98

 

SUPERSTAR SERIES

http://getBook.at/Harts

http://getBook.at/Warrior

 

TITAN SINKING

http://getBook.at/TitanSinking

 

ALL OR NOTHING

http://getBook.at/1PW

 

You can also follow me on Twitter @ArnoldFurious

 

7.5

The final score: review Good

The 411

One tour into 2015 and All Japan is already having a better year than their 2014. Their first half of 2014 was awful but this is a company that’s coming back. They’re fighting for each other and it continues to be a promotion full of hope. Jun Akiyama isn’t getting everything right but he’s getting so much positive onto the shows that it’s hard to be critical. Especially considering how far they’ve come. Next for Shiozaki is Zeus, which is a bit of a strange decision but hey, it’s different. If there’s one thing Akiyama is, it’s different. His 6-man matches prove that. He’s constantly shuffling his deck to see what works. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes next.