NOAH 1/24, 1/26/03

1. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshinari Ogawa/Mitsuharu Misawa:

This was during Ogawa's slimy greasy shitball punk phase, which was one of my favorite wrestler characters ever. Kikuchi looks roughed up before the match even starts, with a back brace, scratches, bandages on his wrist and arm, and grisly bruising on his neck. He looks like a rape victim extra on CSI. The match itself was a formula NOAH tag, which I took for granted at the time, but 10 years on seems so much better than most things we get now. Everybody here matches up nicely, and the Misawa/Kobashi sequences are really eye-opening. We've spent so many years watching shrimps in kickpads do these same sequences and falling badly on their faces, that when you see them done by the real deal, pre-crippled, powerful stars, it's pretty awesome. Just watching simple exchanges between the two is like two great guitarists taking turns every 8 bars, or like Jordan and Pippen running circles around people, or like how Mother Teresa must have been in her 30s. Ogawa was full on snivelly punk, trying to take Kobashi down with ineffective punches (which got no sold) and then always falling back on eye pokes, but then busting out a bunch of cool knee work (including a ring post figure 4 that bent Kobashi's knees at all sorts of horrible angles). This whole thing was just a real fun way to waste 20 minutes of your day, even if every single minute went exactly as you expected it would.

2. KENTA/Kenta Kobashi vs. Naomichi Marufuji/Mitsuharu Misawa:

This was not as good as that. Marufuji threw all sorts of thigh slap offense that didn't hit (including a couple kicks to the back of KENTA's head, but since they made zero contact KENTA didn't realize he was supposed to be selling) and KENTA took forever and a day to set up all sorts of convoluted offense that occasionally looked good. Misawa looked great in the match, and was doing all sorts of subtle heel things to try and lift up the match, and Kobashi chopping Marufuji over a rail was awesome, but overall Marufuji was just too lousy for this match to recover.

3. Jushin Liger/Koji Kanemoto vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru:

Liger is wearing his all red outfit and it looks totally badass. Kikuchi looks like he just got jumped into (or out of) a gang, then had to jog to the arena for his title match. This match is pretty darn terrific, and has the rep of being maybe the best NOAH juniors tag ever. I'll have to watch the others before I go that high, but this was a damn good time, and one of the greatest Kikuchi performances ever (them Liger and Kanemoto fellas ain't bad either). Kikuchi starts this thing off as fiery asskicker, but this match pretty quickly went right where you and I and everybody else knew it would go, and wanted it to go: Kanemoto and Liger taking all of the frustrations and anger out on Kikuchi's poor, poor scarred and battered body. Kikuchi makes the greatest "Fuck my life" facials in the biz, and Kanemoto just throws all sorts of brutal kicks at him. Kikuchi's little comebacks were all awesome, really coming off like a pro-style Yuki Ishikawa a lot of the time. He'd take a bunch of kicks, occasionally catch a leg, and then attempt to cave in Liger or Kanemoto's skull with a headbutt. Fans were way behind his fighting spirit and it really was impossible not to get behind him in this. Just a classic performance from a great wrestler. Liger looked insanely great throughout as well, busting out a nasty piledriver and an endless supply of great palm strikes. Kanemoto looked hungry and vicious, too. All three guys looked like top 20 in the world guys. This had the build, it had big moves, it had great nearfalls, just a super fun match. Yoshinobu Kanemaru also participated.