wrestling / Columns
The Navigation Log 1.11.09: Wrestle Kingdom III Results
Greetings puro fans and curiosity seekers! This is the part where I talk about something interesting that happened to me during the week, but this week was pretty uneventful. Nothing I can even go out of my way to embellish to make it seem interesting. But I think that with the fallout from last weekend’s huge Tokyo Dome show, I’ll have more than enough to fill up this column.
Onto the Navigation Log!
Wrestle Kingdom III in Review
New Japan put forward a strong show for their first offering of 2009 and if this sets the tone of the year, I’ve got some high hopes for puro. Here’s the quick results:
-Milano Collection AT, Minoru & Taichi Ishikari beat Mitsuhide Hirasawa, Kazuchika Okada & Nobuo Yoshihashi (6:24) when Milano used a super scrap kick on Yoshihashi.
-Wrestle Kingdom Grand Opening VIENTO DORADO: Mistico, Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt beat Averno, Jado & Gedo (9:50) when Mistico used the La MÃstica on Averno.
-Jushin Thunder Liger 20th Anniversary Match: Jushin Thunder Liger & Takuma Sano beat Wataru Inoue & Koji Kanemoto (8:47) when Liger used an avalanche-style brainbuster on Kanemoto.
-IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title ~Tread on!!~: The Motor City Machine Guns beat NO LIMIT (c) (13:21) when Sabin pinned Naito after the Made in Detroit to become the 22nd champions.
-IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title ~Ballistic interception~: Tiger Mask beat Low Ki (c) (8:48) with a modified Tiger suplex hold to become the 56th champion.
-Fighting Holdings Competition: Riki Choshu, Masahiro Chono, Kurt Angle & Kevin Nash beat Giant Bernard, Takashi Iizuka, Tomohiro Ishii & Karl Anderson (7:09) when Angle used an ankle lock on Anderson.
-ZERO1 World Heavyweight Title ~Crusade for Justice~: Yuji Nagata (c) beat Masato Tanaka (11:41) with a backdrop hold
-New Japan vs. NOAH Battle Tendencies ~the invasion~: Jun Akiyama beat Manabu Nakanishi (10:27) with a wrist-clutch Exploder.
-IWGP Tag Team Title – Hardcore Rules: Team 3D beat Togi Makabe & Toru Yano (c) (15:34) when Ray pinned Makabe after the 3D to become the 52nd champions.
-New Japan vs. NOAH Battle Tendencies ~the encounter~: Shinsuke Nakamura & Hirooki Goto beat Mitsuharu Misawa & Takashi Sugiura (15:17) when Nakamura used a flying cross armbreaker on Sugiura.
-IWGP Heavyweight Title: Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Keiji Muto (c) (30:22) with the High Fly Flow to become the 50th champion.
This show is being touted as a major success for New Japan. They’re claiming a crowd of 40,000, which after seeing a couple of matches is somewhat believable. Now 40,000 isn’t the biggest possible number, but considering how all everyone has been able to focus on is how the poor economy is hurting the wrestling industry a big crowd like this is a good sign. Especially since New Japan finished 2008 in the black, they’re in an incredibly strong position heading into 2009. So let’s break dow the matches.
Milano Collection AT, Minoru, & Taichi Ishikari beat Mitsuhide Hirasawa, Kazuchika Okada, & Nobuo Yoshihashi
-Essentially the show’s dark match. Nothing major of note.
Mistico, Ryusuke Taguchi, & Prince Devitt beat Averno, Jado, & Gedo
-This is being hailed as a strong Japanese debut for Mistico. He impressed the Tokyo fans with what has made him the biggest star in Mexico. Mistico did so well that his return has already been booked. In February he will face off one-on-one against Mephisto in a special attraction match. Mistico’s continued success in New Japan seems to be leading to a IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title shot, which would make for a very interesting international story.
Jushin Liger & Takuma Sano beat Koji Kanemoto & Wataru Inoue
There were some who questioned using Sano as Liger’s partner for this match, but its often forgotten that Sano was one of Liger’s greatest rivals over a decade ago. In that sense, this was a great choice of teams. Liger scored the winning pin in his 20th Anniversary match and suggested teaming with Sano more often in both New Japan and NOAH.
IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles: The Motor City Machine Guns vs. NO LIMIT
The was a great, fast-paced bout. The Guns brought the absolute best out of Yujiro & Tetsuya Naito and both looked good because of it. NO LIMIT threw everything that they could, but came up short after the awe inspiring Made in Detroit Slice Bread/Powerbomb combo. The focus now shifts toward Sabin & Shelley as it looks like we can expect them to parade their new titles around TNA for some time. I don’t know who we should expect from New Japan to seize the titles again, but I’m thinking that NO LIMIT will at least get a chance to redeem themselves. In the mean time, The Guns have asked New Japan to send whoever they want to Orlando to challenge them, but imply that it’s just wasting money on the plane tickets.
IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask beat Low Ki
I won’t lie, I had no interest in this match. Ki had done fine in his short reign as champion, but once Tiger Mask was announced as his opponent the writing was on the wall. Tiger Mask had to get his win and title back from the guy who took the belt from him in the first place. I’m not all that interested in another TM title reign. The guy is good, but I wonder what they can do now that will be different with the guy.
Riki Choshu, Masahiro Chono, Kurt Angle, & Kevin Nash beat Giant Bernard, Takashi Iizuka, Tomohiro Ishii, & Karl Anderson
I’m sure that this was in no way a work rate classic, but the novelty of Angle and Nash teaming with legends like Choshu and Chono sells this. The MEM+LEGEND team easily won when Angle submitted Anderson, but the real story was post-match. Bernard assaulted Angle after the match, which led to a remarkably restrained Kurt saying he was going to murder him. Bernard’s family is safe from the magic fingers of Uncle Kurt.
ZERO1 World Heavyweight Title: Yuji Nagata beat Masato Tanaka
Nagata vs. Tanaka II was shorter than their first encounter, but it did not disappoint in the slightest. Tanaka was out to both avenge his loss to Nagata and reclaim his home promotion’s main title, but unfortunately he came up short once again. The question is once again out there: who in ZERO1 can beat Nagata? Shinjiro Otani is suspected to be the next challenger, but Nagata has beaten him once already for the belt. Nagata proposed ZERO1 hold their annual Fire Festival now (way out of season) in order to crown a new number one contender. I’m pulling for Daisuke Sekimoto to get a title shot, but the guy isn’t a ZERO1 pure blood and I think they will definitely want to put over one of their home grown talents themselves.
Jun Akiyama beat Manabu Nakanishi
NOAH’s only pinfall win of the night, but Akiyama had no chance of losing this anyway. Nakanishi is a strong guy to put over an outsider, due to his perpetual overness. Meanwhile, Akiyama needs to stay strong as he builds momentum toward his showdown with Kensuke Sasaki for the GHC Heavyweight Title and losing here would have hurt him. It also keeps one NOAH guy strong in New Japan since it looks like the inter-promotional feud is going to continue.
IWGP Tag Team Title Hardcore Match: Team 3D beat Togi Makabe & Toru Yano
There was a major last minute change to this match as Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima had to pull out at the last minute. The reason for this was a serious eye injury to Tenzan put him out of action and left TenKoji, the major favorites, out in the cold and still waiting for their shot. Brother Ray and Brother Devon made the most out of this opportunity though, and for the second straight year defeated Makabe & Yano. Part of this title switch probably comes from TenKoji being unable to participate and New Japan feeling that a title change was needed. I say meh, because while Team 3D might be a highly decorated team, I can’t say I’m excited over the possibilities of a title reign for them. Here’s to Tenzan’s speedy recovery and the hope that TenKoji will get back on track when he’s ready.
Shinsuke Nakamura & Hirooki Goto beat Mitsuharu Misawa & Takashi Sugiura
Again, some were down on this match because Misawa was in it. I say that this is a prime example of why you should never underestimate the man. Misawa brought the good to this match, but it was Sugiura who stood out like a star. Even though he took the fall, he managed to look impressive against the likes of Nakamura and Goto. The New Japan team demanded that NOAH send their best after this big win. Akiyama could be next in line, but the idea of something KENTA and Marufuji joining force once again to face Nakamura & Goto is too tempting to not speculate on.
IWGP Heavyweight Title: Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Keiji Muto
Was this a work rate classic? No, but it was a huge win for Tanahashi and it was an extremely fun match to watch. It was basically a war over who could take the most punishment on the legs: Tanahashi and Muto busted out more Dragon Screws than I think I’ve ever seen in a single match, but it psychology wise it made sense. Tanahashi almost has to target Muto’s knees, since they’re a major weakness and if he can’t stand he can’t hit the Shining Wizard. Meanwhile, take away Tanahashi’s legs and he can’t get full height on the High Fly Flow or move fast enough to get momentum for a lot of his offense. But a lot of what made this match was the atmosphere. The Tokyo Dome was red hot for this match and a good crowd is what makes a great match into a memorable match.
So with the dust settled, what’s next in New Japan? Back to what works it seems. After his title win, Tanahashi demanded to defend his belt against his greatest rival Shinsuke Nakamura to determine the true ace of New Japan. Some have not liked booking Tanahashi vs. Nakamura right away and feel it could have waited. I see their point, but the match is going to happen somewhere down the line anyway. It’s basically the only title match they can put on to keep the momentum they’ve got from Wrestle Kingdom going longer into 2009. Move from that to perhaps a defense against a NOAH wrestler or All Japan wrestler before they get into title matches against Giant Bernard, Goto, or Makabe.
All in all, an absolutely great show. Wrestle Kingdom III has set a very high standard for the rest if the year, so it’ll be extremely interesting to see how the other companies live up to it.
Weekly Puro
As I prepared this week’s column, I had fully intended to begin a showing Wrestle Kingdom matches here and would eventually culminate in Tanahashi vs. Muto. Unfortunately, New Japan is cracking down on their matches showing up on YouTube so the pickings are slim. So I’ll offer substitutes where I can. This week we’ll going all the way back to 1989 to look back at one of the many great match between Takuma Sano (then going as Naoki Sano) and Jushin Thunder Liger.
IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Jushin Thunder Liger © vs. Naoki Sano
At Home
TNA Genesis is tonight! The card, it is pretty good. I’m just not too thrilled with the fact that every match could potentially end in a swerve. But we’ll see, it should at least make for interesting TV tonight. I’m most interested in seeing Shane Sewell wrestle, mostly because enjoy seeing guys I’ve never seen before. If you go off of how he’s looked working the brawls with Bashir so far, then he throws some good strikes at least. Hell, Impact was a good go-home for the PPV tonight (even if I didn’t like it as much as some more recent episodes). I’ll be checking it out for sure.
WWE had an interesting week as well. Raw was decent, ECW had some good wrestling, and Smackdown had an awesome match between Undertaker and Shelton Benjamin (well I thought it was awesome). Even the Triple Jeopardy story for Triple H turned out some good matches and amazingly enough Triple H didn’t prevail in the end. But then we had the releases. The WWE cut I think 10% of their office staff? Then Vince’s drivers got the ax. And once they started with the talent it was just too much to bear. Val Venis is without a job now. Seriously, the times must be hard if Val Venis gets released. Granted he was only enhancement talent for the longest time, but still he was still pretty popular with audiences and the internet. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of roster cuts, but I don’t think there will be many more as interesting to me as the Val Venis cut.
Short Takes
-That LAX promo from Impact? Yeah, that right there is gonna be your sound bite when they’re running promos for the LAX break-up feud.
-Jack Swagger has gone from just another newbie to being one the best reasons to watch ECW. They do such a good job on that show of getting over these new guys that it justifies keeping the show on the air. Hard to believe how much the show has improved since it started.
-I love the uproar started over the report about Christian being at Raw this Monday. The reports were completely untrue in the end, but the fact that people seemed to think he was going to show up was just weird. All the talk has indicated that he’d debut on Smackdown, not Raw. I know the brand extension is pretty much a joke at this point, why the fuck would they do a major plot point like Christian being the man who assaulted Jeff Hardy on Raw and not Smackdown? That’s just flat out dumb.
-Strangely, I can remember a time when Boogeyman didn’t suck. I recall him being involved in a couple good matches with John Morrison in 2007 right before his injury. I wonder if maybe he hadn’t been out of it for so long he might have kept getting better instead of reverting to suck.
That’s it for this week. I’m looking forward to next week as I finally get some free time, which means complete and total sleeping for seven days. Enjoy Genesis and all the rest of the shows this week. Peace!
