Kevin’s Random Reviews: NJPW Kizuna Road 2013

NJPW Kizuna Road 2013
July 20th, 2013 | Akita City Gymnasium in Akita, Japan | Attendance: 4,075

At Dominion a month prior, IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Prince Devitt picked up a huge win over company ace Hiroshi Tanahashi. Following that, he challenged IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada. Before earning the shot, Devitt had to successfully retain his title against NJPW booker and Okada’s boy, Gedo, which he did. That sets up the main event here. Kizuna Road is one of NJPW’s lesser level shows, sandwiched in between Dominion and the G1 Climax.

For some reason, NJPW World doesn’t have the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Title match available, which opened the show. The Forever Hooligans retained against Taichi and TAKA Michinoku.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii
Two of the baddest motherfuckers in the wrestling world? Yes please. Only Suzuki’s entrance is shown here. They come out of the gates throwing bombs at one another. Suzuki goes after the arm, wrapping it up in the ropes and the guardrail. He’s a surly bastard isn’t he? He spends the next few minutes trying to rip Ishii’s arm off and take it home. Ishii’s resilient though and fights back with seemingly endless strikes. Suzuki applies the sleeper, which Ishii desperately fights before reaching the ropes. Suzuki delivers a series of slaps but Ishii’s like “NOPE MOTHERFUCKER” and yells for more. Minoru obliges, leading to a great exchange of strikes. Ishii counters a Gotch piledriver, dropping Suzuki on his head. Suzuki stops a headbutt with one of the hardest slaps you’ll ever see/hear. He finishes Ishii with a stalling Gotch piledriver at 11:51. What a war. They just beat the shit out of each other and I loved it. Ishii was a great underdog babyface against the bully veteran. [****]

IWGP Tag Team Championship: TenKoji (c) vs. Takashi Iizuka and Toru Yano
Toru Yano stole the belts at Dominion because he’s the sublime master thief. This is typical Yano and Iizuka work. The teams brawl outside and through the crowd for a while. It led to a double countout but TenKoji demanded the match start over. Fighting champions who want to kick ass. I like it. Once it restarts, Tenzan plays the face in peril. Kojima gets the hot tag after a bit and lights Yano up with chops. They avoided the IRON HAND and TenKoji hit the 3D. Yano’s attempt at handcuffing Kojima to the ropes backfired, as he ends up cuffed. Tenzan hits the moonsault on Iizuka to win at 10:19. Lots of brawling, which you expect coming into this. I loved the fire TenKoji brought though, and they made this watchable. [**]

NEVER Openweight Championship: Masato Tanaka (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito
Naito is about a month and a half shy of winning the G1 Climax. He attacks the former ECW Champion at the bell. They fight outside, where Naito nails a big running dropkick on the ramp. Tanaka turns it around by breaking a Singapore cane over Naito’s head. He takes the former ECW Champion thing seriously huh? He splashes Naito through a table outside, though it barely breaks. Naito fights back inside, showing none of the personality he does as a heel. It’s night and day in terms of entertainment. He has Tanaka’s unfortunately named Sliding D well scouted. His avoidance of it opens the door for his own near falls. Tanaka finally hits it but Naito kicks out. The fans didn’t expect that. A second one keeps Naito down at 11:50. Very good match that was an early showing of how Naito could hang in the hard-hitting NEVER division. He’d end Tanaka’s reign in September. I liked how the weapons gave this a different feel to the rest of the show. [***¼]

IWGP Intercontinental Championship: La Sombra (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
You can now see both guys in WWE. La Sombra ended Nakamura’s 300+ day reign with the title back in May. Their feeling out process sees Nakamura play mind games and slap Sombra around. He responds with a BRUTAL chop to the chest. Sombra breaks out the aerial stuff but Nakamura learned from their last match and stops it with a knee. He then busts out his own dive outside. Everything La Sombra does looks great, whether it’s a tope suicida or a split-legged moonsault. After trading strikes, La Sombra realizes he’s at a disadvantage there and took back to the sky. In a cool spot, he moonsaults off a lighting structure and effortlessly lands on his feet. Inside, La Sombra cuts off Nakamura’s comeback but can’t put him away. He gets frustrated and shoves the official. Nakamura tries a rare springboard move but it’s awkward and he flubs it. Nakamura does hit two Boma Ye’s to regain the gold at 13:59. Another good match on this show. Most of what they did was crisp and made sense. La Sombra looked great but didn’t have enough to beat Nakamura a second time. [***½]

The Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, El Terrible, Karl Anderson and Tama Tonga) vs. Captain New Japan, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jushin Thunder Liger and Togi Makabe
I’ve never seen El Terrible before. Tanahashi and Liger hold the CMLL Tag Team Titles, which they won from Tonga and Terrible. Tanahashi and Anderson are the early highlights, doing at it to start. Makabe gets a tag and immediately flips off each BC member. The Bullet Club is still fresh here, so they’ve got a lot of heat. When I watch a multi-man tag like this, I don’t like overly long heat segments. This goes that route, with no face being in peril for too long. Not even CAPTAIN FOOKING NEW JAPAN (GET THE FOOK OUTTA HERE). Tanahashi comes in last for his guys and does his thing. He gets left alone with El Terrible, so you see the finish coming a mile away. Tanahashi win for his team with HIGH FLY FLOW at 12:07. A fun tag with lots of energy despite not having a ton of talent. [***]

Hirooki Goto vs. Katsuyori Shibata
Former classmates in school and future IWGP Tag Team Champions at this point. Here though, they clearly have issues and Goto attacks before the bell. Their first match in 2013 was a double KO and Shibata won the second. Shibata turns the tide and kicks Goto’s ass for a bit. I can watch these two slap the shit out of each other for a long time. They trade backdrop drivers in an effort to prove who’s manlier. They continue to trade big offense. Shibata hits the Penalty Kick, which did in Goto at Dominion. They tease another double KO but both men get up. Both men went back to headbutts and we get another double KO finish at 14:52. Lame. This wasn’t nearly on the level of the other matches I’ve seen them have. The crowd wasn’t as hot as I’d hoped and the finish was disappointing. [***]

Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Yuji Nagata
Entering this, Yuji Nagata had broken Kazushi Sakuraba’s arm a few months back. Sakuraba comes out striking but Nagata does a good job blocking most of them. Things transition to a submission exchange that just bores me to tears. None of the submissions look painful in the least. It just looks like two guys hugging on the mat. The crowd does pop for Nagata’s eye roll armbar at least. That only leads to more submission trading and more boredom. Finally, Sakuraba applies an armbar that makes Nagata tap at 10:12. I love Nagata and like Sakuraba but didn’t like this. It just felt like two guys laying on each other in odd ways until the finish. [*½]

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Prince Devitt
I firmly believe that 2013 Okada > 2017 Okada. Okada’s the perfect kind of heavyweight champion for a Jr. champion to face because he’s not much bigger than Devitt. Devitt avoids the Rainmaker and Okada avoids a spin kick in the opening minutes. Both men taunt early and as soon as Okada has an advantage, Bad Luck Fale gets involved, holding him in place for a Devitt double stomp. The Bullet Club shenanigans continue when Karl Anderson helps Devitt with leverage on an abdominal stretch. They must’ve watched Money Inc. tapes before this. Thanks to this help, Devitt remains in firm control. Okada swings the tide after a while and goes after the neck. He also takes out the entire Bullet Club with a tope con hilo. I wish Okada won some G1 matches with his red ink submission. He uses it often but never wins with it so I never buy it as a finish. At least AJ Styles won once in a while with the Calf Killer. Devitt eats a dropkick but has the next one scouted and avoids it. All hell breaks loose after a ref bump. Okada nearly takes the Grenade from Fale but Gedo jumps in to take the move for him. SACRIFICE! Devitt’s double stomp on a stack of chairs is still not enough. They counter each other’s finishers before Okada hits another dropkick. The tombstone and Rainmaker finish Devitt at 19:14. Great main event that was better than the rematch they’d have in the G1 eleven days later. The Bullet Club interference was a bit much but not overdone. Gedo’s heroic save was fun too. The in-ring action between Devitt and Okada was strong and helped elevate Devitt to a higher level. It showed that he wasn’t going to be out of place in the upcoming G1 Climax. [***¾]

7.5

The final score: review Good

The 411

Though the opener wasn’t available to me, what I got on this show was really good. The only bad thing on the card was Nagata/Sakuraba. Everything else was at least entertaining, though the Tag Title match is skippable. The IC and NEVER Title matches were damn good, while the multi-man tag and Goto/Shibata were enjoyable. The show was bookended by the best matches in Suzuki/Ishii and Devitt/Okada.