EL DANDY~! Tape Review-The REAL World’s Greatest Tag Team

-After taking half my mortal life with the G-1 2003 review, Mike sends me a compilation tape of this tag team of NOAH junior heavyweight superstars. Marufuji is the neo-Lyger: the person who is supposed to lead the charge into juniors wrestling for the future just like Lyger did before him. KENTA is a man who brings the stiffness and the selling, and after only about four years in the business, he’s setting himself up for a future that can be just as bright, or even brighter, than that of Marufuji. Together, they came into the summer of 2003 with the determination to be crowned the first ever GHC Jr. Tag Team Champions. They’ve been on top ever since, so here is the title win and the four defenses they made after that win.

7/16/03-GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title Finals vs. Jyushin “Thunder” Lyger and Takehiro Murahama-The outsiders from New Japan and Osaka Pro already hold tag team titles at this point. They are co-holders of the Osaka Pro Tag Titles, and Lyger co-holds the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag titles with Koji Kanemoto. These four met at the end of the last tour, “Navigation With a Breeze 2003” on 6/29/03 when they met in a 6-man tag, the outsiders having Takehiro Murahama, the NOAH team having Kotaro Suzuki. Lyger and Kanemoto faced Marufuji and Suzuki on 6/10/03 in a successful defense of the IWGP Jr. Tag belts.

KENTA goes all Kawada to Lyger’s Misawa kicking him in the face while he’s on the apron. It’s established early that the person that KENTA and Marufuji have the easiest chance to pin is Murahama, because Lyger owns either of them when he steps into the ring. When Murahama is in, KENTA can either stiff it out or Marufuji can use his speed and size to overtake the pint-sized shooter. At about the seven minute mark, KENTA tries to take it to the air with a pescado, but he misses. He and Murahama kick away until KENTA gets the advantage. At this point, Marufuji gets an advantage on Lyger outside as KENTA hits a springboard plancha, and Marufuji follows with his top rope Asai Moonsault. Lyger sells the moonsault big time, leaving the NOAH team to tag up on the weak link. Murahama does get a break when he knocks KENTA to the outside, and then follows with the world’s smallest tope con hilo. Lyger than puts the hurtin’ on KENTA with a brutal powerbomb that pretty much tells KENTA, “So you wanna kick ME in the face? You’ve gotta be KIDDING ME!!!!” The arrogant cover signifies the beginning of the ass-kicking.

Each man picks a body part. Lyger stretches KENTA with La Tapatia into a Romero Special, and then goes to a Cobra Twist later. Murahama takes away the legs with a spinning toehold and a figure-four. The NOAH crowd, who is usually non-receptive to submissions unless it’s a submission from NOAH’s Big four, is really hot for the spots though. The visiting team is a New Japan wrestler, who wrestles in a company where submissions can easily end a match, and a legit shooter who is extremely prolific in his submission skills. Murahama comes back in and kicks away, but KENTA comes back with a roundhouse, and then they double KO with simultaneous roundhouses to the head. As much as I’m not a fan for the double KO spot, you get a sense that it’s an actual double KO spot as opposed to the stupid little double lariat spot that you see now-a-days. Two stiff kickers kicking each other in the head can definitely mean a double KO to me, which is the first time in a while where I’ve seen a double KO mean something.

Lyger is in when KENTA can’t tag, so Lyger starts really laying into the youngster with a shotei and a Fisherman Buster. KENTA makes the comeback with his Tornado Hotshot and a springboard dropkick, but Lyger is far from out of it. Marufuji comes on a hot tag and recklessly tries to go after Lyger, but Lyger plants him with a shotei. Marufuji might be on top in HIS company, but Lyger is the man, the myth, the living legend, and saw that coming a mile away. Even when Marufuji dropkicks Lyger out of midair, Lyger comes right back with a powerbomb to counter Marufuji’s missile dropkick, and hits the running Lygerbomb. Lyger works to the brainbuster and hits two of them, and then puts Marufuji on top, but Marufuji slips out and they perform a DEADLY sin with the All Japan delayed selling. I guess I understand Marufuji’s superkick to be somewhat prominent since earlier in the match he used it to set up his Asai Moonsault, but making it equal to a shotei from Lyger here doesn’t really make too much sense. But of course, All Japan delayed selling just sucks anyways, so we’ll leave it at that.

The finish from there makes enough sense, and both teams look to go after the weaker person on the team in order to get the road to victory. Murahama’s arm work to set up the keylock shows that he could end the match in a flash, simply because of his shoot background. He’s not exactly a pint-sized Yamazaki, but still dangerous nonetheless. After that, Murahama can only kick away, but when that can’t get the job done, he’s toast, and the NOAH team knows that. After KENTA takes Lyger out with a Busaiku Knee Kick, they take out Murahama with a Doomsday Busaiku Knee Kick, and then Marufuji ends the match with a move Lyger invented: The Shooting Star Press.

If some of the submission work hadn’t been so out of place, the ending sequence would have been a lot hotter than it was. Marufuji ending it with a move that has won him a title in the past, and that’s also a move that Lyger invented, was a nice touch. The selling from both teams was pretty good, with Lyger putting over some of the signature moves of the up-and-comers and KENTA selling his ass-whooping as two of the bright spots, but otherwise this seemed like it was a “ho-hum” match from two teams that have the talent to put on an outstanding show. Lyger’s powerbomb on KENTA is big-time rewind material. ***1/2

–9/12/03 vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Makoto Hashi-This is the first time I’ve seen Hashi in ages, and I haven’t seen Kanemaru’s work since his 2001 run as the first GHC Jr. Champ. On paper, these four have the ability to put on a heck of a contest, and it’s definitely no doubt that Kanemaru’s antics and Hashi’s moves can bring a lot to the table when they face off with the champs.

KENTA once again starts with the “Ode to El Super Classico 6/95” beginning, as he and Hashi trade kicks, and then when Hashi whips KENTA in, KENTA BLASTS Kanemaru, kicking him off the apron. When Marufuji and Kanemaru tag in, they have one of those indy stand-offs that look planned and totally end up having no meaning at all. I know it’s exciting, but seeing so many totally takes away the feel that KENTA and Hashi showed before this, where they stood there and absorbed shot after shot before the scuffle. The flash is understandable, but they could have done a better job with what they wanted to do, and they could have made it look more believable.

The champs work the knee of Hashi for a few good minutes…until Hashi gets the boot up and comes off the second rope with a Mongolian Chop. I would have been fine with him using more than one ground chop as opposed to hopping up to the second rope like nothing fazed him and coming off the rope with a chop. After Marufuji and Kanemaru tangle, KENTA comes in thinking he can work over Kanemaru like he did Hashi, but Kanemaru elbows him on the apron. The tide turns with a reverse DDT on the apron by Hashi, and then Kanemaru slamming KENTA off the ramp to the floor, a spot more believable than the Tiger Suplex spot from the “critically acclaimed” 3/1/03 match.

So now, just like in the tourney finals, KENTA is the odd man out and starts taking his ass whooping, and it’s the usual good performance from him. Marufuji comes in and starts showing why he’s #1 when he takes out the challengers with a springboard somersault plancha to give back the advantage to the champs. When Kanemaru tags in, the big spots start happening and they start throwing bombs as they race for the finish. Kanemaru can outsmart the champs, and he definitely makes himself known on more than one occasion. And then when Hashi is in, he starts bringing the bombs, first with his Gori-man Suplex. From there, it turns out to be quite the regular ending for them, simply because they just run the gauntlet with their bombs, and in the order you expect them to be in. It’s good that none of the bombs are kicked out of; rather that all the pins are broken up by their respective partners as to make every big move seem like it could really take somebody out.

The flash submission by KENTA made sense since he flowed so nicely from the Busaiku feint right into the cross-armbreaker, and it totally caught Hashi off guard, but then again, when has a submission ACTUALLY gotten the job done on a NOAH card lately? From there, KENTA pulls out a rare Tiger Suplex, and that’s the only bomb kicked out of. That would have been a more believable win than a submission would have gotten had KENTA pulled that out beforehand simply because of the NOAH tendency for pinning predicaments as opposed to submissions. KENTA then kicks his head off into the third row to pick up the win. There are definitely some lapses that stop this from getting into “very good” territory; mainly the finishing sequence, and Hashi’s lapse in selling the knee, but if these two teams got back together in a rematch, one would hope that they could improve on that attempt. ***1/2

–11/1/03 vs. Ricky Marvin and Juventud Guerrera-This is the first team the champs have faced where it’s Marufuji who has a working advantage due to the opposing teams preferences; he’s a flashy high-flier working with two of the flashiest around. It’s his environment. KENTA is more of a ground worker, so he’s the only person in this match with a real disadvantage. This is probably the one match I hoped that a couple re-watches of WOULDN’T change my mind, but alas, it has. When they all play to their strengths, this is a great match: KENTA is kicking people’s heads off; Juvi is using his unique mixture of high-impact spots and big-time high spots; Marufuji is a flashy mofo; and Marvin is hitting ranas at a Rey Mysterio-like pace.

There are quirks though. On more than one occasion, Marvin just doesn’t look like he can hang when he tries to strike with the champs. His elbow rush in the corner is pedestrian at best, looking more like those “make em’ LOOK like they hit” elbows that WWE currently employs. It looks even worse after KENTA comes back and kicks the ever-living crud out of Marvin only for him to suck it up and hit a lariat. Like I’m going to believe that. Later, Marufuji lifts him to the apron for an elbow exchange, only for Marvin’s elbow to completely whiff. Luckily, Marufuji sells it and Marvin immediately pays dividends with a cross-corner rana off the apron on KENTA. Even in his final striking exchange with Marufuji before they get to the finish, Marvin looks nigh horrible “blocking” and “trading” strikes with Marufuji, and it’s a crying shame that in both of his striking exchanges that he ends both of them with a lariat, when both times he looks horrible trying to keep up with the champs.

On another occasion, Marufuji looks for the Shiranui, only for Juvi to counter it rather nicely into the Juvi Driver, and then hit the 450. When KENTA saves the pin, it’s Marufuji who gets the first move off with a knockout sidekick. Wait, didn’t he just get nailed by Juvi’s secondary AND primary finishers? That’s nigh unforgivable, simply because Marufuji knows better. He might be “the man” in NOAH, but being “the man” also means knowing when to take over a match at certain times; that situation wasn’t one of them. Along those same lines, Juvi hits an unbelievable Jericho Spike off Marvin’s shoulders, no less, and right afterwards, Marvin hits a moonsault…and KENTA kicks out of a combo that really deserved Marufuji to break it up as opposed to simply kicking out.

You have some cute comedic moments, most of them involving Marvin (like him flipping off Marufuji when he breaks up his Romero Special). Juvi pulling up KENTA after a whole lot of springboard offense and the Juvi Driver (even though it costs him the match) is a nice little dickish addition to the match for the rudos. KENTA, being KENTA, sells big time in this match like you’d expect him to. You also have things like Juvi’s Last Rites into a Dragon Sleeper, KENTA’s rolling Falcon Arrows, along with his evolution of his Busaiku Knee feints (this time a rana into the cross-armbreaker, which makes one think that he might have messed that up in the 9/12 match), Juvi and KENTA’s elbow and kick trade-offs, and Marufuji’s finisher, Frankie Kazarian’s Flux Capacitator (a Super Reverse Shiranui), that definitely brings some “oohs” and “aahs” out, but in the midst of all this is a bunch of things that really don’t add up.

It’s almost like saying 2 + 2 = 5, or that saying the capital of California is San Francisco: Close, but no cigar. It’s predictable that this would turn into something resembling a U.S. Indy tag spotfest because of the challengers’ tendencies to be flashy, but knowing that three of the four wrestlers in there have the talent and ability to take it another level as opposed to what this is, the NOAH Junior Tag equivalent to a late 90s All Japan high-spotfest or U.S. Indy tag match, is disconcerting when you look at the result of this match. It’s quite the disappointment. ***1/4

–12/11/03 vs. Mitsuo Mimota and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi-This takes place in Korauken Hall, one of the hotbeds for the hardcore wrestling fans in Japan, as it gives this match a different aura than the other matches that the champs have had. The fans are hoping that Mimota and Kikuchi can pull off a great upset over the youngsters, even placing an old picture of Mimota on one of the walls in the arena. With both champions bandaged up and obviously not at 100%, the chance is there for the taking, but then again, Mimota, at the ripe old age of 55, and Kikuchi, at 40, really don’t have much of a chance in the first place.

The key to matches like this is for the underdogs to at least make a match out of it, and thankfully, the old codgers do well for themselves in that regard. Only at Korauken could Mimota’s chops be taken to the same level as KENTA’s kicks or Kikuchi’s elbows, and KENTA, being KENTA, sells them to his heart’s content. Mimota gets his ass whooped and almost takes the fall until Kikuchi saves him, and from there, we get to the point where the vets have to make the near-falls exciting. Thankfully, the Korauken crowd is more than happy to supply the heat, and Kikuchi and Mimota build some pretty good drama. Mimota’s near falls off his backdrop and his powerbomb could only be attained in that Hall, since nearly everywhere else, the crowd would have just bought it as the prelude to the inevitable. Here, the atmosphere puts the inevitable in doubt.

The veterans put some really good combinations together that lead to some very heated near falls, since they know that no single move is gonna get a pinfall. Marufuji really doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary in this match, but thankfully, he takes a Mimota released German pretty damn well. I like the fact that KENTA is the major part of this match since he can tell a better story than Marufuji can, and the way he deals with Mimota in the end is probably the best way this match could end, since this match was Mimota’s to make and KENTA’s to mold. While not the best match that the champs have had, this match told the best story. **3/4

-1/10/04 vs. El Samurai and Wataru Inoue-Six days after Jushin Lyger took the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title from Takashi Sugiura at the Dome, he seconds the New Japan team to the ring, and the NOAH fans boo him like he was the Devil incarnate. People are throwing trash at him and Samurai as they walk down the ramp, and God forbid you actually give both Lyger and Samurai MORE reasons to dick it up for a high profile match. KENTA looks like he took the design from Kikuchi’s tights and had it imbedded in his hair.

This match has a lucha flare to it; the storyline seems to outweigh the work inside the ring most of the time. You got the old codger with the up-and-comer, along with The MAN seconding them, and pretty much nobody else in the entire arena likes any of them, and they don’t want to see the other junior championship leave NOAH soil. Simple story, but then you get to see them acting it out, and it’s really fun to see Samurai dick it up with hair pulling, choking, face rakes, and the like. And whenever you draw enough attention that you get the SECOND going to the ring apron (to massive boos from the crowd, I might add), it seems like good story execution to me.

That being said, the work in this match is still very good. The rudos clear the ring at first, and then the champs work over Inoue, and then Samurai takes over on KENTA and it’s like I get to travel to Georgia in ‘85 or something. Guardrail Irish Whip, DDT on the floor, PHAT piledriver. It’s ALL good, here. Inoue doesn’t dick it up as well as Samurai or Lyger does, but he does get better as the match goes on. He does the little things like taunting and standing on somebody’s face, but then adds stuff like the arrogant cover to prove his point more effectively. Some of the countermoves come up a little weird, like Sammy and Marufuji pretty much dancing around while Sammy tries to get his reverse DDT, and Marufuji’s headstand Super Frankensteiner, but then you get Inoue countering KENTA’s pre-Busaiku rush right into an Octopus, so it somewhat balances out.

Once again, the focal point in the ending is KENTA, and you kinda see why people call him a present version of Kawada back in AJPW’s heyday; he’s definitely the Kawada to Marufuji’s Misawa, and while Marufuji is already proven, he has to prove his worth by taking an ass kicking and still having enough to win in the end, and he sure does take an ass kicking, and he sells it WELL, too. Samurai and Inoue pretty much throw the gauntlet at him, but find that KENTA is a tough son-of-a-bitch, can take a beating, and dish it right back. And when he dishes it back, Sammy makes sure it’s a tough task by getting as many rollups as possible to stop KENTA from hitting the knee kick, but when he does, it’s all over.

The redeeming quality of this match comes through with KENTA, obviously, who shows his worth to the team indefinitely by taking the brunt of the outsiders’ attack and coming back to take the fall, but I can’t help but notice that Marufuji doesn’t step up to the plate again, like Kanemaru during the 2002 tag wars. It’s as if he does JUST ENOUGH to show that he’s there, but lets KENTA do the work. Workrate wise, that’s not a bad thing, but when you’re supposed to be “the man” and you got the REAL man at ringside for the other team, you’d expect Marufuji to step up like he did when he beat the man for the titles in the first place, but in this instance, that’s not the case. That might be the only real blackspot on a very good match. ***1/2

Conclusion: There is a reason why these guys are being called the best tag team in the world today. That’s partly due to the lack of actual good tag teams nowadays, but a lot of it is due to the fact that these guys mesh well and are very good inside the ring. You owe it to yourself to go find these matches somehow, either by going to somebody who can comp them for you or by going out and buying the respective shows that the matches are on, because these guys can go, and they’re pretty much the future when it comes to juniors in Japan.