New Japan Pro Wrestling on AXS TV 7/10/15 Review

1. Bad Luck Fale vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (7/28/14)

This was...okay? It was a real Fale-heavy match, kind of a squash for him really. They gave him a big nearfall off the grenade, which I assumed would lead to the Tanahashi comeback...but then it didn't. G1 always has some even-stevens type of wins, and this one was pretty harmless. I actually really dug the opening wristlock battle. Tanahashi did a nice job putting over Fale's grip strength, and he leaned way into all of Fale's big moves. Fairly inoffensive, good for the allotted time.

2. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Tomoaki Honma (7/28/14)

Man the home stretch of this was so damn fun. Honma is such a great lovable loser, like a better working Masao Inoue. Even though he almost always loses his nearfalls always get me, always make me think he's going to get the upset. The brainbuster here especially hooked me. Fans buy into it too and it always makes for great atmosphere during Honma matches. Mauro does an admirable job covering for a backslide flub down the stretch, and flubbing a move like that actually works within Honma's character, especially where it happened in the match. Saying something like "that could have put Nakamura away, if only he were able to hold on to it" practically writes itself within the context of Honma. Nak himself looked a little off in spots, or else I would argue this match's placement on our MOTY list.

3. Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito (7/28/14)

Eh, this wasn't bad but not really my thing. Seems like I always have the same complaints about these two, and everything I complain about was right here staring back at me. Feels like a waste of all of our time to repeat all of them. Naito can bump big, but he's really bad about making those bumps mean anything. He takes the big "everybody takes this bump off the top onto the apron in every Okada match" bump, spikes himself on a DDT, but really only takes the bumps in a nasty way because it looks cool. He's still back up running around moments later. And Okada does the same thing. He gets dumped on his head with a dragon suplex, which just is used to transition into a strike exchange. It's that kind of wrestling where everything is executed wonderfully, but if you stop and think about the order of some things it will drive you nuts. But really this is all just me burying the lede, because you guys....according to Frank Shamrock....Tetsuya Naito can LITERALLY fly. Can Naito literally fly, Frank Shamrock? Really? Or can he just fall. It seemed like he just fell from a high place to me. But he assures me that Naito can literally fly. The future is now people.

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Say Goodbye To The Bad Times, Now Meiko Satomura's Free On Her Own

Meiko Satomura vs. Kyoko Kimura SENDAI 3/11/15 - SKIPPABLE

Match starts around the hour-and-fifteen-minute mark.

I meant to have this out a lot sooner. Like, right after the WKO 100 wrapped, and before another 2015 Meiko match started getting hyped up. I remembered overhearing someone on Twitter talk this up, right before the WKO 100 started, so I figured I'd reconvene this project by catching up on this match, and boy oh boy, was that ever a bad idea. I wanted to come here and tell you that, even with THE BOSS's reign of terror, you shouldn't sleep on Meiko in 2015, and I probably will have chances to do that. This isn't one of them. This was a chance for me to feel sad and not want to write about wrestling for a while.

And let me be clear, this is not Meiko's fault. And when I say this is not Meiko's fault, what I mean is that it's actually Meiko's fault in a very significant way. This match's biggest crimes are it's layout and the story it decides to tell. Given that Meiko is SENDAI's booker, I guess it was her call to work this match evenly and try to present Kimura as someone on her level...and that's a big problem because Kyoko Kimura is bad. Like really, really bad. She has some double stomps that she busts out now and again that look pretty nice, but outside of that, I have seen literal backyard wrestlers who were both less sloppy and had more convincing offense than her. She is the rare person whom Hiroshi Tanahashi could tell to tighten up their strikes. And Meiko spends the whole match working like Meiko - same great offense, same great selling - and I'm expected to buy the two essentially as equals, to the point that it goes to a 20-minute time limit draw! It's not even like Meiko's selling makes Kyoko look more convincing. It makes it look even more fake because I don't buy that this feeb is giving someone who scored wins over Akira Hokuto and Aja Kong a run for her money.

I gotta wash the foul taste of this match out of my mouth. The much pimped Hojo match may do that, but right now, I wanna go with a sure thing, so we'll look at that next time. For now, we've got....

Meiko Satomura vs. Nanae Takahashi Stardom 3/20/12 - EPIC

Now this is more like it! This is also presented as a battle of equals, but unlike Kimura, Nanae Takahashi can actually hang with Meiko in this match. This in itself is a bit of a surprise, as I had always known her as the unremarkable partner of false idol Momoe Nakanishi before this match, but here, she's quite the capable ass-beater. She's also one of the screamier joshi wrestlers, so if you're someone who's turned off by that, be warned. Still, she does lay into Meiko from the opening bell here, and the effect is that when Meiko fights back, she looks twice as badass. Meiko's selling is on-point here, too. At the time, I read some people knocking her selling in this match big time, but I really don't see it at all. Nanae has some selling issues here and there in the latter half of the match, like when she pops up from a backdrop out of nowhere. On the other hand, when she turns around and gives one to Meiko, she gets to the ropes and uses them to pull herself up. Meiko sells fatigue really well in the match, too. There's a great part right after the backdrops where they have a strike exchange (an organic one, not one of those shitty New Japan "let's put on a show!" ones), and Meiko starts to get gassed, so Nanae just stops hitting her and backs her against the ropes before clubbering her. She does do a one-count kickout power-up spot near the end...but she collapses before she can land a single blow on Nanae, and it's immediately followed by the finish. It's a spot that I could see someone finding hokey, but I liked it, and was a great cap to a killer performance.

Next time: HOJO! And something else, I guess...

THE COMPLETE & ACCURATE MEIKO SATOMURA

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