Matches from NJPW G1 Climax 7/6/19

I didn't really plan to write this up, and likely won't write this up in full, but there are a couple intriguing on-paper match-ups that I might give dashed off live style reviews to.

Jeff Cobb/Ren Narita vs. Tomohiro Ishii/Shota Umino

ER: I don't think I've seen either Young Lion, but thought they were fine. Narita threw an unexpectedly nice belly to belly. Are Young Lions still only allowed to do dropkicks and elbows and boston crabs? It felt like these two did a lot more than that. Ishii looks really small here, and Cobb looks bigger than he's been. Ishii looks a little softer too, and it wouldn't be too shocking to find out he's got a zillion built up injuries that make intense workouts tough. Cobb's stop motion reverse back suplex is one of the most spectacular moves in wrestling. A lot of this doesn't quite work as Cobb/Ishii do several of their "we're standing and hitting each other hard" moments and Ishii just doesn't look like a guy hitting hard. This would have been more fun as two singles, give the young guys each a 5 minute match against a vet.

Lance Archer vs. Will Ospreay

ER: Archer is now cosplaying Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and his decades old bad lower back tattoo is slowly but surely morphing into just a full black backpiece. This match would have made for a really exciting series of GIFs, but I sadly had to watch the thing in real time. Archer is apparently a guy who moved tickets in the Dallas area, so this is his showcase match, and he showed me that he's still a guy who is really awful at getting into position for offense and still just stands their motionless waiting to receive offense. This happened the entire match, and it looked awful each time. There were a lot of cool moments, Ospreay is always going to have cool moments. But a ton of the moments required Archer to suddenly not be selling any kind of big move that he had just taken, just a constant stream of Archer popping up from a big move right away only to then stand still in place waiting for the next move. The timing is all sorts of wonky. Archer hit a boss chokeslam through a ringside table (killer height by Ospreay), there were a cool Ospreay code red in the aisle, Ospreay's springboard dropkick to Archer's face as Archer crawled back into the ring was awesome, and that's the thing: a lot of these moves looked awesome as long as you forced yourself to not think of the inorganic set-up. It would make for a sick 2 minute YouTube comp, if people still make those. Included in that compilation would be Ospreay making the dumbest "He kicked out at 2!?!?!? G-G-G-G-Ghostssssssssss!" face. What a goober. Archer won with a claw in Texas, and I will give them credit for that being cool. But I don't think even the claw is cool enough to make Archer look cool.

Bad Luck Fale vs. EVIL

ER: I am arguably the biggest fat guy wrestler torch bearers on the internet, but Fale is really a guy I struggle with. He is a not as good Kareem Muhammad, just an impossibly boring big fat guy. Here he's a giant fat guy who tries to win by count out (which is an amusing giant guy heel tactic) and tries to use chairs, while being the third most important and interesting person in the match. When you're less interesting than Marty Asami and EVIL, you done messed up. Asami is weirdly the focus of the entire match, as every spot is merely a set up for him to do some big bump across the ring, on the floor, or to the floor. Asami even refs the very next match, and doesn't oversell any of these actual attacks the way most refs do, so it literally just felt like a showcase for some of the big bumps Asami learned. EVIL hits a bunch of nice hard lariats and a cool headbutt, but Fale kind of only knows how to sell lariats by standing there and lightly swaying like a less impressive Giant Gonzalez. Not great.

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. SANADA

ER: Sanada is a NJ guy I really liked 2-3 years ago, whose stock has fallen the higher he moves up the card. He's a guy I liked in multimans and a guy I like much less in singles. But this one still jumped out on paper for me. It just didn't really live up to whatever hype I had for it. I think I fell for Sanada when I saw him in more multimans, when he came off like a throwback big bumping UPW wrestler. A guy without much offense but could take a couple bumps that looked heavier than they actually were. This was just him doing a bunch of mirror sequences with Sabre while Sabre mocked him in between mirror sequences. Don't get me wrong, I laughed several times at Sabre mocking him. But that's because Sanada looked like someone that should be mocked. The only interesting part of this was one of the stand and trade sections, where I thought all of the "fighting out of a straitjacket" submission stuff looked really great. The rest felt like Sabre leading Sanada through the same sequences that look better with other opponents. There were a couple cool reversals (I like uppercuts reversed into backslides, and I like backslides a lot in general), but the subs never went anywhere interesting and the finish felt like Sanada fell into a victory. Sabre was funny throughout the match, I liked him waiting to roll back into the ring at the 19 count, but it made Sanada like like a punk and the match didn't have enough good to override that.

KENTA vs. Kota Ibushi

ER: KENTA is not the guy people remembered from 10 years ago, and he was a flawed wrestler 10 years ago. Now he's a step slower and could still act like a dick, but he's never going to come off cool like Masa Fuchi, he's just going to come off like a junior who isn't as good at doing his same set of moves. KENTA looked out of shape and slow, and that's not a super interesting thing to see. Ibushi had some real nice sells of KENTA's stuff, he can really class up a Go 2 Sleep, but KENTA seems totally washed to me. There's still upside to a lazy asshole gimmick, but his needs work. He did stomp an big old hole in Ibushi's guts, really didn't seem to pull back in any way off the top, and that's something. A lot of fans are really hyped that "KENTA is back", the problem being this guy was never the guy they thought he was even in his prime, and that prime is looking streets behind at this point.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

ER: I can never quite put my finger on it, but something about Okada always reads "water polo dick". I didn't watch this. I later saw a GIF of Tanahashi's high fly flow to the floor, and those always look great. I hope the people who watched this got what they wanted out of it.

Read more!

New Japan Pro Wrestling on AXS TV 7/31/15 Review

1. Bad Luck Fale vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (8/8/14)

I liked Nakamura in this, though the match was kinda junk. We had lazy move set ups like Fale going up top for the sole purpose of setting up a Nak superplex. But Nakamura took Fale's Grenade nicely, and dished out a bunch of big knees, scrambling knees to the ribs, wild running knees to the face, big kicks to cut down Fale. But the laziness in the transitions pretty much killed this one for me.

2. AJ Styles vs. Togi Makabe (8/8/14)

Fun match (though the version shown on TV was clipped down to nothing), which I wasn't really expecting as Makabe doesn't do much for me. Styles really uses that Styles Clash top rope set up a lot, where he Pele kicks his opponent up top then lifts him down into the Clash. I don't really know that I would have noticed it if they hadn't been showing weekly Styles matches. But I liked a lot of his other stuff here and the G1 was quite a nice little tear for him. Really liked his forearm into the crowd.

3. Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (8/8/14)

Mauro says that DBS is as agile as a cruiserweight but man this guy always seems like a really uncoordinated lummox to me. I genuinely can't think of any moments of him moving around like a lithe little cruiser. He just looks like a slightly more in shape version of Alison Hendrix's husband on Orphan Black. In showing a lot of G1 matches, they did a strange thing, in that they showed every major upset during the whole tournament. But since there is only so much TV time, 1-2 matches a week were "monumental upsets", so you constantly had Mauro screaming about how this is one of the biggest upsets he's ever seen and the biggest win of so and so's career, and it just starts to lose something week after week and becomes more of a "Greatest Night in the History of our Sport" kind of thing. Tanahashi didn't look very good in this one, his stuff was reallll loose, and you know that's saying something if Tanahashi's stuff looks notably looser than normal. Smith has some nice power offense, a good powerslam and great capture suplex, but he's a guy I'm entirely uninterested in so this win didn't matter a whole lot to me.

4. Minoru Suzuki vs. Kazuchika Okada (8/8/14)

Okada's pre-match promos are one of the better utilized things about this program, as he regularly does some high end kayfabe sit downs about why his opponent is going to be tough, why the match is important, and does so much better than Mauro has ever been able to get across during his actual matches. Here he says that Suzuki is a difficult opponent because he always ends up being tricked into playing Suzuki's game, tricked into working at Suzuki's pace instead of his own pace. I liked that little touch a lot and is really something an announcer should pick up on (especially recording these things long after they happen). This was a good match although some segments could have been reordered to more success. At one point Okada hit a big clutch piledriver after working over Suzuki's neck, but due to the structure Suzuki had to basically get up right after taking it because the match called for him reversing Okada's next run of offense. Poor placement. Suzuki's neck selling was really great (except for the unfortunate piledriver placement), throwing in nice details he doesn't always bother with, sometimes with a neat twist on his own style. At one point he gets tossed into the ropes, and Suzuki is a guy who always no sells rope running, usually by just holding onto the ropes. Here he crumbles before reaching the ropes, holding onto the back of his neck and just falling into the ropes. At times he was really vicious with Okada. His knees right to Okada's jaw after a blocked Gotch piledriver was tooth rattling, and his running dropkick put every Okada dropkick I've ever seen to absolute shame. And damn did he put over the Rainmaker huge, landing in an impossibly painful position right on his head; but his neck didn't really bend so it looked like a grotesque drawing they used to have on the side of diving boards, with a cartoon diving into an empty pool. So yeah, some problematic placement of some big spots, but all in all a good performance by both.

Read more!

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.

Read more!

New Japan Pro Wrestling on AXS TV Episode 17 Review

1. Tomoaki Honma & Yuji Nagata vs. Katsuyori Shibata & Hirooki Goto (6/21/14)

Awesome match, with a truly great Honma performance. This goes 11 minutes and is just wonderful. Honma has been having a quietly great post-deathmatch career. It's kind of surprising how little he gets mentioned because he really gets it. Here he folds a bunch of stories, character, selling and moments into 11 tidy minutes, and it's great. The stuff with he and Shibata is awesome with them stiffing the shit out of each other as they clearly try and knock each other's jaws out of alignment. Both men smack each other with total blinders on, really focused on just hitting the other really hard in the face. There's a great early moment when Honma and Nagata corner Shibata and Nagata is still hitting him in a pro wrestling kind of way, while Honma is clearly sneaking in full punches to Shibata's face, not fucking around with meager forearms. Shibata and Honma have several nice moments in this, one where Shibata punches Honma in the face as Honma just does a slow desperate collapse, and another where Shibata tries choking Honma with his boot and a test of wills begins, with Honma fighting that fucking boot and Shibata wanting nothing more than to dickishly grind that boot into Honma's chest and throat. Honma later hits a neat falling headbutt on him, and then splats temple first off a top rope attempt. Damn that looked bad. I normally do not have much use for Nagata and Goto (and Nagata's chipmunk cheek Undertaker eyeball armbar is still one of the out-and-out dumbest things in pro wrestling history), but Goto joins in the Honma shit kicking, peaking with a nasty spin kick in the corner, while Nagata contributes by hitting a nasty yakuza kick on Shibata over the guardrail. Honma gets an awesome near fall after reversing a Goto brainbuster into a small package, but eventually he is no match for Goto's goofy ass "American indy inverted DVD dropped onto his own knee" finisher. Still, awesome shit, and Honma fucking rules. Get on the bus.

PAS:Honma was awesome in this, I have really liked his new age Kikuchi act, and while there are no Jumbos and Fuchi's around to kill him, he is still really fun. Shibata is fine as a poor mans Usuda, and he lands some really killer shots. I loved the spot where Shibata twisted his wrists apart and landed a killer right hook. Goto and Nagata were very much guys in this match, but Shibata v. Honma is well worth the admission price.

2. Bad Luck Fale vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (6/21/14)

Well this was also surprisingly good. I mean, I'm as big a Nakamura fan as anybody, but Fale is a guy who doesn't ever look good during Bullet Club interference so I wasn't too excited about him in a long singles. But Nakamura was a generous and giving partner here, bumped big all over for Fale, and this worked because of that. Jeez Nakamura even did a stretcher job for him! Which is crazy. We get a pre-match sit down interview with Fale, which is one of the drier things you will ever hear. This guy showed nothing whatsoever. His tone sounded like Jimmy Snuka giving somber, remorseful testimony during his murder trial...but with better English. But damn Nakamura did a good job at wringing some interest out of the match himself. All his knees looked great, he throws my favorite knees to the stomach in wrestling. He flung himself into the Grenade, which is move that doesn't always look very good. Nakamura busts ass to make this work, and it totally did. Leans into the avalanche, gets knocked inside out on lariats, this was way better than it should have been.

After the match Karl Anderson and AJ Styles cut a pair of horrendous promos. They don't know any Japanese so just address the crowd really slowly, the way Americans think if they just talk slow and annunciate then foreigners will understand them, as if they think they were speaking to 2,000 retarded people. Both guys are microphone poison.

**NOTE: The Honma tag was awesome so we added it to our 2014 MOTY List. Link is below.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

New Japan Pro Wrestling on AXS TV Episode 5 Workrate Report

1. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jushin Liger, Togi Makabe & Captain New Japan vs. Karl Anderson, El Terrible, Tama Tonga & Bad Luck Fale (7/20/13)

Here we get 6 minutes of a 12 minute match, which is better than last week seeing 2 bad minutes of a 15 minute match (although I understand what they were doing by showing Devitt getting a big win over Tanahashi to set up this week's match against Okada). Bullet Club do better in these kind of multi man matches as Anderson and Fale aren't really guys you need to see in singles matches but do enough nice things in 8 mans that it works. Fale can throw out a big corner splash, Anderson can stooge for some Makabe clotheslines, it works. Tonga is probably the best of these guys and I imagine he has a WWE deal waiting for him if he ever wants it. All of his stuff has big impact and a nice snap, and it's funny he's in here with Terrible as he's basically works like a Tongan Terrible. I've never seen "Captain New Japan" before and boy is that goofy. He threw a nice uppercut, but man those velvet-y pajamas. I'm kinda surprised that I've enjoyed Tanahashi as much as I have during this TV run. Some of his little things look like junk, but he has gotten a lot sharper on his crossbodies, throws real nice back elbows, and especially looks good when compared overall against Okada. There was a fun run in here where everybody took turns chopping Fale down, with Tanahashi hitting him, Liger rocking him into the ropes with a palm strike, and then Makabe blasting him to the floor with a clothesline. This match was fine.

2. Prince Devitt vs. Kazuchika Okada (7/20/13)

Man Okada stinks. Every Okada main event they've shown has been worse than the last. The guy hits his shit, usually in the same order, at points in the match where it really doesn't make sense, most of the time it doesn't look that great, and none of the preceding offense from his opponent matters. Devitt didn't look great throughout a lot of this either, but he looked aces next to Okada. At least some of Devitt's offense looked nice, like his double stomps (his double stomp off the top through a chair laid on top of Okada was the nastiest thing in the match, but it didn't matter as Okada was up doing mirror reversal segments moments later). Because it was the Bullet Club we had tons of interference, and for the most part these guys all have really bad timing on their interference. I did like Devitt's stomp to Okada's groin while Anderson was holding him prone on the apron, and Anderson's powerbomb to the apron is a great looking spot, but a little too devastating looking for a guy to take so early into the match. Especially a guy like Okada who will render the spot meaningless within a minute. Barnett and Mauro are in the middle of putting over legendary ref Red Shoes Unno, right as he was completely oblivious to interference that was happening right in front of him. He had another awful performance, both in kayfabe ref terms, and just obnoxious camera hog terms. He has a horrible habit of selling for the wrestlers: Somebody will take a slam type move and he'll jump up holding his own back in pain. At one point both men were down for the count and he did this exaggerated shrug while looking all around at the crowd, making all these awful Sabado Gigante comedy faces like he had freckles and a comically large lollipop. At another point he repeatedly interjects himself in the middle of a forearm exchange yelling and getting in the way and getting completely ignored by the workers. This guy blows. Man this match stunk.

Read more!