7th August 2015.
We’re in Hamamatsu, Japan. My time is severely limited today. I barely have any time to get a review done. So chances are it’ll spill over into tomorrow and the whole weekend will be a disaster. But hey, it’ll be a disaster with quality wrestling. I’ve had a few beers on my way home from work (train beers, nectar of the gods themselves) so this might not be as clear as usual. Here are the blocks! BLOCK A: Katsuyori Shibata 8 Tetsuya Naito 8 Bad Luck Fale 8 AJ Styles 8 Hiroshi Tanahashi 8 Kota Ibushi 6 Togi Makabe 6 Toru Yano 4 Hiroyoshi Tenzan 2 Doc Gallows 2 BLOCK B: Tomohiro Ishii 8 Kazuchika Okada 8 Karl Anderson 6 Hirooki Goto 6 Shinsuke Nakamura 6 Michael Elgin 6 Yujiro Takahashi 4 Satoshi Kojima 4 Yuji Nagata 2 Tomoaki Honma 0 No time for analysis Dr. Jones! It’s right into Day Twelve of G1 action. Block B is the focus this evening with Okada vs. Ishii as the bad-ass main event. This is the final fixed-cam show, I think. It’s not really what you want on a Friday night after a long day. Yohei Komatsu vs. Jay White Both these guys have entertained in undercard matches during G1 and now are rewarded with a singles bout. As you might expect this is quite basic and you’d think the young lions get their matches played back to them and critiqued. The only thing I’m not keen on is Yohei’s stomp, which looks like one of Yujiro Takahashi’s. If you’re going to do something, base it on someone good. Both guys give a really good account of themselves and Jay is looking very strong but still gets caught by the Maple Leaf and Yohei scores the win. His tag performance with Shibata was arguably the best Young Lion turn on the entire tour so I can understand him going over but for me, Jay White is advancing at a rate above the other youngsters in NJPW. Still both guys looked good. Solid opener. Final Rating: **1/2 CHAOS (Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. Tetsuya Naito & David Finlay The prospect of Yano trolling super-serious, super-sulky Naito makes me positively giddy. They’re wrestling each other on Day Thirteen. Naito needs new music. Why is it that everyone is basically wrestling in their pants but only Finlay makes it look like he’s working in his undies? He might as well be wearing y-fronts, like the kid who forgot his P.E. kit. Yano’s attempts to troll Naito fail miserably as the Ingobernable barely cares about the match and when he does tag in he counters everything and is just too fast for Yano to cope with. Finlay spends far more time in there and gets picked off by YOSHI-HASHI for the pin. Entirely predictable and lacking in any kind of build for Yano vs. Naito. Final Rating: *1/2 Bullet Club (AJ Styles, Bad Luck Fale, Doc Gallows & Tama Tonga) vs. Kota Ibushi, Togi Makabe, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Captain New Japan Ibushi vs. Fale, AJ vs. Tenzan and Doc vs. Makabe all feature on Day Thirteen. I don’t really see any of those being good matches but maybe AJ can pull something out of Tenzan. Obviously tomorrow’s big match is Shibata vs. Tanahashi. Interesting to note that not only does AJ Styles pose before the match but he also, by some distance, the biggest pop. Of the Bullet Club, that is. The crowd are wet for Kota Ibushi. Tama’s lunatic heel act is actually getting good to the point where I think Vince will poach him. Just because he has that presence. I spent most of this match swigging on Dorothy Goodbody’s Golden Ale (a fine beverage, ladies and gents) but I was still capable of enjoying the action presented to me. Tama, AJ and Kota starred, although Captain New Japan cleaning house made me chuckle. Headshrinker DDT finished the good Captain off. Final Rating: **1/4 Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA & Mascara Dorada vs. Katsuyori Shibata, Ryusuke Taguchi & Jushin Liger Obviously this is preparing us for Day Thirteen’s main event of Shibata vs. Tanahashi. It doesn’t have the same animosity of last year, seeing as Shibata basically said he was sorry for smacking Tana around during G1 (BACKFIST MOTHERFUCKER!) when they had a re-match after the tournament. Liger is subbing in for the injured Tiger Mask. The one good thing about the hard-cam is watching how various wrestlers react to others and Shibata is leaning against the ropes warming up as Tana comes out here. He’s not looking at all. Then when Tanahashi gets closer to the ring he turns around, ready to fight. I love this guy. The opening 30 seconds of Tana-Shibata switches is better than the rest of the tag matches put together. The story of the match is the juniors trying to one-up each other while Shibata & Tanahashi provide violent cameos. There’s too much Taguchi though and he drags the match down into mediocrity by doing stupid things (like falling over while attempting to apply the anklelock) and despite him being a cretin he still goes over. Whose dick did he suck to get these plum roles during G1? Shibata and Tana have a bit of an eyeball to eyeball conversation about tomorrow night and Shibata stands in the ring watching Tana as he leaves. You can feel the tension. Final Rating: **3/4 G1 Climax Block B Michael Elgin vs. Yuji Nagata Pre-Match Pick: Elgin. Of all tonight’s Block matches this was the hardest to make a prediction on. Basically because neither of these guys are winning G1, or even coming close, so it’s hard to decide who gets two points. Elgin’s showmanship continues to earn plaudits from the NJPW crowd. They love his stalling suplex and all his old timey strongman spots. He should start yelling “EEYYYYY OOP” before every big power lift. Interesting to see Nagata varying his spots in this one, perhaps due to the rib injury. Elgin imposes himself on Nagata and the old man shows Big Mike that it’s not a simple thing to do. Yuji has plenty of Blue Justice left in the tank, despite his advanced years. I love Nagata trying to make the deadlift Falcon Arrow easier by climbing the ropes and Elgin absolutely refusing the help. It’s a display of toughness and professionalism. It’s actually quite touching. Elgin is really gentle with Nagata afterwards and Bucklebombs him to set up the Elginbomb. I feel bad for Nagata, he’s getting waxed in this tournament. Far worse than last year. At least Elgin showed him some respect on the way. Final Rating: ***1/4 Picks: 39/56 G1 Climax Block B Karl Anderson vs. Tomoaki Honma Pre-Match Pick: Anderson. Honma has zero wins so far, I don’t expect that to change this evening. A lot of Anderson’s matches have been relatively slow paced during the G1. This contest is no different. I personally think Honma is at his best when he’s fighting someone who’s hitting him frequently and hard. Karl is more interested in grinding Honma down and taking away his crowd support. Honma’s rallies are still effective but not as much fun as when he’s coming back from a severe beating. The same could be said of the majority of the NJPW roster. They tease the Gun Stun a few times and then tease Honma winning a few times. Based on his track record it comes across as unlikely. At least they have a cool finish where Honma comes off the top for the big Kokeshi and gets planted with a mid-air Gun Stun. Poor Tomoaki. Another day, another loss. Final Rating: *** KOKESHI COUNT – 2 missed. 2 hit. SUPER KOKESHI COUNT – 1 missed. Picks: 40/57 G1 Climax Block B Satoshi Kojima vs. Hirooki Goto Pre-Match Pick: Goto. Kojima is having a stinker of a tournament. Not as bad as Nagata but only two wins and Goto is a big contender. I’m not sure how many people see Goto as a big contender but from the way he was hyped pre-tournament (the IC title win, the talk of unification day, and the new gear) it certainly seemed to me that New Japan had decided he’d be a contender. As you’d expect this is a solid contest with plenty of back and forth striking. The crowd seems more into Kojima, because his spots are more fun. Kojima falls for Goto’s rope running spots, showing his lack of pace, but when they’re duelling it out Goto looks surprisingly lightweight. As if the tournament’s abuse is starting to take a toll on the IC champion. The strapping on Goto’s back, something he’s had for a while now, is another potential sign of weakness. One that prevents him going to the Shouten Kai early in the contest. Goto is too aware of Kojima’s lariat to fall to it and it seems as if this might go on for some time until Goto musters enough strength to flatten Kojima with Shouten Kai to dispel any back issues. Kojima has been looking quite tired since the tournament began (not unlike the other veterans; Tenzan and Nagata). G1 is a young man’s tournament. This year more than ever with the expanded format. Final Rating: ***1/2 Picks: 41/58 G1 Climax Block B Yujiro Takahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura Pre-Match Pick: Psssht, Nakamura. This is the biggest lock in the entire tournament. Yujiro is useless, Nakamura is one of the companies biggest stars. Yujiro at least has the common sense to jump Nakamura during his Yeaaaaoh pose on the ropes during the introductions. Something Ishii took advantage of last year. Also Yujiro has help from Cody Hall. Many things are written about Nakamura but one of the often overlooked qualities of the King of Strongstyle is how LOUD his selling is. You know when he’s injured because he yelps and shrieks with the best of them. This is how he generates sympathy in a contest that screams MISMATCH. Yujiro has had a few decent matches thanks to the generosity of his opponents but this isn’t one of them. It’s just simply not believable. Nakamura basically wrestles himself, setting up all his predicaments and allowing Yujiro to just hit one move after another. Which would be fine if Yujiro wasn’t sloppy and boring. Takahashi won’t even get his head in position for the Boma Ye. Nakamura looks less than impressed and cleans Yujiro out with another one, which more closely resembles a shin across the jaw. No more solid food for you, fuckface! Final Rating: ** Picks: 42/59 G1 Climax Block B Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kazuchika Okada Pre-Match Pick: Okada. This is the must-see match on tonight’s card. Not only are they both in CHAOS but they’re tied for the lead in Block B with eight points and only one of them can advance to ten points this evening. Or neither of them if they go to an unlikely thirty minute draw, earning them one point each. Ishii doesn’t take too kindly to Okada’s ‘clean break’ and nails him with an elbow. You don’t want to upset Ishii and he can smell the disrespect in that spot. Okada is very much in his comfort zone wrestling Ishii. Everything flows nicely and he looks relaxed. Ishii takes Kazuchika to the woodshed by running Ishii 101; a beating. Okada has many different ways to win a match and starts to dominate by switching gears. Using counters and submissions and keeping Ishii guessing. When Okada goes for strikes that’s when it goes wrong for him. Ishii just marches into elbows like they’re nothing and lays Okada on his back with one strike. Okada takes over again and tries for the Rainmaker but three times Ishii counters it. The third time decisively with a headbutt. From there Ishii unloads with the heavy artillery and Okada just barely hangs in there until one of his trademark precision dropkicks gets the champ out of trouble. It’s a good storyline, as he’s familiar with Ishii and Ishii just doesn’t modify his approach at all. He just batters you. If he wins, he wins. If he loses, he loses. Here…he loses. Okada allows Ishii one more Rainmaker escape before catching him with one final throbbing lariat across the Stone Pitbull’s barrel chest. Final Rating: **** Picks: 43/60. Holy shit, 5/5! We won’t see too many of those during the tournament so I’ll kick back and savour it, although booking-wise this was one of the easiest nights to call (with the possible exception of Elgin-Nagata). Here’s Block B before we leave Hamamatsu. BLOCK B: Kazuchika Okada 10 Tomohiro Ishii 8 Karl Anderson 8 Hirooki Goto 8 Shinsuke Nakamura 8 Michael Elgin 8 Yujiro Takahashi 4 Satoshi Kojima 4 Yuji Nagata 2 Tomoaki Honma 0 The Rainmaker heads into Day Fourteen with more points than anyone else although the chasing pack are just one win back. Interesting to note that only Goto has beaten Okada from the chasing pack. If they finish level, Goto will finish above Okada (in theory). The other interesting aspect is the spoiler for Okada could be Nakamura. Now he beat Goto, which would leave us with three guys level on points (potentially) who all have a win over the other. So…who would go to the Final? I sense a play off. Summary: This felt like the calm before the storm. The last couple of shows have featured a few matches where people were taking it easy. At least this one had a little more consistency on the undercard. Four of the five G1 matches clocked in at ***+ and the main event is a genuinely good match. That makes it a better card than the disappointment of Day Eleven, although not by much. A solid show. That’s all I really expect from the hard-cam shows. Verdict: 72
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AuthorArnold Furious Archives
April 2016
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