wrestling / Video Reviews
Furious Flashbacks: New Japan King of Pro Wrestling 2014
Loading...NJPW King of Pro Wrestling
13th October 2014.
KOPW is New Japan’s way of setting the table for the big Dome show in January. With the card somewhat uncertain, this would make things crystal clear. The winners of the Tanahashi-Styles and Okada-Naito matches will face each other for the IWGP title in the main event of the Dome show. Thus setting the biggest match of the year in stone 3 months before the show. I know the WWE managed to book Wrestlemania a year in advance when they did Rock vs. Cena but I appreciate any forward planning in wrestling. It shows NJPW know where they’re going and how they’re going to get there. Plus it doesn’t matter who wins, there will be a great match at the end of it. And probably two tonight as well. Also on tap we have Tomohiro Ishii’s attempt to reclaim the NEVER belt from upstart Yujiro Takahashi and a three-way for the IWGP Junior tag titles. Plus the NWA are in the house and Taguchi defends his Junior title. There are SIX title defences in all. Before we’re underway there’s a big event vibe.
We’re in Tokyo, Japan at the Ryogoku Sumo Hall. 9,000+ in attendance and a sell-out. I’m informed it’s the first sell out of the venue since 1995 (apart from the G1 Finals) by New Japan. Quite the momentous occasion.
Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows & Tama Tonga) vs. Great Bash Heel (Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma), Kota Ibushi & Yuji Nagata
Once again it’s staggering how much talent NJPW have on their roster that a sub-ten minute opener features this level of awesomeness. Fale headlined the past PPV and both Ibushi and Honma are red hot. Not to mention Nagata, who destroys Bullet Club from the bell, throwing Exploder suplexes like they’re going out of fashion. Poor Doc Gallows almost gets suplexed out of his pleather shorts. As per usual Honma has enormous crowd support even if he gets picked off for heat. Given the large number of participants and the brisk nature of the match, it’s a fast-paced contest. It doesn’t have that X factor that you sometimes get from energetic multiple person tags but each native wrestler gets their chance to shine. Bullet Club are guys that increasingly understand their purpose is to bounce around for bigger stars. They’re closer to DX than the nWo. Thankfully. There is a fine line between bumping around a lot and being a loser but Bullet Club have been walking that line quite nicely of late. Apart from Tama, who takes a lot of great bumps, but is blatantly just in there to count lights. Ibushi catches him with the Phoenix Splash for the meaningless pin. There was nothing wrong with this and it was an upbeat way to start the PPV. I’m certain they can find something better for the majority of the babyfaces to do but this is the problem with having such a strong roster.
Final Rating: **1/2
NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship:
Chase Owens (c) vs. BUSHI
This is the biggest break of Chase Owens career to date; playing second fiddle to the devastating EVIL of Bruce Tharpe and his sparkly jacket of heeldom. I immediately hate Owens because he’s wearing headphones on his way out here. Not on his head but around his neck. Why? They’re not plugged in to anything. What purpose do they serve? They start out with a lot of flippity lucha stuff. It’s inoffensive and BUSHI can hit a cool dive. It comes across as a cruiserweight showcase. The fact it gets only 7 minutes shows how highly New Japan rate the belt and angle. The belt has had moments in the sun and several New Japan guys have held it before including Tiger Mask IV and Liger. The title lineage goes way back to 1950 and Verne Gagne was the 2nd champion. It’s certainly fallen on hard times but any belt with that kind of history can be rebuilt to mean something. Even if the NWA isn’t important now, the history still is. Chase uses his showcase to demonstrate some decent offence including the Package Piledriver, which finishes. BUSHI got the shitty end of the stick but still got the chance to show off some of his stuff. The word ‘showcase’ keeps popping back into my head when discussing this bout. It felt like an exhibition, rather than a contest and was too brief to really mean anything. Just an introduction to Chase Owens and this angle. Bruce demands a “real challenger” and calls out Jushin Liger. Tharpe’s promo is so animated he knocks his own sunglasses off before Liger strolls out, wearing a pimp suit that looks totally weird on him, and cuts a promo in English accepting the challenge.
Final Rating: *3/4
NWA World Tag Team Championship:
TenKoji (c) vs. Killer Elite Squad
New Japan seem to keep forgetting KES exist. It wasn’t that long ago that Archer was being billed as a monster and seemed due a big singles push and Davey was looking like a candidate to move up the card. The standard of their matches wasn’t quite up to scratch so they’ve drifted. Davey had a good G1 though and now they’re back in the mix, with the backing of Bruce Tharpe-des. I’m well aware I’ve seen this contest before but the matches are not in any way memorable. Maybe that’s just me, as I’m not that into tag teams, thanks to North America ruining the division (be it WWE or whoever) and constantly having to rebuild. The match has a lot of ‘powerhouse brawl’ elements with big dudes smacking each other around. TenKoji play the smaller babyfaces and take the abuse. Bruce Tharpe gives the whole spectacle a little colour by LOVING Archer stealing the Mongolian chops. What a wonderful manager he is. If he interfered a bit more he’d be perfect. I think the biggest issue he faces as a gaijin heel is he’s competing with Bullet Club so he tries to be more Old School about it and he’s a great character. Kojima looks much stronger than Tenzan here, often fending off both challengers by himself and even having time to cut Tenzan down with an accidental lariat. Once he’s wound it up, somebody is getting it! Kojima finds himself overwhelmed though and cut down with the Killer Bomb. I can’t help but feel these are runner-up prizes for KES as Bullet Club are dominating the IWGP belts. The real interest comes from Tenzan getting all pissed off with Kojima for the miscued lariat.
Final Rating: **
Tangent: If you’re unfamiliar with the TenKoji history and partnership, they’ve been a tag team for 15 years on and off. Their first match as a team was as part of nWo Japan! They teamed for 4 years from 1999, until Kojima left to join AJPW. Even in All Japan, Tenzan popped over to keep Kojima company and TenKoji won the Real World Tag League in 2006 and 2008. Kojima returned to New Japan in 2010 and they’ve been teaming ever since. So the issues between them here are surprising, considering their rich history. The tag league is right around the corner though and New Japan will be in no rush to break them up before that tournament. Or in any rush to break them up at all. Creating tension in a long-standing friendship is merely step one. This could go on for years, given New Japan’s propensity to think long-term in the booking. Look at Yano and Suzuki. They’re still feuding and it may never end.
Kazushi Sakuraba & Toru Yano vs. Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka)
I know they’re building for the Dome show and the inevitable Suzuki-Sakuraba match but that means they can’t do anything but short and inevitably bad tag team matches in between. Suzuki switches it up here by being a total shithead, slapping Sakuraba and then stamping on his head and punting his spine. It’s relentless! Suzuki certainly puts down a marker with his aggression and makes me want that Dome match all the more. Sakuraba’s response is to go after Suzuki’s arm. It’s cold and calculating and shows the difference in approach. Clearly Suzuki’s aim will be to make Sakuraba lose his cool. I honestly think they did almost irreparable damage to Sakuraba by jobbing him to the dime-store Gracies they brought in. This is a rebuilding process and it’s a lot of fun to watch. Yano works in some comedy stuff with Iizuka, which is beginning to look very similar after only a few matches. No beard stuff this time but Yano points at himself a lot before punching Iizuka in the balls and getting the roll up pin. Meanwhile Sakuraba is choking Suzuki out on the floor. That match is going to be epic.
Final Rating: **
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship:
Time Splitters (c) vs. The Young Bucks vs. Forever Hooligans
Time Splitters have the most adorable entrance video in wrestling. In it KUSHIDA is shown, as a child, doing standing flips onto a mattress. Born to fly! As I pointed out during Destruction, I don’t see why Forever Hooligans got this title shot. They lost to the Bucks. Surely this is Splitters vs. Bucks for the titles? Obviously this is spot-heavy and I’d expect nothing less. Time Splitters are both capable of structuring something better and more meaningful but sometimes you just want a bunch of craziness. Splitters do get early laughs with frequent tags. As in about a second apart, frequent. KUSHI then invites the Bucks to “suck it” showing a little personality. Once the spots start to flow the focus remains the same; Time Splitters are really over. Hooligans seem to be running out of material and their spots look recycled. Especially Romero taking forever (name check) to hit a lariat, thus frustrating the watching Koslov. The timing on everything is great though and they have the match planned out superbly well. NJPW clearly have faith in them as the match gets almost 20 minutes and showcases just about every aspect of their collective games. If you dig spot-heavy junior tag style, this will be right up your alley. I’m less keen on this style of match than I used to be, as wrestling has gotten way spottier over the last 10-15 years so it’s not like you need a spotfest to lighten the already light mood. However, if you’re going to do a spotfest, you might as well have fun with it and these guys do.
They break out trademark spots and counters for trademark spots and work in some goofy comedy stuff to break that up. It’s a clever work and it’s very enjoyable. Obviously there are things that irritate, like the total lack of tagging after the first few minutes and the inconsistencies in selling and such but fuck it, it’s fun. Even when they make a mistake, like Koslov massively botching his dive to the floor, they improvise with Romero ‘saving’ him and the crowd pop the shit out of it like it’s real. I must admit the wrestlers pop me a few times and get more than a few chuckles too. Usually at Rocky Romero’s expense. The finish actually comes across a bit flat as KUSHI just rolls up Koslov, with the Bucks trying to claw at his arms to break the pin and that’s it. Otherwise this was one of the most fun junior tags all year. Perhaps only outdone by Splitters vs. Bucks (Dominion back in June ****1/2) without the comedy elements that the Hooligans brought with them here. Good match.
Final Rating: ****1/4
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship:
Ryusuke Taguchi (c) vs. El Desperado
Jesus, good luck following that last match! This is almost certainly an error in judgement by New Japan. They did insert the interval in between but nevertheless, it’s hard to shake the imagery from the last bout and you know they won’t measure up to it. They do establish some tension by having Taichi pretend to be El Desperado and having Suzuki-gun generally fuck around and look as if they’ll screw Taguchi out of the title. Remember how I complemented Bullet Club on using their overness as heels to make the top faces look good? Well, these assholes don’t understand that at all. They’re desperate to be ‘cool’ heels. Desperado’s matches are hard to enjoy until they get into a rhythm because he’s so unpredictable you’re never quite sure if the match will be any good. This one isn’t. A marked contrast to his last shot at the belt, where he had a decent bout against Kota Ibushi (***1/4 at New Beginning in Osaka in February). Maybe I’m in the minority but I preferred Desperado when he was ‘shades of grey’. He wasn’t a heel, he was just a dickhead. As a heel, you lose that and make him too bland. Desperado makes matters worse here by working the buttocks! How’s he planning on getting a submission from that? Actually, don’t answer. And just when you think nobody can beat the stupidity of getting their arm worked then doing elbow duels, Taguchi specifically uses his ass as an offensive weapon. You’d think that would be an easy one to avoid, but no. From there we go to trademark spots and the countering thereof, which is much better but rather exposes how inferior these guys are to everyone in the last match. Taguchi keeps going after the Anklelock and eventually catches Desperado in it in the middle of the ring for the submission. Posterior psychology aside, this was a passable midcard match. Not the same energy that Taguchi had in winning the title though (**** vs. KUSHIDA at Destruction in Kobe). Taichi jumps Taguchi after the bell and throws the title belt over his shoulder. He’ll be challenging at Power Struggle. Not good news for Taguchi’s title reign. Already one match in and he looks like a damp squib.
Final Rating: **1/2
NEVER Openweight Championship:
Yujiro Takahashi (c) vs. Tomohiro Ishii
This is one of two poor choices New Japan made regarding Bullet Club being belt collectors. Ishii was rocking along as one of the companies best talents when they bizarrely jobbed him to Yujiro. But Ishii delivered his usual insane levels of effort during G1 so he’s getting the strap back. The only remaining question is whether he can pull a good match out of his ass against Yujiro in returning to the top. As Yujiro can’t match Ishii in striking or anything for that matter, he goes to the eyes and then kicks Ishii in his bad shoulder. Tactically it’s astute but shortcuts are his only friend here. Ishii is at his best when duelling with strong opponents but that won’t work here as Yujiro can’t match him so they opt for Takahashi trying to run and Ishii having to drag him back. Ishii can’t quite master the kind of ass-kicking that Yujiro deserves, which is a pity. Instead they use Ishii’s injury to tell a sensible story and allow Takahashi to dominate allowing Ishii bursts of offence. Ishii’s selling, as if he’s genuinely broken his neck on every spot, is a huge highlight of this approach and it’s nice to see someone have a totally different match than the one they’re known for. When Yujiro does try to beat Ishii at his own game, by elbowing him, he swiftly discovers this is a bad idea. Ishii is notably quicker in his offence here. He doesn’t insert pauses in between spots like he sometimes does. In particular this is noticeable on his stalling superplex where he barely stalls at all. Why? Because he’s injured and can’t hold Yujiro up there and he feels he needs as quick a win as possible. There’s urgency about him. Ishii begins to expect Yujiro’s cheating and allows a clever spot where he catches a kick to the groin. Ishii is smart enough to know he has to establish Yujiro as a threat or beating him means nothing and they do a fine job of building up Takahashi and his spots. During this reign his stock has certainly risen and especially in this bout. All due to Ishii and his willingness to get others over and he even does so without being brutally stiff. I’m a little sad about the latter but it does prove Ishii can work a different style so if you run into a guy who thinks Ishii is all ‘strikes and no selling’ you can show him this. Yujiro survives the lariat, presumably because it isn’t brutally stiff, but the brainbuster finishes. Best Yujiro match, ever.
Final Rating: ****
CHAOS (Shinsuke Nakamura & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. Meiyu Tag (Katsuyori Shibata & Hirooki Goto)
There is a plan here as Shibata is next for Nakamura’s IC title so they need a match to set that up. Nakamura’s first moments in the ring are delicious as he stands nose to nose with Shibata before peeling away immediately to pose on the ropes. Then he starts fucking around with the taunts and Shibata goes to kick his head and they go from there to the mat and the counters are awesome. Ok, NJPW, you’ve sold that particular match on me in about 2 minutes flat. Goto again gets a little disrespected here as he’s given the jobber to work with. Basically so Shibata can shake his head disapprovingly from the apron when he doesn’t smash his way through YOSHI-HASHI in 30 seconds. Nakamura & Shibata are content to do the elbow duels and such while Goto & YOSHI-HASHI structure something closer resembling a match. Nakamura has so much fun with it that it’s hard to dislike anything he does though.
YEAAHOOOOH!
Shibata counters the Boma Ye before he even gets there into a Stunt Rider Stretch, which you don’t see very often. As per usual YOSHI-HASHI gets moments of hope, where the fans start to buy into him actually winning. For some ungodly reason Shibata takes this section of the match! And Goto saves him! It’s like some sort of Bizarroworld. Ushikoroshi on Nakamura leads right into Shibata hitting the PK, which is just sensational stuff. Nakamura barely even gets time to let out a yelp! The match has moments like that but they don’t have quite enough to make it a classic. When Shibata has had enough he hooks YOSHI-HASHI in the sleeper and the PK finishes. I like how Goto proved himself here. He has to sooner or later or Shibata would just dump him. This worked as a taster for Nakamura-Shibata too as they kept interaction to a minimum and everything worked.
Final Rating: ***1/4
IWGP #1 Contender’s Match:
Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito
This was the ‘main event’ at this year’s Dome show. It was for the IWGP title but was bumped down to second top after the fans voted for Nakamura vs. Tanahashi to main event. Okada triumphed there but lost to Naito during G1, the only blemish on his record (bar Karl Anderson, who he beat at the last PPV). So it’s second chance territory for Naito, a chance for him to beat the man who denied him the IWGP title and take his Dome show title shot. Meanwhile Okada is out to prove he’s the absolute best ahead of wrestling at the Dome show.
Okada is keen to prove himself superior to Naito in every way and deliberately gives him mockingly clean breaks before kicking his ass. They need a big storyline to establish weakness on Okada’s part so they go for him getting stunned by a head shot, which is unusually sensible. You’d think everyone in Japan had special unbreakable skulls given the usual smashmouth back and forth action. Okada keeps consistent on the early selling too, being rocked by anything near his head and looking decidedly loopy when resting between spots. Naito hits a neckbreaker off the ropes but in general doesn’t target the head, which isn’t smart but does make him more of a babyface. For a guy who’s been struggling with reactions, it is a smart move. Okada has none of the same compunctions about following stuff up and mounts a comeback with his Too Awesome Dropkick before flooring Naito with a DDT off the rail. This lights a fire under Naito though and allows him to mount his own comeback and this time one of his first moves is to kick Okada in the head. Sadly Okada doesn’t go in for selling the head this time around. That section of the match is over fans. It’s a gripe I keep coming back to but would it kill him to just hold his head for a while after that spot? Instead it’s time for the big Savage Elbow and…
RAINMAKER POSE!
Naito counters by elbowing Okada in the head, which works because of the previous injury and gives him space to hit a flying forearm too. Again the target being Okada’s noggin. At this point people are not only buying into Naito as a threat but they’re cheering him on. They probably wouldn’t be too pleased if he won but that’s progress. It’s not been easy rebuilding Naito after his Dome shot but they’ve done well to get him back to this point. Stardust Press misses and they follow it with Naito desperately blocking the Tombstone. It’s a cool spot but he attempts a spin kick and gets caught again only to counter out and hit the Pele Kick, again hitting Okada’s injured dome and resulting in a near fall that gives Okada fans kittens. Naito is nice in respond by headspiking the Awesome Okada dropkick. It looked like he went for a flip bump and Tombstoned himself. It’s a good set up for the Tombstone itself. Naito counters out of the Rainmaker a few times only to get planted with a German suplex and Okada hangs on to roll into the actual RAINMAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. That’ll do it as nobody kicks out of the Rainmaker. The match made good sense for the most part and they did try to keep continuity on the Okada head injury, bar a few sequences.
Final Rating: ****1/4
IWGP Heavyweight Championship:
AJ Styles (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
Tanahashi hasn’t had a sniff of the IWGP title since a year ago when he failed to unseat Okada as champion at the 2013 version of this PPV and he’s not held the belt since April 2013 when he lost to Okada originally. Has his time passed? At 38 he’s starting to look a bit banged up and despite great performances throughout 2014 his defeat at the hands of Davey Boy Smith Jr. in the G1 rather demonstrated his lack of passion. Tana & AJ had a blinder for the 3rd place match at G1 (****3/4, although I rated that match higher than everybody else) so I’m expecting big things. Unfortunately it’s not all about the wrestling as AJ brought Jeff Jarrett out here as his manager. I’m not sure I understand GFW’s business strategy but from what I can tell it involves Jeff making as many friends as possible and distributing New Japan in America with English language commentary. Perhaps with the intention of marketing NJPW as a genuine alternative to the WWE! If anyone is going to expand beyond Japan it’s NJPW.
Given this is a 30 minute bout Tanahashi decides to structure it as such and starts out with a headlock to kill the clock. I’d prefer AJ was the one putting the match in the cooler after 3 minutes but you could also view it as Tana asserting his mat dominance. I can understand why Japanese companies tend to avoid 30 minute matches nowadays as they can fit the whole story into 20 (or less) without any resting. That said I miss the natural build of a longer match and the layering of psychology that AJPW used to employ in the 80s and 90s. They try and make big spots mean more here and I appreciate that. When AJ hurdles the rail it leads to a big Tana suplex on the floor. It’s a big spot and it’s sold as such. When they do increase the tempo it’s replay-worthy because of the quality. The selling is also a throwback as they both run fatigue stuff earlier than Ricky Steamboat would, mentally convincing the fans they’ve been wrestling longer than they have, and both sell big spots for a lot longer than usual. It’s almost like they wanted to wrestle an American style match. I know Tana is a big Shawn Michaels fan so maybe he was hoping to emulate Shawn’s ‘big match’ style here. His Okada matches have taken a similar approach but this is even more deliberately paced. It’s not like there’s nothing going on but the usual high spots are tidily spaced out. I like how AJ has picked up on the striking psychology in Japan and has modified all his strikes into tidy combos. It gives him a new threat. Tana doesn’t do much striking so it makes AJ look superior in that respect. AJ kinda freaks the announcers out on the Sling Blade too by flip bumping it. Tana hits the High Fly Flow to AJ’s back with the crowd looking surprisingly disinterested. Another HIGH FLY FLOW and Jeff Jarrett pulls the ref out. BOOOOO! That’s not a popular move.
The camera crew get a close up of Jarrett’s guitar and you can see what a piece of crap it is. There’s a massive crack down the side. AJ recovers and hits Bloody Sunday and Jarrett has to revive the ref he KO’d and throw him back in…for 2. AJ isn’t pleased and the ref is bumped. BOOO! Jarrett comes in with El Kabong in tow but he’s denied by YOSHI TATSU? “WWE Superstar” yells the commentator. I think “superstar” is a bit of a stretch. He runs Jarrett off to leave this 1 on 1 although there’s absolutely nothing stopping Bullet Club, and Yujiro in particular, running out here as the ref is still down. AJ goes after Styles Clash but changes his mind and hits Hollow Point (his Ganso Bomb) instead. It’s really safe so when AJ follows with the springboard 450 Tana gets knees up. HIGH FLY FLOW…gets knees. AJ decides the Super Styles Clash is required but Tana slips out of that. HIGH FLY FLOW PRESS! HIGH FLY FLOW! Tanahashi gets the pin and the IWGP title for an astonishing, record breaking SEVENTH time. This really felt like an American match but it also had a sense of the epic about it. I did prefer the counters-heavy match at the G1 Finals personally. That match drew me in better. This one dragged in places and is merely good, whereas the G1 match was great.
Post Match: Okada joins us to point out he’s got the title shot at the Dome. Tanahashi won’t have his spotlight stolen here though and amuses the fans by doing TWO air guitar solos and SMASHING UP HIS AIR GUITAR. Luckily one of the fans throws him a spare air guitar for a third devastating air guitar solo.
Final Rating: ***1/2
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