wrestling / Video Reviews

Furious Flashbacks: NOAH Shiny Navigation 2014 Day 1

November 11, 2014 | Posted by Arnold Furious
6.5
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Furious Flashbacks: NOAH Shiny Navigation 2014 Day 1  

Hi, I’ve been away for a while writing books. You can obtain them here at our Weebly page. It’s part of a History of Wrestling campaign to cover absolutely everything, ever. It’s exhausting but worthwhile. So go and buy some books. Titan Sinking is especially good and I’m not just saying that because I get royalties because I don’t. That particular book was penned by my HoW colleague James Dixon. Hell of a read though.

My last contribution to 411 was 2 ½ years ago reviewing old Herb Abrams UWF shows. Just so you know what to expect, I’ll be all Japanese wrestling all the time. I tend to watch New Japan, NOAH, All Japan, DDT and some of the Indies. I’ll try not to duplicate stuff that other people have already covered.

NOAH Shiny Navigation 2014 Day 1

10th September 2014 (Taped for Nippon TV on 6th September).

We’re in Tokyo, Japan at the Differ Ariake. My last NOAH experience (Summer Navigation Day 5) was a really bad one but often I feel the need to jump back on the horse when I get thrown. So it’s straight into the next tour. I don’t really know why I’m rewarding NOAH for giving me a truly horrible afternoons viewing but here’s hoping it can’t get any worse.

Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Jinzo

For those who don’t remember; Jinzo is the good one. Which sadly means Rocky Lobo is higher up the card despite sucking all the dick and Jinzo has to work Ogawa in the opener. Ogawa’s attempts at pretending he’s as good as Jinzo are bordering on embarrassing. Ogawa’s slow, tame and soft shots make Jinzo look worse than he is. Especially as Jinzo has stuff like a coast to coast dropkick in his repertoire. To be fair to Ogawa, he’s not to blame when Jinzo botches an Asai moonsault but he generally doesn’t help Jinzo’s cause at all. Ogawa wins with a roll up after 5 minutes or so. Jinzo could have used a match to showcase his skill set but Ogawa is not the opponent to have that match with because he’s a shithead.

Final Rating: ½*

Taiji Ishimori vs. Quiet Storm vs. Rocky Lobo

And here’s Rocky Lobo. Couldn’t they have sacrificed him to Ogawa instead? Or was working Ogawa some sort of reward? NOAH has taken a fancy to running 3-way cruiserweight matches but I’m not sure the results ever match the ambitions. Quiet Storm is the same height as the other two guys but at least twice as thick. He looks like he’s been on an all steak diet and the cow the steak came from was on steroids. Lobo is a terrible wrestler but a capable gymnast so he throws in a few dives to keep the Tokyoites amused. Quiet Storm’s name came in for some debate on Twitter recently, as it’s totally inappropriate for a man of his style. I suggested the alternative name of Angry Beefcake, which is far more appropriate. That’s how I think of him. Especially as he bellows loud noises after every successfully executed spot. Lobo’s acrobatics include lifting Super Crazy’s trio of moonsaults and confusing Ishimori by blowing a cannonball off the top. Ishimori then gets bored and picks Lobo off with the Revolucion for the win. This was just a load of spots roughly thrown together. It felt like an ECW match from 1999. I imagine they’ve all dated pretty badly too.

Final Rating: *1/2

TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste) vs. Mitsuhiro Kitamiya & Hitoshi Kumano

TMDK have been one of my favourite tag teams all year long, consistently getting great matches out of a variety of opponents. They can play underdogs or bullies and are equally adept at both roles. Here they boss poor opening act jobber Kumano as if he’s about to retire and they’ll not get the chance to beat him up again. Kumano’s response involves much babyface rolling up and plucky business like that. Kumano’s switches are getting fluid and he’s definitely improved during 2014. Kitamiya hasn’t improved in the same manner as he’s obsessed with working like an underdog and throwing dropkicks when that’s clearly not his game. When they sneak in double teams TMDK look far superior to the two plucky youngsters, trying to compete on guts and not much else. Kumano’s second best attribute is his survival ability. He takes a licking but keeps on ticking! That is until the Mikeybomb puts him down for the three count. The match was a decent big men vs. little men contest and Kumano is growing as a performer. No doubt about that. He might actually win a few matches in 2015.

Final Rating: **1/2

Daisuke Harada & Genba Hirayanagi vs. Shiori Asahi & Hiro Tonai

Asahi & Tonai are from K-Dojo and an attempt to shake up the junior heavyweight division. Asahi is 36 with 12 years as a pro. He’s capable. Tonai is 31 and a 7 year pro. He’s…not as good. Harada and Asahi is a solid enough contest with mat back and forth. As if they know Tonai is a weak link they stick him in with Genba so it’s a less serious match. Harada amuses himself by seeing how loud a SLAP noise he can make by chopping Tonai across the chest. It’s pretty loud! Once again Asahi is far better opponent for Harada and they go after each other with strikes in a strong sequence. Harada looks great against most people but he certainly clicks with Asahi. Not enough wrestlers share names with beers. Brian Heineken and Terry Carling would be a vicious tag team. Roger Tanglefoot, less so. I imagine him as a comedy guy. Harada manages a couple of awesome last gasp kick-outs off Asahi roll ups. He’s mastered that timing. Tonai & Genbra’s involvement in the match continues to be background noise as they merely tag in to give the wrestlers a break. Genba needs saving when Asahi gets in there and the storyline is obvious. It’s Asahi who’s being built up as a challenger for Harada. Genba misses his silly wind-up lariat only for Asahi to bounce off the ropes and score a Jacknife pin. Which sort of makes him top contender, despite going 50-50 with Harada and pinning someone who isn’t the champ. I won’t argue the logic as a singles match should be good.

Final Rating: **3/4

Tangent: Irritatingly the Harada-Asahi match is booked for Day 7 of the Shiny Navigation on a card that has no other matches I’m interested in. I may have to cheat a bit and just see that match. Otherwise I’ll have to sit through a 40 minute Cho Kibou-gun match and I’m just not prepared to do that.

Takashi Sugiura & Akitoshi Saito vs. Daisuke Sekimoto & Kazuki Hashimoto

The Saito alliance with Sugi came about after Sugiura had to nearly kill Saito to beat him. The finish, with Saito somehow surviving being dropped on his head, is one of the most pants-shittingly terrifying bumps of the entire year. To prove their solidity as a unit they’ll be wrestling against Big Japan’s Sekimoto & Kazuki. I approve. Sugiura and Sekimoto headlined the last Big Japan show I saw and it was a solid match. Here they can take the best elements from that (read: beating the shit out of each other) and insert that into a tag environment. Kazuki Hashimoto seems to be making a career out of standing up to bigger opponents…and getting his ass kicked. It’s great fun to watch. He goes after Saito, which gets him a predictable beatdown. He happily dishes out a face-wash to Sugi, boot-scraping the poor bastard into oblivion. No Mercy take exception to that and give Kazuki a spike piledriver on the floor. Even taking time to remove the pretty blue mat first. Thus making it an extra-devastating move. Hashimoto takes a shit-kicking and he’s really good at selling a beating, while showing that fighting spirit. He’s developing into quite the talent. Not even Saito can ruin this one, contributing little more than big kicks and knees, and leaving the heavy lifting to the others. At one point Kazuki uses the immobile veteran for target practice. *PUNT*. Lots of German suplexes follow, complete with bizarre and inconsistent selling. Kazuki gets himself isolated but makes his own comeback with BALLSY HARDCORE HEADBUTTS. He drops Sugiura with one that makes the crowd gasp with the manliness of it. His reward for such ballsy behaviour is Saito kicking his head off to score the pinfall. Tonnes of manliness on show here. Kazuki is seriously growing on me as a talent and Sekimoto is a machine. I loved this.

Final Rating: ****

Atsushi Kotoge vs. Hajime Ohara

This is the start of a match series pitting BRAVE against Cho Kibou-gun. Ohara is a motherfucker on the mat, one of the most technically gifted guys in Japan at the moment. Unfortunately everyone else works strongstyle, which involves smashing each other in the face with forearms and Kotoge has a bitchin’ headbutt so he’s the one being pushed. Ohara takes the somewhat unusual tack of hitting as many dropkicks as possible but from weird angles and usually after tying Kotoge in the ropes. From there he goes to the Old School heel cheating tactic of choking with his wrist tape, which he actually CONCEALS from the referee. The rest of his faction should watch this match and learn how to cheat properly. Ohara even sets up the Muy Bien by destroying Kotoge’s leg and back with stretches and generally Ohara dominates with his technical excellence. It’s a rarity in Japan, or anywhere for that matter, to see someone work like Ohara does. It’s a genuine pleasure. Kotoge’s comeback is loaded with showy moves that make no sense and Ohara rapidly cuts him down to size with a Lungblower, again targeting the back. Kotoge doesn’t seem to understand and comes charging again and is met with a satellite backbreaker. God, I love Ohara. Ohara then positions the ref perfectly for a mule kick low blow. Picture perfect cheating that you just don’t see anymore (outside of Toru Yano comedy matches). Kotoge’s response is a load of headbutts, which shows his strengths (because selling isn’t among them). Ohara punches Kotoge in the balls to prevent that comeback but because he didn’t conceal it the ref calls for a DQ. Oh my God, LOGIC! Brilliant. More of this. Ohara is fucking great. I love watching him wrestle. Everything he does makes sense.

Final Rating: ***1/4

Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Takeshi Morishima

The BRAVE vs. Cho Kibou-gun series continues. 1-0 BRAVE so far. Morishima looks slightly motivated here. I get the feeling he only gets out of bed if he goes over. Whenever he’s booked to lose, he becomes the laziest tub of goo you ever saw. What went wrong with Morishima? It’s hard to say but certainly his bowl-head haircut is not helping matters. Did your Mom do that? Nakajima is a strange case study too. At times he looks incredible and at others, like during this match, he’s forgettable. It’s like he’s missing the X factor that’ll take him to the main event level. People don’t seem that into him. As the match continues the lack of interest in turn becomes a lack of effort in the ring. Morishima picks some weird things to no-sell too. Like a German suplex, Nakajima’s finish, followed by three superkicks, before hitting a lariat. Then he sells. Nakajima promptly floors him with a dangerous looking brainbuster (Morishima barely getting over on the drop) and that leads to Morishima hitting the backdrop driver and a lariat. As if selling is something other wrestlers do. Another backdrop driver finishes. I really didn’t enjoy this. Morishima is rarely ever good these days but sometimes he’s so irritatingly bad that you wonder why NOAH keep pushing him. My guess would be they’ve simply got no one else to fill his spot.

Final Rating: *1/2

Muhammed Yone vs. Maybach Taniguchi

BRAVE vs. Cho Kibou-gun continues with them tied at 1-1 and this is the worst possible match up they could have picked for the series. If I was to change my reviewing habits to involve skipping over stuff I knew wouldn’t be any good, I wouldn’t be watching this. They forego anything approaching a match and just beat each other up, which is probably for the best. The match is basically two big guys clubberin’ each other. It could be a WWF match from the 80s. That’s not a complement. Cho Kibou-gun can’t go three matches straight with no interference so here the ref is knocked out and Taniguchi chokes Yone out with his weird shepherd’s crook thing. As he’s already out he doesn’t respond to the three count after a top rope splash. Honestly, I’m just happy it’s over. An absolute drag even at 7 minutes.

Final Rating: DUD

Naomichi Marufuji vs. Kenou

This is not for Marufuji’s GHC title as it’s the final match in the BRAVE vs. Cho Kibou-gun challenge series. CKG lead 2-1 at this point so it’s up to Marufuji to save a draw. It’s weird that Kenou has this match but kinda cool as he’s one of the companies best wrestlers (when he’s not cheating). They start at a BLISTERING pace with near misses that pop the shit out of the commentators. From there they head into strike duel territory, so Kenou can show off how close he is to Maru in both size and intensity. It’s a very good match up and one of the benefits of Marufuji being the champ. Would Kenou look as competitive against Nagata? Morishima? It’s also a bit weird that two guys who are technically solid, quick and small wrestlers work a match that involves mostly stiff strikes. But hey, that’s Japan for you. It’s actually right up my alley until the Cho Kibou-gun interference begins. Kenou switches gears after that and goes after the anklelock, perhaps an attempt to show his superiority as a wrestler. Marufuji doesn’t sell it at all and goes from there to kicking the shit out of Kenou for his own amusement again. He’s definitely showing less frailty during this title run. It’s an attempt to make him look like a strong champion. It works though as when Kenou finally catches him with a kick to the back of the head, Marufuji’s stumbling sell reflects the viciousness of the move. Kenou wins out in a great kick combo sequence and they’ve been working tremendously stiff. A close up on Kenou’s chest reveals red welts everywhere. Marufuji throws a tonne of superkicks in this match and has it won with the Shiranui only for Maybach to jump in there. Marufuji, being the champ, fights him off before Taniguchi hits a few miserable plunder shots, aided by Kenou. Maybach hits a powerbomb, throws the ref back in and Kenou BEATS MARUFUJI! Well…that was unexpected! CKG interference aside this was tremendous fun. The violence on display was fantastic. Hard work from both guys to get the contest over. The last couple of minutes took the sheen right off the match but it’s still worth seeing for the hard work beforehand.

Final Rating: ***3/4

6.5
The final score: review Average
The 411
Two great matches made this a far superior NOAH show to their last one. No Mercy vs. Seki & Kazuki was phenomenal and the main event delivered. Ohara’s match was also very good and the Asahi-Harada stuff in their tag match worked for me. There was some useless filler on the card and Morishima and Taniguchi’s matches stunk. This was still a big improvement over the end of the last tour though and restored some faith in the NOAH product. I just wish they could find some consistency and use their less talented workers better. There must be a way to get Taniguchi onto the shows without ruining a match on the top of the card.
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