2017 Doesn't Make the List: Miyahara vs. Ishikawa 1 & 2

Kento Miyahara v. Shuji Ishikawa AJPW 5/21

Kento Miyahara v. Shuji Ishikawa AJPW 8/27

ER: Phil and I recently talked about how our MOTY list is very heavy on a certain North Carolina indy, and light on essentially everything else. Is it light on puro because we hate Japanese wrestling? No. Well, maybe. If it was 1994 then our 2017 list would have tons of Japanese wrestling. But this year we have 5 on our list. There are 4 others that Phil and I have each written up and are waiting on contributions from the other, so by the end of the year we may end up with almost 10! That seems low. So I asked some folks for 2017 Japan recommendations to see if we can add to the list a bit more, and we came back with these two matches. And I think if we took the best parts of these two matches, we have an easy list match. But the way each of the matches is actually constructed? I don't see it. There's a lot to like, some stuff to dislike, and at minimum we all learned a little bit more about the 2017 All Japan title scene.

Ishikawa is a guy who not that long ago would have been referred to as indy sleaze: He's wrestled in some shootstyle indies, he's wrestled in death matches, he has probably wrestled on a show that had no ring. But in 2017 he is a Triple Crown challenger, and that just shows how weird Japanese wrestling is in 2017. Miyahara was a NOAH guy who started around the time I stopped watching as much NOAH, and now he's kind of what mid-2000s Tanahashi was for New Japan, only for current All Japan.

There is nothing profound about my thoughts on these two matches, but let's go through my brief thoughts on each:

On the first match, the length felt right but they also took a long time to get going. Ishikawa worked over Miyahara's back in a kind of half-assed way. The stuff he did to the back sounded dangerous on paper, but Ishikawa's delivery is sloppy and disinterested: slam into the ringpost, powerbomb on the apron, chair to the ribs, stomp off the middle rope; the thought is there, but none of it looks very good. Ishikawa seems like maybe a top 5 wrestling Ishikawa. The back work doesn't really go anywhere, as Miyahara just decides to start making a comeback at some point. And I don't really buy his comeback. He had absorbed a lot of punishment, then just hit a dropkick to the knee, then made Ishikawa wait around bent at the waist for too long to hit a so-so shotgun kick. Halfway through, not loving it. Then we had some standing forearms and some fighting spirit convenient selling and I was feeling pretty duped. But the end run is a scorcher, 5 super hot minutes. Shoot, the match would have made list as a year of the sprint top contender if someone had just sent me the final 5 minutes and told me that was the match. Ishikawa starts throwing hard knees under the chin that look like they would break a neck, dumps him with a couple gnarly thunder fire drivers, we get some big kickouts, nice lariats, Ishikawa eats some big kicks, it's still a blast to hear Japanese announcers excitedly call a Splash Mountain, and Ishikawa getting the win was a genuine surprise. The last 5 created some goodwill, but not enough to get it to list.

The second match definitely had the better start. Ishikawa leaned into being Triple Crown champ and was now wearing actual trunks, ditching his garbage bag pants. His attack on Miyahara was focused and more dominating than the first match, with Miyahara taking some rough stuff including leaping off the apron and getting ole'd chin first into the guardrail. I thought Ishikawa looked more consistent in this match, but they peaked things way too early when Ishikawa gave Miyahara a thunder fire driver on the apron. It was a callback to them fighting on the apron in their first match, with this go 'round ending differently. But here it was used to essentially restart the match, and before long Miyahara was on offense for the first time in the match and the playing field was level. It was one of those shifts where Miyahara was selling 10 minutes of a beating, and suddenly Ishikawa delivers his biggest KO blow....and now Ishikawa is tired and Miyahara is invigorated. Shame, as the early match work was really satisfying. Sometimes I think Miyahara's big offense is a bit too flimsy, but there were some nasty moments down the stretch, notably when he caved in the back of Ishikawa's head with a shotgun kick. But Miyahara's fighting spirit spots come off as almost parody, and Ishikawa has a very expressionless face and uninteresting selling, which doesn't really help a fired up babyface like Miyahara. Both guys brought big bombs down the stretch, but really Ishikawa's knees and the thunder fire drivers looked nastier than almost anything Miyahara brought (except that brutal kick, which I would have bought as a finish). I didn't like how this match took a more satisfying journey to basically get to the most unsatisfying parts of the first match.

Both matches were fine, and it didn't feel like wasted time watching them. That sounds backhanded, but it's not meant to be. I'm happy I watched the two title matches. If we had the first 10 minutes of the second match, and the last 5 of the first match, I probably would have flipped. I saw they had a 15 minute match recently, which could be just what I need, but I could not find a copy of it. Someday, maybe.