wrestling / Video Reviews
Furious Flashbacks: NOAH Great Voyage 2015 in Tokyo
Loading...NOAH Great Voyage 2015 in Tokyo
15th March 2015.
We’re in Tokyo, Japan at the Ariake Colosseum because this is the big one. This is the show NOAH have been building toward ever since Marufuji appeared at Wrestle Kingdom in January. Since then Suzuki-gun, taking exception to NOAH’s presence at the Wrestlemania of New Japan shows invaded NOAH and threatened their top guys. The invasion has been so extreme that shows have been entirely taken over by it. Which is a drag because NOAH was really good at the start of the year. They had a bad-ass junior division, spear-headed by Harada & Kotoge and every guest wrestler who came in seemed to deliver. Plus they had some of the best tag team wrestling anywhere in Japan, highlighted by TMDK vs. Dangan Yankees. It felt like NOAH was finally getting somewhere and then the invasion started and NOAH’s undercard got all cramped and Suzuki-gun (one of the worst collections of wrestlers in Japan) started to enforce their will on NOAH’s roster. Normally I’m all for the invaders looking strong to make the resolution of the angle as hot as possible (something the WWE never understood). But Suzuki-gun weren’t doing it for me and the big title switch, where KES beat TMDK, was hugely underwhelming. The only match I’m interested in seeing is Marufuji vs. Suzuki for the GHC title. If Suzuki-gun put all their energies into that angle and left me some wrestling I’d be fine with it. But they’re everywhere! On this show there are four title matches, all featuring Suzuki-gun going after straps. Not even the nWo angle accelerated that quickly!
Mitsuhiro Kitamiya vs. Hitoshi Kumano
Glad to see Kitamiya has advanced beyond his never-ending feud with Hitoshi Kumano, after joining Cho Kibou-gun and gaining new gear…by wrestling Hitoshi Kumano again. I’ve seen this match so many times and it’s only ever been ok. At least Kitamiya looks like a wrestler now, not a young boy but there’s really no point to this existing. It’s like watching Komatsu vs. Tanaka only not as good and never will be. Kitamiya has a slightly more heelish moveset, which includes an inverted atomic drop where he lands his knee SQUARE in Kumano’s groin. That was completely unprotected and leaves Kumano down gasping for air. It’s not quite a Tommy Dreamer level of nut-shot, like the one he took off Jerry Lawler where he LOST CONSCIOUSNESS, but Kumano’s ball-sack took a serious beating. Kumano’s, now misshapen, testicles are a highlight of an aimless, meandering bout. Kumano eventually gets a few pops by almost winning. The one inside cradle is blatantly a three. Kitamiya’s response is to channel Goldberg, wildly shaking the ropes. “I’M IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT, IMPORTAAAAAAAANT”. Spear. That’ll do it.
Final Rating: *3/4
BRAVE (Katsuhiko Nakajima, Mohammed Yone & Taiji Ishimori) & Captain NOAH vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Jonah Rock, Super Crazy & Yoshinari Ogawa
This one is sub-titled “Captain will be unveiled”, suggesting the unmasking of Captain NOAH after a brief run in defence of the promotion. And here was me hoping for a Captain NOAH vs. Captain New Japan feud. My hopes for this match basically involve Sabre never tagging out. Instead we get one of the worst-planned opening sequences of any match in Japan this year. It is fucking horrendous. Yone is supposed to explode out of the corner and lariat Sabre and Ogawa but he doesn’t. He just strolls out and both the opponents end up looking stupid. Then the other two team members are supposed to Irish whip him but because he didn’t bother leaving the corner they have to awkwardly position him for the spot. It’s fucking hideous. Can we get a do-over?
Ok, now go to your corner Yone and think about what you’ve done. Wrestling is an art-form not a drunken handjob outside McDonalds on a Thursday night.
The match settles into heat on Captain NOAH and that’s so bad I suspect this entire match is a rib. Every hackneyed spot they can think of gets used until Jonah Rock just hooks a chinlock and they lie around it in while everyone else watches. The match desperately needs saving so here comes Sabre Jr. His near falls with Ishimori looks like it belongs in a different match. Then he destroys Ishimori’s leg to stop him flipping around and all is right with the world. Admittedly he only sells for about 30 seconds and mercifully puts Crazy away with the 450 Splash. Good God, this match was shit. Apart from the one sequence with Zack & Ishimori, the rest of was dreadful. What is Nakajima doing in matches with these assholes? Why does Zack Sabre Jr. the WON ‘best technical wrestler in the world’ keep getting stuck with stiffs? To make matters worse the “Captain” was never “unveiled” unless you count him doing the Flair face-bump, which blatantly means it’s Jado under the hood.
Final Rating: *
Akitoshi Saito & Quiet Storm vs. Strong BJ (Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi)
And here comes Sekimoto & Okabayashi to save the show. Bless these gentlemen. They’re incapable of having a bad match, although I’m sure NOAH could put that to the test by having them work Maybach Taniguchi. Saito & Storm are perfect opponents for them. Two slabs of beef who’ll do chop battles and tests of strength. It’ll be like watching a Big Japan match in NOAH. And after the first two ‘NOAH matches’ I can live with that. The audio for this match sounds like this:
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH…*SMACK*
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH….*SMACK*
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGH…*SMACK*
It’s almost all chop duels and shoulderblocks and I’m ok with that. Storm in particular enjoys the hell out of working this way and I’m wondering why BJW don’t try and book him. He has worked a few matches there, over the years, which makes me wonder if he didn’t get along with people. He’d be a good fit, although I dig Strong BJ being this touring duo who go and test the manliness of wrestlers in other promotions. Okabayashi is on fire tonight and takes personal offence at Akitoshi Saito’s existence. This results in Saito getting blown up as Okabayashi, who is a fat, beer-bellied bastard, beats the crap out of him. It’s glorious, to the point where it’s hard to believe it exists in the same promotion as the last two matches. Everyone just wails on each other and the match’s run-time flies by. At one point Sekimoto and Storm run into each other and the noise sounds like someone’s spleen ruptured. Storm must have haemorrhaged at the impact as he falls to a German suplex moments later. If Saito had been fit, or young enough, to keep up this would have been dangerously close to a great match. As it stands, it was enormous fun and fantastically brutal. I think poor Quiet Storm may need some time off to recover from it. About 5 years should do it.
Final Rating: ***1/2
Cho Kibou-gun (Maybach Taniguchi & Takeshi Morishima) vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Manabu Nakanishi
Damn it, NOAH, why are you doing this to me? There’s a tiny voice in the back of my head, the eternal optimist, who says “CKG bump around big time for big names, especially if they’re winning and Tenzan is all effort recently. It might not suck”. It starts out ok, with Tenzan & Nakanishi taking it in turns to wail on Morishima, leaving the useless Taniguchi on the apron where he can’t do anything wrong. But then Maybach uses his sasumata and CKG take over and it goes to pieces. Morishima vs. Nakanishi is actually the highlight because they’re both big, fat, immobile dudes and they seem to move at the same speed. That’s how far Morishima has fallen. Despite how terrible everyone is they try really hard to avoid the pitfalls of a poor match and it doesn’t have any dead spots or overselling. CKG use the weapons again to take over and Morishima finishes Nakanishi off with a back suplex. Both me and the voice in the back of my head were right here. Yes, the wrestling was pretty awful throughout but the sheer effort of four guys who didn’t need to try hard was admirable. They could have dogged this and used the New Japan guys fame to offset CKG cheating. They didn’t. Points for effort then.
Final Rating: **1/4
Dangan Yankees (Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura) vs. Suzuki-gun (Shelton Benjamin & Takashi Iizuka)
Part of the horror of all of Suzuki-gun wrestling tonight is that Iizuka, the worst wrestler currently employed by New Japan Pro Wrestling, is involved in a match. The biggest horror of all is it’s against Dangan Yankees, probably the most consistently entertaining team in NOAH. Keep in mind that NOBODY drags Iizuka up and out of his bullshit heel act and it’s just a waste of Dangan Yankees. The singles match with Sugiura was a total waste too. Even Tanaka fails to make Iizuka interesting, instead opting for an All-American ten-count punches. What the fuck is this shit? The Yankees insist at working Iizuka over despite him being unprepared to do anything useful in response. Here’s a sample:
IIZUKA: I’m going to use the chair.
REF: You can’t do that it’s illegal.
IIZUKA: Arrghr,ge,fuckinbast. Gimme the fuckerthin…*grabs chair*. *Falls over ref*.
It’s like watching a drunk Scotsman, loaded on Tennents Super (aka Tramp Juice), have a fight with a sign outside a kebab shop at 2am in Glasgow city centre. In typical Suzuki-gun fashion Sugiura gets handcuffed to the ropes and the referee does nothing, apart from asking Shelton Benjamin where the cuffs came from as if Shelton will confess and unlock them. Then the ref goes to check on Benjamin, in the least organic ‘thought process’ moment you’ll ever see while Iizuka chokes Sugiura with his wrist tape. And while all this is going on, Tanaka is STANDING ON THE FUCKING APRON LIKE THE BIGGEST GOON IN THE WORLD. They’ve handcuffed him! Get in there and protect him! Nope, he just stands there like a broken AI tag team partner until Iizuka goes and knocks him off the apron. Even Iizuka thinks your work is illogical! Sugiura eventually breaks the cuffs, because they look like toys. We had handcuffs as toys when we were kids and I was always terrified of getting them stuck. Would I end up going to the hospital or maybe my Dad would have to cut them off with a saw? Anyway, they finally do something useful with Benjamin & Sugiura trading on submissions. During this segment Shelton shows flashes of the guy who turns up at G1 and doesn’t suck for two weeks. Iizuka then pulls out the Iron Glove and shoves the referee over, which somehow isn’t a DQ. What do you have to do to get disqualified in NOAH? The only good thing about this match is that the right team goes over when Sugiura downs Iizuka with the Olympic Slam. Everything else was horrid.
Final Rating: ½*
GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship:
Cho Kibou-gun (Hajime Ohara & Kenou) (c) vs. Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku) vs. No Mercy (Daisuke Harada & Genba Hirayanagi)
If there’s a match to demonstrate the issues NOAH face, regarding a lack of unity against Suzuki-gun’s invasion, it’s this one where a NOAH team is also challenging a NOAH team for their titles, as well as Suzuki-gun. Ohara & Kenou are the only good team out there and Harada is outright wasted in this role. The hope is that the NOAH guys, and to a lesser extent Despy & TAKA, can hold this together and make sure it’s not a total disaster. The biggest problem the match has is there are two heel teams out there, who use almost identical cheating tactics only the NOAH team is far, far better. If they just had a straight up match with no Suzuki-gun in it, they’d easily break ***1/2 based on Ohara’s slick mat work and Kenou’s stiff striking. Because the match is better without Suzuki-gun, they’re basically ignored in the early going. This is made better by Kenou once again missing his cane shot and nailing Ohara with it before Harada comes in and they all exchange strikes. It’s great stuff but it leaves everyone down and Suzuki-gun just pick the bones. It’s almost as if they don’t want Suzuki-gun to wrestle at all here, just win the belts. The New Japan guys hardly feature and the match is a mini-belter because of it. Genba getting obsessed with hitting his lariat on Kenou is neat and the strike exchanges between Kenou & Harada are as brilliant as the mat exchanges with Ohara. After having done nothing Suzuki-gun just stroll in there at the finish and pin the fallen Genba to win the belts. Wow. The crowd reaction is a stunned “WHAAAAAAAT” followed by slightly disgruntled silence. The match was good, because Suzuki-gun were hardly in it, and yet the finish was poor, because Suzuki-gun did nothing to win. I know they’re heels and the tactic was a steal a win at the expense of the feuding NOAH guys but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth that two good teams had a good match and these assholes win the belts. But then I suppose that’s the point.
Final Rating: ***
Tangent: Because this show was deeply depressing me I actually stopped watching at this point and reviewed a bunch of Raw’s from 1999. That’s how irritating this show is!
GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship:
Atsushi Kotoge (c) vs. Taichi
Why, why, WHY must you do this to me? Kotoge is a guy who’s very good but tends to have matches based around his opponents strength. So against Dangan Yankees he threw a load of strikes. Against Harada he did a lot of countering. What’s he going to do against a garbage wrestler like Taichi? That’s a genuine question. How do you out-cheat Taichi? He doesn’t have any legal moves that you can cheat during. The absolute worst thing about this match is it goes nearly 20 fucking minutes and I find Taichi unbearable after 30 seconds. Taichi spends a very long time stalling. How long? A Jerry Lawler amount of time, that’s how long. There’s no contact for about four whole minutes. When the action does begin it’s absolute shit. Double teaming, weapons shots and all the usual Taichi garbage. It’s bad normally, in New Japan (in the Super Juniors etc.) but here it’s for a pretty major title, one that’s been rebuilt through excellent matches over the last year, and that’s just unacceptable. At one point Taichi pulls the ref to one side while El Desperado and TAKA, both looking bored, just stand on Kotoge’s head at ringside. At least put some urgency in your work. That’s the problem; not only is Taichi is a bad wrestler but he’s also a lazy wrestler. His bumping is slack, his selling is poor and he looks like he doesn’t give a fuck. Why is he in this match? The only good thing about it is the crowd get into the match but not much. Kotoge wants to have an action packed match but Taichi is incapable of doing so and he doesn’t even understand Kotoge’s spots. When it’s a fair contest, Taichi gets his ass beaten from pillar to post but he’s so bad at selling that even that’s not fun. They get into some near finishes but even they’re bullshit like Taichi using a low blow and the Suzuki-gun seconds pulling the ref out after the Unprettier. How is that not a DQ? Taichi ends up using the belt too before winning with Black Mephisto. I persist he should have been disqualified. The match was bullshit. As are most Taichi matches. I don’t mind him as an opening act, with the stripper trousers or in throwaway 6-man tags getting his ass kicked but there’s no way Taichi should ever be the champion of anything. This should have been El Desperado because at least he can wrestle.
Final Rating: ½*
GHC Tag Team Championship:
Killer Elite Squad (c) vs. TMDK
KES won the belts at the last big NOAH show and were the first of the invaders to capture gold. That was not a particularly good match. This immediately has the vibe of a more energetic, exciting contest than both the last match (Taichi-Kotoge) and their last encounter. TMDK just flying out of the gate like a bat out of hell. Everyone looks really motivated here, including Archer who looks like he’s operating at G1 levels. It looks like an honest to God attempt to steal the show. Shane Haste goes down clutching his knee however and the match resorts to the same heat approach that made the first contest a bit laboured. This is much shorter though. Haste sells the knee like a champ and while it makes the champions look like beasts it’s not much fun to watch. The heat is sufficient that when Shane tags out, you don’t expect him to feature in the match again, which is a feature of tag teaming that’s disappeared in recent years. One guy getting beaten up so badly that he’s done. It gives TMDK an ‘out’ and makes Mikey looks braver for going 2 on 1. But it’s not that long before Haste is back in there doing double teams. That’s ended by Archer hitting an amazing Black Hole Slam on Mikey, who rag dolls the bump and looks like a junior getting his ass handed to him. Normally Mikey is a powerhouse. Davey Jr. throws him around too. KES are a truly fierce team but they only ever seem to work gaijin, which hurts their heat a bit. Shane continues to sell his leg, credit to him, long after his heat segment is over and it does leave Mikey to fend for himself for big chunks of the second half of the bout. Archer wipes Shane out again with a MASSIVE chokeslam. The height Shane got on the bump was sickening. On a chokeslam! Mikey eventually gets picked off with the Killer Bomb and KES retain. KES looked like animals here. TMDK, try as they might, couldn’t get near to them and were destroyed from the early going. If KES worked TMDK every week they’d be the biggest monster tag team in the history of wrestling.
Final Rating: ***1/4
Video Control takes us backstage where KES threaten to win tag titles in every company in the world and challenge anybody in NOAH “even that old man Kenta Kobashi” to take them on for the tag straps. Kobashi vs. Davey Jr. would be a slobberknocker. Shame Kenta is retired.
GHC Heavyweight Championship:
Naomichi Marufuji (c) vs. Minoru Suzuki
Suzuki-gun have swept the board in the big matches, winning (or retaining) all of NOAH’s other major belts. Kenta Kobashi, addressed by Davey Jr. in between matches, is indeed at ringside for commentary here. If that doesn’t inspire Marufuji then nothing will. Marufuji is keen to not back down, not be intimidated by Suzuki. This Marufuji is the leader of Pro Wrestling NOAH. He’s the Man. He won’t back down. It’s been the defining trait of his title run. I wish it was ‘hitting everything clean’ but you take what you can get. This might be a great match, if it was just one on one but the assholes from Suzuki-gun are specifically out here to interfere and it gives the match the same ‘almost’ vibe that Okada & AJ Styles had first time around. In that case it was Bullet Club that were a massive detriment to the match. In this case; Suzuki-gun. The match had been developing quite nicely too with Marufuji surviving strikes and dishing out his own before being overwhelmed on the mat, where Suzuki is at his strongest. Marufuji has been a resilient and inventive champion but Suzuki can outwrestle him. This being NOAH, a strike-heavy promotion, that would be the case with most of the roster, which made Suzuki’s recent match with Daisuke Harada so intriguing, given Harada’s own technical excellence.
Suzuki’s best attribute, outside his mat excellence, is that he’s kind of a dick. Well, he’s kind of “the dick” as when other people are behaving like dicks, it’s usually an attempt to be a better Minoru Suzuki. Nobody is. While that behaviour is evident here it’s not an overwhelming amount of dickishness, compared to how Taichi ruined his match. Instead they play is fairly straight-laced, by Suzuki standards. To compensate for the lack of a total asshole, they have near miss sequences done at ridiculous speed. It’s the kind of pacing you’d expect from an opening match when they’re trying to pop the crowd not a main event when they’ve already got the crowd. The reaction is weird until Maru drops Suzuki with Ko-Oh. It’s only the delayed follow up that prevents a pin. Marufuji’s aim seems to be to knock Suzuki out, whereas Suzuki wants the sleeper. They try a very ambitious counter where Marufuji tries to run up the referee to hit a shiranui and the fucking zebra falls over ruining a perfectly good spot and forcing Maru to re-do it up the buckles. If that spot had come off I’d have thrown ***** at this, regardless of other flaws. Suzuki doesn’t deal with that well and jumping kicks Marufuji square in the face. That clown Iizuka gets in a cheap Iron Glove spot. Gotch Piledriver and Minoru Suzuki wins the GHC title and Suzuki-gun have swept all the titles. The crowd’s deflated reaction suggests they’re not overly thrilled about this. Imagine Bullet Club winning everything in NJPW (Ok, you don’t have to imagine) and that’s the reaction you have here. Good match, unfortunate their really awesome ref spot didn’t come off.
Final Rating: ****
Post Match: Kenta Kobashi brings the belt in and Suzuki just grabs it off him and sticks his tongue out. If Kobashi comes out of retirement to beat Suzuki’s ass I will mark the fuck out. I know he’s only been gone two years but Kenta Kobashi will always have a special place in my heart. With Suzuki-gun holding the ring the entire NOAH locker room empties out, dressed in snappy matching green uniforms (even Cho Kibou-gun) to surround the ring and finally show some unity. The crowd is still eerily silent, almost distraught at Suzuki-gun’s conquering of their promotion in a couple of months.
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