25th July 2015.
We’re in Takamatsu, Japan. Last night saw action in Block A, with the standings starting to mean something. Here is how Block A looks after two rounds of matches: BLOCK A: AJ Styles 4 Hiroshi Tanahashi 4 Tetsuya Naito 2 Hiroyoshi Tenzan 2 Togi Makabe 2 Kota Ibushi 2 Bad Luck Fale 2 Katsuyori Shibata 2 Doc Gallows 0 Toru Yano 0 Only AJ and Tana, the two block favourites went 2-0. Of the two blocks this is the one I’m already least interested in, despite the potential for Shibata to go on a career-defining run and Kota Ibushi being in there. Having three guys like Yano, Gallows and Fale in the same block makes it tough to be consistently good. Block B doesn’t have the same issues. Ahead of tonight’s Block B action here’s how Block B stacks up after the first round of matches: BLOCK B: Karl Anderson 2 Kazuchika Okada 2 Yuji Nagata 2 Hirooki Goto 2 Tomohiro Ishii 2 Satoshi Kojima 0 Yujiro Takahashi 0 Tomoaki Honma 0 Michael Elgin 0 Shinsuke Nakamura 0 Tonight’s card is shaping up nicely with Nakamura hoping for a rebound win against Nagata, a man he bested in defence of the IC title earlier in the year. Okada faces off against plucky underdog Honma and all five matches look like potential winners on paper. However it’s another fixed camera show, which takes me out of the action somewhat. Bullet Club (Doc Gallows, Tama Tonga & Cody Hall) vs. Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask IV & Captain New Japan An odd choice to kick the show off with only Gallows competing in the G1. The reason for that is that Gallows’ opponent tomorrow is Bad Luck Fale. Also a Bullet Club member. That’s a match I really don’t want to see. There will be clubberin’. It is quite unusual to see three heavyweights against two juniors, even if they’re veteran juniors. Bullet Club, rather predictably work heat and as the low man on the totem pole it’s Tiger Mask who gets abused. Captain New Japan, as a heavyweight, actually gets automatically considered as higher up. Although in any combination of heavyweights he’s the bottom rung. Liger smacking Tama around makes me wish he got booked in with the big hitters more often. What he’s done for junior heavyweight style is remarkable and he’s raised the game of that division for so long. But I have this nagging desire to see him mix it up with the real big stars in the promotion. Gallows picks off CNJ and finishes with the Mehshugganator. This was inoffensive. Final Rating: **1/4 CHAOS (Toru Yano, Gedo & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Mascara Dorada & David Finlay The young boys are all over the place on this show. Each in different tag matches. This CHAOS team makes me chuckle because it’s the weakest possible combination of CHAOS guys. The opposition team is a bizarre combination. Despite all the bells and whistles, the match exists to promote Yano vs. Tenzan on Day Five. I suspect this match will be longer than the actual G1 contest. I figure Yano in Tenzan’s block is an excuse for Tenzan to have a really short match. Finlay is a guy I’ve not spoken about much. He’s Fit Finlay’s son and he’s green but shows promise. On the young boys tree he’s more advanced than Cody Hall but needs matches with good opponents to improve himself. He comes across as a bit too eager but that’s something he’ll improve on with experience. All of the young lions have improved this year, such is the method involved in training them. I really dig what they’ve done with them on this show by splitting them all up into different matches. YOSHI-HASHI singles out Finlay and gets his second pin of the tour. Perhaps this is some sort of apology for not putting him in the G1 this year. Final Rating: ** Bullet Club (AJ Styles & Bad Luck Fale) vs. Kota Ibushi & Jay White Three guys in the G1 and a young lion. I wonder who’s taking the pinfall in this one? Predictably AJ vs. Kota is great and their match tomorrow should be top dollar. What’s really cool is how good AJ vs. White is. AJ gives Jay a chance to prove he can match AJ for speed and timing and he can. The match focuses mainly on AJ too, which means Fale can take a breather on the apron and I don’t have to watch him wrestle. A double winner. When Fale does eventually lumber into the ring White gives him a shoeing in the corner. Jay White is looking better by the show and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks so. The crowd seem to like him too. Fale doesn’t much care for his babyface pluck and floors the young lion with the Grenade. Good match all round. Final Rating: **3/4 Tetsuya Naito, Togi Makabe & Yohei Komatsu vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Katsuyori Shibata & Ryusuke Taguchi Whose dick did Taguchi suck to get into these prime tag matches? He seems to be in every big undercard tag match. Naito looks pretty indifferent to his partners…and everything else. I would say he’s starting to annoy me but he did that on Day One and everything from then on is just a continuation. I must be missing something. Shibata made a few comments on Naito after Naito’s controversial “has-been” crack at Tenzan, calling Naito a “never-was”. Tana has Naito tomorrow while Shibata is wrestling Togi. Naito is so sulky that he won’t tag in, which is fine by me, and Makabe & Komatsu work as a team instead. Togi seems unimpressed with the Ingoberanable attitude. Especially as Komatsu looks great against Tana. Taguchi’s mission during G1 seems to be to pop the crowd with his DDT-esque butt obsession. It makes me actively despise him. His move set has subtly changed into a load of shit. Interesting to see Shibata’s arm is healing up. My evidence of this is his right arm elbow session on Makabe’s head. In the first three days of G1 he didn’t strike with his right arm at all. Be interesting to see if they play up on his worked leg injury instead. The best part of this match is Taguchi doing all his stupid theatrics and Komatsu constantly rolling him up for near falls. Taguchi gets the pin eventually because Komatsu is still in black trunks but give it a year, two tops, and this will not be the case. This was a decent match in spite of Taguchi’s ass-based offence and Naito’s refusal to tag in. Final Rating: **1/2 G1 Climax Block B Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yujiro Takahashi Pre-match pick: Ishii. I just can’t see Yujiro beating him again, after the NEVER debacle last year. The good news is that Ishii’s matches with Yujiro were really good. Yujiro has a random chick with him instead of Mao. She’s wearing too much make-up. Yujiro knows he can’t take Ishii clean and bullshit ensues, like his bodyguard Cody Hall interfering. In the hallowed world of G1, this is unacceptable! As with last year Ishii does a fine job of making Yujiro look like a threat before beating the tan off him. The presence of Cody is what allows Yujiro to be a contender here. I think without Razor Jr., Ishii would just crush Takahashi and it wouldn’t make for much of a contest. Although I’d probably enjoy it. Yujiro actually manages some nice late kick-outs to tease an earlier finish and doesn’t embarrass himself. Ishii steals the match with his headbutts, which are ridiculously brutal. Thankfully common sense prevails here and Ishii wins with the brainbuster. 2-0, come on Ishii! Final Rating: *** Picks: 11/16 G1 Climax Block B Michael Elgin vs. Satoshi Kojima Pre-match pick: Elgin. Both guys lost their first match but Elgin looked more impressive in doing so. I thought Kojima would start the tournament a lot hotter than he has but if forced to choose this is what I’ve gone for. Kojima has only one game plan too, to smash his way through an opponent. It didn’t work against Ishii and it doesn’t work here either with Elgin having such a big power advantage. Watching it live the stream went to shit during this match, with constant buffering. I figure that’s the weight of demand. It didn’t improve after dropping in quality either. I missed entire spots with lag. It’s horrible. I’ve had a few issues with it before but never quite like this. Elgin gets to demonstrate his power again only for Kojima to get wise to it and find a few counters. Satoshi has experience of both American Indies style and bigger opponents. Elgin isn’t one dimensional though and this is what catches Kojima unaware in the second phase of the match. Kojima heads up and Elgin Enzuigiri’s him back down. It’s a good hard-hitting back and forth where they keep it snug and there are minimal issues. Elgin jumps right into the lariat to go 0-2. Kojima records the win I thought he’d get on his first outing and this was a good battle. Final Rating: ***1/4 Picks: 11/17 Tangent: the streaming issues may have been a fault on my PC, as another window was trying to do something and I hadn’t noticed, which was probably causing the stream to slow down. Normally the streams are very good and I rarely have trouble, even live. G1 Climax Block B Hirooki Goto vs. Karl Anderson Pre-match pick: Goto. Anderson made his point by beating Nakamura. Goto still has the air of an underachiever about him so getting him out front will be good for the bigger picture. For those relatively new to New Japan, these guys used to team as “Sword and Guns”. Goto’s new robe is so swanky the cameraman zooms in on his entrance, a rarity during this show. Both guys are probably red herrings in Block B and will be kept in the running as such. That makes it doubly hard to figure out who’s going over. Giving Karl that big win in his first match makes anything resembling a near finish all the hotter in this match and will be an ongoing tactic, certainly. Anderson has a swagger about himself during G1 that he doesn’t seem to have the rest of the year. It does make his matches, both of them so far, a little slower paced though. He’s very deliberate about what he does and while it’s fine for storytelling purposes it was a bit disappointing in a main event against Nakamura. In the midcard, with Goto, it’s less disappointing but hopefully he doesn’t work every match the same way. Anderson isn’t lazy or anything and when the pace is forced, he’s every bit Goto’s equal. Anderson gets a great counter out of Shouten Kai to get the pin with the Gun Stun. They did this last year with Shelton Benjamin, had him pick up a tonne of early wins to scare the opposition. It gives the Block B favourites someone to chase. I thought Goto was going to be one of the favourites so this came as a bit of a surprise, even after Anderson beat Nakamura. Final Rating: ***1/2 Picks: 11/18 G1 Climax Block B Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Yuji Nagata Pre-match pick: Nakamura. He might have lost the first match but Nakamura will be contending Block B. I’m sure there’s a temptation to have him lose here, to give him an uphill struggle to get out of the group but fighting from one down is fine. Maybe another defeat at a crucial moment later, which I’ll probably get wrong. One of the irritations among New Japan noobs is the female fans yelling out the names of the wrestlers. In particular “SHINSKAY!” over and over again, something we’ve gotten used to hearing but at a quiet venue it grinds at some people. I actually find it quite endearing. These guys decide to go to the mat, rather than kick the crap out of each other. There are a lot of shows coming up soon, in front of bigger crowds. There’s a frustration to that, as they’re capable of having a blinding match but feel the urge to conserve energy instead. I know this will pay off on later, better shows but that doesn’t help the poor citizens of Takamatsu. The presence of both men goes a long way to off-setting the lack of classic. That said they work hard as the match progresses, keen to continue the story that Nakamura was telling in his first match with Nagata working the neck. Yuji is a motherfucker when it comes to dissecting a body part too. He has so many ‘locks’ it’s hard to keep track of them. I really appreciate them doing the neck work with Nakamura because every time he gets his knees worked over he refuses to sell it. The neck allows him to barely modify his offence and it’s fine. The match, as it grinds on, becomes exhausting to watch but I mean that as a complement. It’s a war. It might be a slow build up but it’s well worth the journey. The match ends up a better story than the IC title match from earlier in the year and that headlined a PPV. Here Nagata isn’t out to prove he belongs, he’s out to beat Nakamura. The false finishes and near misses are beautifully done, especially as Nakamura looks like ending Nagata only for Yuji to get one last kick in before falling to Boma Ye. Takamatsu are serious Nakamura marks and there’s a massive “YEAOOOOOH” to go along with his little salute to Blue Justice. Final Rating: **** Picks: 12/19 G1 Climax Block B Kazuchika Okada vs. Tomoaki Honma Pre-match pick: Okada. As much as I’d love to see Honma win here, or at any point, the build to his victory needs to be on a big show. This is a hard-cam and won’t look good in a highlights package. He’ll get the big win on a big show. That said, at some point Okada will have to start losing because everyone else is losing in Block B. Apart from Ishii…I hope it’s Ishii’s year. Despite the presence of the IWGP champion and New Japan’s biggest star, the crowd immediately latch onto Honma. Where Honma has been getting stuck into his opponents on the tour so far, Okada is where he comes unstuck. Okada is too fast, too clever and too aware of the issues he’ll face. Plus he’s quite happy taking shots from Honma and just biding his time, waiting for an opening. But even Okada gets hit with a Kokeshi. It almost loses its charm when it connects so frequently. The reason I love Honma, and everyone else does, is because he always comes so close to hitting stuff and then misses. It’s the miss that’s joyful. He’s hitting Kokeshi’s at an astounding rate in this tournament. When he goes after the Super Kokeshi, he’s cut off with the Too Awesome Dropkick and Heavy Rain. Honma does have one last fantastic counter ready though; bashing Okada in the chest with Kokeshi to prevent the Rainmaker and the pinfall is so close I forget to breathe. Okada leaves his kick-outs ridiculously late in this match, intent at stunning the crowd with how close Honma is to winning. Then Okada flattens Honma with the Rainmaker and the dream is over for another night. Final Rating: **** KOKESHI COUNT – 1 missed. 3 hit. SUPER KOKESHI COUNT – 1 missed. Picks: 13/20. Another 3/5 night, ruined by the likes of Kojima and Anderson. What is their deal? This tournament will prove how mediocre I am at predicting stuff in wrestling. With that out of the way, here is the block after the second round of Block B contests. BLOCK B: Karl Anderson 4 Kazuchika Okada 4 Tomohiro Ishii 4 Yuji Nagata 2 Hirooki Goto 2 Satoshi Kojima 2 Shinsuke Nakamura 2 Yujiro Takahashi 0 Tomoaki Honma 0 Michael Elgin 0 Anderson and Ishii continue to start strong while the three guys I picked to struggle pre-tournament are all blanked. So maybe I do know what I’m talking about. Summary: Two big matches at the end delivered. It seems I’m rather alone in liking the Nakamura-Nagata match but I’m old school so a slow burn followed by a frantic finale is right up my street. I thought it was pretty good. I generally enjoyed this whole card, even if I developed some streaming issues during Elgin-Kojima. My rating might be off based on that but I think it was good. I couldn’t really see some of the moves being performed. Verdict: 78
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AuthorArnold Furious Archives
April 2016
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