NO-MAS: Omos in NOAH, New Year Reboot

 

Omos/Jack Morris/Yu Owada vs. El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr./Galeno Del Mal/Saxon Huxley NOAH 1/2/25

ER: Omos's second match with the company felt like an incredible step backward. It's his second night with the company and he's working a throwaway trios match at a half sold Shinjuku FACE show, in a match where the focus is on Yu Owada's heel turn and not the gigantic black man entering your small building. The fans boo Owada in his Team 2000X when he enters the building after Omos as their mystery partner. To start the match, Omos locked up with Wagner. Obviously he won the lock up, easily, but why is this giant man locking up with a luchador half his weight? It would have been preposterous if Undertaker had worked a test of strength spot with Crash Holly, but at least it would have made sense within Holly's character. Omos doesn't need to be doing collar and elbow tie-ups with any other wrestler.  

I liked the stretch where Morris came in and cut Wagner off, Wagner selling a pump kick like Terry Funk before powering through and headbutting Morris, falling hard first, recognizing it was a bad idea as Morris was plopped on his butt rubbing his jaw. I liked how Morris set up Huxley's offense, selling a kneelift falling chest first into the middle rope with his arms draped over the top, getting bounced off the ropes as Huxley built steam, turning around just in time to catch a boot under the chin. Morris himself has bad hand clap offense but he can sell some difficult stuff well. Owada, the true focus of the match, is at minimum good at getting blown up by a shoulderblock. 

I wanted more from the Omos/Galeno shoulderblock exchange climax. They kept the big men mostly out of the match and they didn't even let Omos bump Galeno with a shoulderblock. Omos shoulderblocking Galeno into the ropes and then celebrating was like Luger celebrating his count out win against Yokozuna. The big double chokeslam was a nice ending and I especially love that it was so sudden. Galeno took one bump for Omos but it was for the finish. Crazy that Galeno took the slam so much better than Marufuji. 

TL: The only match I know Eric likes more than a battle royal is a NOAH six-man tag. To hear him glowingly praise Tamon Honda busting out freaky Rolling Hell variations or IZU throwing gnarly headbutts and sumo rushes or waxing poetic on Kikuchi's facial expressions brings me great joy; this is, predictably, a far cry from that, but does have its highlights and retains some of the spirit those matches had in their heyday.

Omos gets less to do here but does look markedly better than he did in the tag title win. Him single-handedly taking out Los Wagnercitos and Huxley with two big body slams and a lariat came off well to establish the gap between him and everyone else in the match. Eric mentioned how Omos needs to really lean into his strikes more and while the lariat was his only one in this match, it looked fine. There wasn't much of note from Morris or Owada. Morris did some basic stooging and bumped big on Huxley's knock off Brody running big boot, but Owada did a bunch of half-hearted stomping and striking in his faction debut and quickly faded into the background. Those performances by default made Omos being so dominant look that much more impactful.

Huxley got the shine here, which was odd. The Wagner Brothers were over pretty strongly and the crowd was playing along with their shtick. Hijo did well starting the match when Omos again got the early tag in, taking a powder and then trying to goad him into rushing him down, even stepping on his feet to try and get an advantage. I liked Galeno as NOAH's resident power brute knowing he was screwed but also knowing his best shot was bringing the fight to Omos anyway, even if it did fail spectacularly and he ate the fall.

Omos got a bit of a chance to show his staggered sell and recovery during Galeno's tackle rush, and it's obvious he's really trying to control the atmosphere as soon as he's between the ropes. He's working methodically like most big men, but he's aware of his surroundings and has the charisma to make it entertaining. He's also talking a lot of shit, and I think he could talk even more at this point; shit-talking in wrestling today is often either contrived or ironic, but Omos could make it his calling card if he wanted. While I was excited after the tag, this was more of a wakeup call. There's more to be unleashed and it will be interesting to see the path they decide to take to get there.

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NO-MAS: Omos in NOAH

 

Team 2000X (Omos/Jack Morris) vs. Takashi Sugiura/Naomichi Marufuji NOAH 1/1/25

ER: Around Christmas, Tim told me that NOAH was bringing in Omos as a Nigerian Kaiju and wondered if I'd be interested in checking out how they handle a guy who's completely different than any NOAH wrestler in history. Omos has been in WWE for four years now and for whatever reason they are scared about using an Actual Giant in a wrestling match now. There are fewer Big Men in wrestling than ever before. Why!? It can't be the "quality" of the ring work, that doesn't make sense. I've seen plenty of fucking Xyon Quinn or Cora Jade matches. They can't care that much about people looking bad in a ring. 30% of their roster is made up of people with lifted asses and blown out knees working spots in half speed, but I guess a literal Giant moving at the speed of a Giant isn't something they can visualize working in Pro Wrestling. Pull the damn trigger on a guy who is 7'3 and Looks Cool. Omos looks cool. He's a Black Giant who looks cool. He's not Eli Cottonwood. He's not Shanky. Is it because he's the only black giant? Is that why they're so afraid, because he's the tallest black wrestler they've ever been around? Suddenly the tallest black wrestler in history comes along and can pull off facial hair and dress well, and they get too racist to understand what they have? He's the tallest black wrestler since Karl Malone and that means something.  

Now I don't think there are any guys on the NOAH roster I actually care about seeing against Omos - this is a far cry from MY NOAH of 20 years ago - but the idea still intrigued me. I don't know why they scared the Big Man away from pro wrestling but it fucking sucks, and now NOAH is courting one with the intention of making him a big attraction. Their first step in making him a big attraction? To have him do something he's never done before: Win the tag titles in his first match with the company. 

This tag was a fine way to debut Omos, even though it was nowhere close to as good as his debut 4 years ago. I thought Jack Morris and Marufuji looked awful. Morris had really bad stomps and clubbing shots, and is a real bland guy to pair with your new giant. As I was thinking about how bad most of Morris's offense was, Marufuji blazed out of the corner with a 5 hit combo that missed so badly I assumed was intentionally thrown as a 0 hit combo. I thought he was just backing Morris up with near misses like they were breaking into Low Ki vs. Red but then Morris took a big Sean Salmon bump and I had to rewind to see what had made him bump. 

I don't know how Marufuji came up through All Japan and has strikes that look this bad. He's in his mid-40s and has a fuckboi perm and I wish he had gotten the shit kicked out of him by Kanemaru and IZU or Makoto Hashi in 1998 because he blows. His work with Omos is really bad too. He has no idea how to work a giant and he's terrible at setting up spots. He throws a punch to be caught and he throws it like he was fighting AJ Styles. Omos has to deadlift him on a backdrop and Marufuji hops early on the double chokeslam. It means more symbolically that he easily pinned Marufuji on his first night in Japan but it would have been much better to pair him off for a big match with Sugiura. I like Sugiura and he knew exactly how to work Omos. He was also much better at doing something with Morris, burying knees in his stomach and leaning into Morris's one cool bump (one his shoulders taking a brainbuster off the middle buckle) and he knew he could actually throw some elbows at Omos for him to no sell. Sugiura's looks after Omos absorbed those elbows were well above the level of the same expected looks from any Performance Center alum. 

As for Omos, I don't think he did enough, and he needs to actually throws strikes. Sugiura can take a club to the back, dude. Marufuji's best moment was getting kicked off the buckles to the floor, and it was Omos's best moment too. He needs to swing harder and not be afraid to be a giant. Stan Hansen swung big and missed big. Swing to hit. Miss like a Giant. 

Tim Livingston: WWE has been sending talent to Pro Wrestling NOAH for two years now. That exchange has led to predictably blah stuff (outside of Mutoh becoming an Hall of Famer, an outright cool distinction), but it all pales in comparison to the most intriguing thing of all to come out of this relationship.

In an interview during their August excursion, Josh Briggs and Tavion Heights asked Mutoh and Marufuji who they thought would do well coming over from WWE to NOAH. Mutoh excitedly exclaimed OMOS, citing his love for big guys and later saying he could help make Omos a star attraction. The homogenization of outsider talent in Japan has led them to be so same-y and tryhard over the past several years. Being able to drop f-bombs and flip people off = cool in 2025, apparently. Someone like Omos being in Japan has a chance to make an actual impact if done correctly.

Lo and behold, Omos DID get announced for the NOAH New Year show, as the mystery partner of Jack Morris. No, not the fringe Hall of Fame pitcher; this guy is a Scottish pro wrestler, although now I wonder if Verne ever approached Jack about making an appearance at an AWA show at one point. They were even facing Marufuji and Sugiura for the GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Titles. I asked if Eric would want to check in one someone I know he likes and figured we'd follow his exploits for the green brand as long as he's there. Or, given he's still in the throes of his '97 WCW project, get his comparisons between OMOS and Ron Reis at the very least.


Omos immediately jumps off the page here, especially standing next to Morris, who is a bit generic. The wide shot of Omos walking down the aisle was a great production choice. You can see just how much he stands out in the arena, and it hammers home how a simple presentation can get so much across. Him staring down Wakamotoharu at ringside, a high-level sumo and big pro wrestling fan doing guest commentary, was downright mesmerizing given he hadn't even entered the ring and had already created a buzz.

The match layout could not have been better here: instead of teasing out his eventual tag into the match, Morris tags Omos in right away and the match becomes immediately intriguing. Omos rightfully comes into this match knowing he owns the two legends across from him in nearly every facet, even withstanding Sugi trying a few tricks and failing hard. Another great piece of production, inadvertent or not: Omos hits a corner avalanche and the impact is so strong it shakes the corner cam out of focus.

Omos' second control segment on Marufuji was even better. I love how Marufuji tried what Sugi tried only to eat even more shit. The Omos big boot knocking him off the buckles to the floor looked amazing; a prelude to him getting bieled back in right on his hip after being lifted off the floor by his cranium. Omos busts out the basketball shooting taunt, and it's one thing for someone like Carmelo Hayes to work basketball gimmicks into his stuff, but a 7'4" dude doing it just hits harder.

It should be pointed out Marufuji hits nothing but air on a strike combination "towards" Morris that was so hilarious it would lead any blooper reel. This is a guy who looked up to Misawa, came up in the All Japan dojo, and after nearly three decades can only really throw a chop with any authority, with two of those spent on top of a promotion. Boggles the mind.

The finishing stretch hammered home Omos as a difference maker and was tremendous. You get the splash from Morris standing on Omos' shoulders (with the low camera shot to sell the height Morris jumped from), the murdering of Sugi on the apron with a chokeslam, and then the double choke bomb to give Omos (and Morris, I guess) the belts.

Omos has roughly 200 matches under his belt, a majority of those being off TV, but this is as good as I've ever seen him look. There was meaning in every spot, his overall presentation was superb, everything he did was efficient and impactful. He wasn't hidden or limited in any way. In ten minutes, you learned everything you needed to know about what Omos can do while leaving plenty in the tank for the weeks and months to come. A great piece of business and a great start. 

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2003: Ogawa vs. Kobashi VS. Lesnar vs. Mysterio

Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshinari Ogawa NOAH 11/1/03

ER: In 2003. this match was embraced by the people who disliked Yoshinari Ogawa as a Great Ogawa Match. A lot of people actually disliked Ogawa in 2003. Half my lifetime ago, people actually got mad on the internet about Ogawa winning the GHC Heavyweight Title off Akiyama in under 5 minutes. Scott Keith called him Rat Boy and babies cried of cronyism. I was in college. I argued about it on DVDVR, using a Mitsuharu Misawa Emerald Green iMac in a campus computer lab. Sonoma State University's Information Center and Library opened in August 2000 on the very same day as the very first NOAH show, and that information center was filled to the brim with neon-colored iMacs that I employed to argue about pro wrestling for the next 2+ years. I believed in NOAH. I traded Galavision lucha libre for NOAH tapes on those emerald terminals. I watched that Ogawa Title win on a huge screen in a media lab in that same information center, in a room that I often reserved for the sole purpose of watching pro wrestling by myself on a large screen. Two different professors got mad at me for watching wrestling in a large media room they thought they had reserved for a class, but I had reserved it first so that I could watch new NOAH shows and 90s All Japan Comm tapes. 

I watched and argued about that Ogawa title win as a college student, and I watched this Ogawa title challenge as a college graduate delivering bottled water for Sierra Springs-Alhambra, in an apartment I shared with an Armenian girl. That was my year. The year before, I was there live when Ogawa wrestled his first ever match in the United States, and while he was wearing the GHC Title around his waist I watched him trip on the stairs walking to the bathroom. Is the man just a dweeb with a powerful friend? Or was he perfectly method in playing his dweeb character to the one other person nearby - me - who also happened to be walking to the bathroom? Obviously the latter. Since wearing the GHC Heavyweight Title and tripping while walking up stairs in a Fairfield gymnasium, the year after losing that title to Takayama was spent almost entirely in tag matches, getting a late 2002 GHC Title match against Misawa and only working a couple of singles matches in the entirety of 2003. A couple weeks before this title match, Ogawa - as captain - won a Captains Fall Elimination Match by eliminating Kobashi, meaning Yoshinari Ogawa was the first man in 14 months to pin Kenta Kobashi. Still, coming into this match, even as a former GHC Heavyweight Champion, Ogawa did not seem like - nor was he treated like - a man who could pin Kobashi in a singles match. 

Nobody, not even diehard NOAH lifer fans, were treating Ogawa as a serious title challenger. Nobody thought Ogawa had a chance at winning the title. Now I suppose that nobody expected Ogawa to win it from Akiyama in 2002, but nobody expected him to win it from Kobashi in 2003. This was never going to be a quick match, win or loss, as that just wasn't an option in a Kobashi title match. No, they needed to figure out a way for Ogawa to plausibly last 25 minutes in a Real Title Match against Kobashi, which is an interesting exercise. Ogawa felt like the first Kobashi challenger who might not make it past 10 minutes, and they figured out a very fun way to turn this into a 25 minute match. I also think that the strength and weakness of this match is that it's great that Ogawa essentially trolls Kobashi into working a full Kobashi title match with him, but by going so long it also felt too much like several people had sat down and mapped out exactly how they could plausibly have Ogawa last that long. 

Ogawa does not have offense that plays against Kobashi. His short jabs don't look like they could phase him, his body doesn't look like he could lift him or hold him down, and his chest is not a chest that can sustain more than a dozen chops, and they do a great job of building this match around those facts. Kobashi sells Ogawa's offense appropriately all match. Worked jabs, a standing double stomp, or a double leg cradled pin weren't going to cut the mustard, but attacking a dude's famously fucked up knees could. And after enduring two different corner choppings with his arms stiffened and his chest puffed out as much as possible, Ogawa goes after those fucked up knees. The first time Kobashi chops him down, he literally chops the man down to his back, with Ogawa taking the chops like a man trying to keep his footing as best as possible while having a firehose turned on him. The second time Kobashi gets him in a corner and starts chopping, Ogawa wisely just plays dead like Kobashi was a grizzly bear, and when enough time passed by he runs and dropkicks Kobashi in the back of the knee, and his window opens. You can basically divide this match up into two parts: Ogawa going after Kobashi's weakness that nobody is supposed to go after, and Kobashi paying Ogawa back for doing so. 

Ogawa's knee work is really tremendous, just relentless and varied and constantly advancing, never lingering on any one attack. After dropkicking the knee, he starts wrapping it around the ringpost, removing Kobashi's knee brace and pad, standing on it, jumping on it, pulling on his leg, jamming his own knee into Kobashi's knee, dropping an elbow onto it, digging his elbow into it, bangs it off the apron several times, dragon screws that leg, works a harsh single leg crab, locks a figure 4 around the ringpost. Every possible thing you can do to fuck up someone's leg in a wrestling ring, Ogawa does it all, in succession. Ogawa can't lift Kobashi's dead weight into a suplex so he shoves him Kobashi straight into the referee, kicks him in the back of the head, and finally hits the back suplex. While everyone is tending to the referee, Ogawa actually starts drawing heat by bashing Kobashi's leg with the ring bell multiple times, including once while the leg was against the ringpost. Ogawa didn't know that this was going to be the literal last time he would ever challenge for the GHC Heavyweight Title, but he knew the only way he was winning that title was by turning Kobashi's knees into bone broth and having the match stopped due to injury. It's a great plan. It could have worked, and it was working, but it only worked until Ogawa got his face bounced off the ringpost a few times. 

Kobashi was always going to catch him, and he does so invoking the power of Kings Road to let Ogawa run into a Baba neckbreaker drop. But yeah, then Ogawa gets his face bounced off the ringpost a couple times and Kobashi hits a spinning chop to the back of his neck to bounce him off it once more, and Ogawa gets busted wide open. 

When Ogawa gets busted open - a thing not common in NOAH 

Kobashi starts throwing punches - a thing Kobashi didn't do  

Karate chopping 

Right into Ogawa's cuts

Champion's Vengeance

You can even see

Him raising up his knuckle

As he's punching cuts

Kobashi holds Ogawa up, frozen in the coolest delayed sheer drop back suplex, an elevator stopping for too long before plummeting down several floors all at once. Ogawa is powerless to prevent the delayed floatover powerbomb, barely kicking out before Kobashi leans into him with a smothering sleeper. Ogawa has one last resort, and you figured he was going to go after the balls eventually, but it's kind of a surprise that he bothered to wait over 20 minutes to do so. Are The Balls Ogawa's personal moral line? We all have our own lines that we hold at certain distance, not thinking we'll be pushed over them. But are we supposed to think that The Balls That KENTA Washed are the line that Ogawa had to be convinced to cross 20 minutes in? He needed about three minutes to make the decision to go hard after the most famously crippled knees in the company for 10 minutes straight, but attacking The Balls are beyond the pale, and baby, you know Ogawa is pale. Kobashi has literally already established that he can miss several months after suffering very real knee injuries having his legs brutalized in one match, but Ogawa has no quandary trying to shelve the top draw for a year. 

And as I ponder this, I swear that Kobashi hammerfists his own nuts to...I dunno I guess get some ball feeling back? Once Michael Myers reveals that he has no balls, it's pretty much over. Those balls have been shot through with cortisone. You can break a cinder block over those balls, and it's not going to stop the superplex and Burning Lariats. 

Lesnar vs. Mysterio Review

Verdict: 

ER: This is a great match, but felt more like a clever exercise in what it would take to get Ogawa a 25 minute match with Kobashi, than it feels like a real title match. The knee work should have drawn way more heat, and Kobashi had to endure it even as the crowd viewed it as something that "just had to be done" to grow this match from 5 minutes to 25. Kobashi's vengeance should have been more violent, even though I like him using a lot of punches for the first time in god knows when. As much as I enjoy this match, at the end of it all I kept wondering was "If NOAH weren't such cowards about putting Kobashi in the ring with SUWA, imagine how incredible Kobashi/SUWA would have been?" Champ retains. 

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2003: Taue vs. Nagata VS. Lesnar vs. Mysterio

Akira Taue vs. Yuji Nagata NOAH 6/6/03

ER: This is a match for the Taue fans. This is a Taue match. It's a match you can show any undesirable Taue-doubter as evidence of his deserved rep as a Pillar. I also understand that anyone who is reading this wouldn't bother wasting their fleeting life's time trying to convert a Taue-doubter at this point, but within this hypothetical, this match is a Taue Mind Changer. Taue is an aging, respected veteran who is put in the position of being the first real opposition to an invading serious threat. It's one of those great aggressive Taue performances, where a guy who made his career on his stoicism and unflappability shows real passion and lumbering intensity to shut this outsider asshole down. We Taue Heads love his lumbering intensity; his clumsy athleticism and absence of grace. The way he lurches and stumbles into offense and away from offense adds a realism that few possess. This match is a Taue clinic on selling offense and fatigue: the way his delivery changes and how he's able to show the affect his bursts of intensity have had on his gas tank, the way he stumbles and staggers and buckles his knees upon being struck or fighting to his feet. The best Taue selling makes him look like a giraffe who's been hit with a tranq dart, but also a giraffe who could still kick you in the face.  

Yuji Nagata was just coming off a dominant and active year-plus run as IWGP Heavyweight Champ, defending constantly and defeating everyone, before finally being stopped by Yoshihiro Takayama, who is sitting on commentary for this match. After losing his title, he took a week off, dusted himself off, then dragged his dick into Toyama and swung it into NOAH's business.  Nagata blew into town and bloodied up Masao Inoue, ran through all of Akiyama's exploders to beat him in less than 8 minutes, and now he's coming for Baba's doppelgänger. Taue is famously surly, but here his surliness comes out in his defense of Kings Road and he looks pissed at Nagata for making him do so. He is 42 years old and tiring, which I can relate to as someone who is 42 years old and tiring. He is going to unload his greatest hits at Nagata until he tires out, and Nagata is just going to have to weather it. He swings his hand at Nagata's head like a fired up 1980 Baba, throws the sole of his boot like he wears size 18s and they weigh 30 lb. each, slaps Nagata down in the corner, and throws every single nodowa otoshi like a man trying to spike a a football into the earth.  

 

Akira Taue was the reason I knew the words "nodowa otoshi" as a teenager, and he murders Nagata with a high backdrop chokeslam and then a real one armed classic, tries to give him one off the apron but settles for merely a boot to the face, and pulls back the ring mats to give him one on the floor of Budokan instead. 

The crowd is hugely into Taue and turns on Nagata hard when he starts kicking away at Taue's arm and snaps on a quick armbar after Taue had already reached the ropes. Taue gets his shoulder run into the ringpost, and Nagata keeps going back to that arm as a diversion the more tired Taue gets. I dug how he hit an Exploder that rolled Taue to his feet, and when Taue came up swinging Nagata just pumped his boot into Taue's bicep, and Taue decides to start going for broke with as many chokeslams as he can before the sand runs out. Taue flipping Nagata ass over crown off the top rope by his neck is an all time Taue match, in a match that had at least four other contenders for that. The fans were believing when they saw their man in red throw Nagata off that rope like a Street Fighter II killshot, visualizing it in slow motion with Nagata making groaning Arrgghhhh noises. 

If the first half of the match is about Taue the aggressor, the latter half him showing why he's one of my favorite salesman in wrestling history, and one of my favorite guys to watch take offense. Taue doesn't fall like normal men, and that makes me want to see him fall constantly. He's so good at progressively staggering to his feet in new ways, using his body's makeup and unique base to roll quickly to his feet, and is so talented at showing damage and fatigue that his legs keep reacting in new ways as he keeps having to get to his feet. There's a moment where you can tell the crowd knows that Taue is not going to be making another comeback, but they're also not sure that he's going to stop kicking out of anything Nagata throws him with. Taue has this feel of a guy who can't be pinned, and no amount of back suplexes or Exploders could keep him down. The Nagata Lock III was a thing that looked like it would dislocate both of Taue's shoulders, like the only thing that could have possibly stopped him that night. 

Lesnar vs. Mysterio Review

Verdict: 

This is probably the greatest singles match of Taue's last decade. Through the rest of the decade he remained great at having 1-2 major performances a year, but I'm not sure any of them hit this height. Is the Marufuji carry job as miraculous as I remember? Is the Rikio match as cool as I remember? What about that tag opposite Tenryu? This match is an argument for Taue still being a Top 10 guy in the world in 2003...

But he'd probably still have to be behind Brock and Rey on that same 2003 Top 10. Champ retains.  

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Matches from NOAH Mohammed Yone 25th Anniversary 10/18/20

 

Alexander Otsuka/Mohammed Yone vs. Akitoshi Saito/Masao Inoue

ER: It's 2020 and these boys have all beefed up to the degree that Akitoshi Saito might be the smallest man in the match. Otsuka especially needs to just sport Butcher singlets at this point. He looks like best possible Dana White. Inoue brings his failson charisma to this early, attacking Yone at the bell and having it immediately blow up in his face when Saito ducks out of the way of a clothesline that Inoue doesn't. So Inoue spends the next several moments taking legdrops and axe handles all while holding his stomach as if he just won a hot dog eating contest and his friends keep trying to hit his belly. The tone changes noticeably when Saito finally tags in, as Yone starts throwing big impact lariats to counter the heavy leather Saito comes in swinging. Saito/Otsuka is a dream pairing that's hardly happened, and we get only a taste here (ending with a great Otsuka German suplex). There's funny Inoue stuff, like Saito dropping Yone before tagging out and Inoue getting into the ring and stretching his back before just running and covering Yone. Inoue does some eye rakes, he and Saito run at Yone with some slow back elbows and lariats, and Inoue does more selling where it looks like he accidentally walked into a screen door. I was shocked to see Otsuka break out the giant swing on Inoue, but happy to see it. Everyone is a little sluggish here (they're old and meatier, it happens), but I laughed all throughout Inoue shaky legs falling to the mat every time Yone tried running at him. This is the kind of match that would have been a 2004 list match, but still makes me smile in 2020. 

PAS: This is more an Eric thing then a Phil thing. I am here to see Otsuka and we don't get enough of him to make it worth my time. I appreciate Inoue comedy, although conversely it works better in a more serious atmosphere then in a match with other people up for the yuks.  I thought Yone unable to hit a move on Inoue because Inoue is too old, but he is also too old to successfully execute a roll up, so it goes both ways.  

Daisuke Ikeda/Ikuto Hidaka/Mohammed Yone vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Naomichi Marufuji/Junji Tanaka

ER: This was great, and could have been even greater had it been worked more like a WAR or Kings Road or Futen trios. The ingredients were there but it doesn't take advantage of some of the built up drama and instead pays it off in more of a feelgood anniversary show finish than heat, but the highs are way way up there. We get this awesome surprising big babyface performance from Junji Tanaka all throughout this tag that really plays as the unexpected highlight, but the people you went in hoping to see perform, all performed. The Yone/Ishikawa opening was cool, with Yone coming in like an aggressive Batt guy and popping Ishikawa, leading to Ishikawa doing a cool sweep to cause Yone to miss a punt and slip, with Ishikawa going in for the kill with a Fujiwara. But once we get into Ikeda/Junji stretch the match really opens up into something special. Ikeda dishes out one of those cruel beatings he's known for, instantly turning Junji into a huge fighting babyface. It's a sadistic old dude punishing a tough but weaker old dude, and it came off like Kurisu kicking Mitsuo Momota's ass. Junji is out here in his mawashi, trying to put both cheeks into everything, and Ikeda would just punch, kick and lariat him back to the mat. It was feeling like the same kind of Kantaro Hoshino performance we'd see in those 80s New Japan elimination tags, all clearly building to Ishikawa and Marufuji absolutely wasting the guys across the ring from them. Ikeda's beat down on Junji goes on long enough that it gets uncomfortable, like those old AJPW beatings of Kikuchi, but I loved how Ikeda sold for all of Junji's little comebacks, including a nice headbutt and an elbow that puts Ikeda down on his butt, holding his eye. Finally Junji makes the hot tag, leading to a crowd wildly on his side as Marufuji charges in and Hidaka, Ikeda, and Yone all trip over themselves to bump wildly for this molten lava tag.

I'm just kidding, Marufuji completely tanks any of the actual built up heat, stood idly by watching his teammate get his body and limbs kicked in, and actively decides to turn this into a more standard Anniversary show main event. He just somberly strolls in, then proceeds to chop Hidaka in the corner for the next 4 minutes. Yeah, yeah, Hidaka's chest is raw and bright red when it's over, but it was literally Hidaka with his arms hooked over the top rope and Marufuji just throwing chops, slowly. It felt like more of a gym hazing than anything that would make an actual match interesting, and lo! When it comes to actual sequences, Marufuji isn't very interesting in those either. Hidaka has this evergreen goodwill with me just from showing up as a then unknown (to me) in ECW over 20 years ago. I always like when he shows up in something I'm watching, even though I wished he had worked more Batt and less juniors wrestling here.

The Ikeda/Ishikawa sequence is worth the price of admission. If you weren't as captivated by the Junji performance as I was, you're still guaranteed to love Ishikawa sharp elbows and hooking punches to the curve of Ikeda's jaw, and of course Ikeda's straight fully body right hands to Ishikawa's ailing face. A low key best moment of the match happens right after Ikeda decks Ishikawa: the camera cuts to Yone, standing on the apron with a huge grin on his face. It did not seem like the kind of grin Ikeda's partner would be flashing, instead it looked like the grin of a big fan. In that moment you really got the sense that Yone wanted Ishikawa and Ikeda in this match because he's a tremendous fan of their specific thing, and wanted the best seat in the house to view that thing. I can't blame him, as their exchanges here were as good as any of the dozens of great Ikeda/Ishikawa exchanges we've seen for decades. What amazes me most about their pairing is that there is no "home base". There isn't a comfortable set of spots that they can hit every time, branching off from those spots depending on how long they each want to solo. This is a new song every time, played in the same key, but totally different arrangement. You're going to get punches to the face, but there are never any sequences that are repeated in the same way. The greatest pairings in wrestling history (Santo vs. Casas, Rey vs. Psicosis, Flair vs. Steamboat) all have spots and elements in common with their prior matches. Ikeda and Ishikawa just go out there and play free jazz with it, every time, and I've never seen them sound like they're using different different Fake Books. 

PAS: This is a hard match to rank, as there is nothing in any of the matches on our MOTY list as bad as that Marufuji hot tag, not only the endless comedy spot chops but then the interpretive dance step superkick misses with Hidaka. Just dreadful. But there are also few things on our list as sublime as another redux of the horrific dance between Ikeda and Ishikawa. As disgusting and gorgeous as it always is, the punches and headbutts landing with that hollow sound you really only get with these guys. Yone and Ishikawa had a killer opening section, Tanaka gets massacred by Ikeda in a very Ikeda way, but we also had a finish based around a Junji Tanaka comedy spot. I dunno, color me confused.  Ikeda vs. Ishikawa is the best wrestling gets, and I think the highs are higher then the lows are lower. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2001: Hashimoto/Otsuka vs. Misawa/Ogawa VS. Santo vs. Parka

Mitsuharu Misawa/Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Shinya Hashimoto/Alexander Otsuka NOAH 1/13/01

ER: Interpromotional Japanese wrestling has always been a source of gold, with the WAR vs. NJPW and Onita vs. Karate Guys being genre standouts. Pro Wrestling NOAH rarely utilized the interpromotional feud, but did so for a scant number of memorable matches opposing Hashimoto's Zero1 in 2001 (maybe some day we'll cover the WEW feud?). One of these matches, Hashimoto/Yasuda vs. Honda/Inoue, was our inaugural 2001 champ, and that was on Zero1's ground. This tag is from three months before that match, on NOAH's ground, and had the pairing that every fan of either promotion wanted to see. The month before, Hashimoto had his NOAH debut in Tokyo, against Takao Omori. The crowd was super hot for Omori, and super excited to see Hashimoto in a NOAH ring. Hashimoto knew exactly how to work one of these Invading Big Star matches, and worked to a clearly uncooperative finish that was to plant the seed of Hashimoto being unprofessional with Misawa in this match, three weeks later. I'm surprised that the first showdown ever between two legends like Misawa and Hash was only run in Osaka, as I'm sure this could have drawn 15-20K people in Tokyo. Perhaps they established rules where Hashimoto would agree to work a smaller Osaka show if Misawa would work a larger Tokyo show, I don't know. And really, I don't care, because this match is everything I wanted.

The presentation was cool, with Otsuka and Ogawa already waiting in the ring, giving Hashimoto and Misawa their own entrances, and the crowd felt like they were chanting equally for both legends. Misawa is ever the benevolent top gun, as he lets Hashimoto totally come off like the top dog here, as Hash pie faces Ogawa all the way around the ring and refuses to take his offense seriously and keeps trying to get Misawa in the ring. I said Misawa was charitable in how much of a star he treated Hash, but picture this: Sting debuts in WWF in 2001 in a tag opposite HHH, and when Sting immediately calls for HHH to get in the ring, HHH just stares back, Sting yelling and demanding he get in the ring with him this instant, and HHH just keeps staring, whispers to his partner to handle Sting himself, and just continues holding the tag rope while not fighting Sting. Impossible, right? Well Misawa does just that with Hashimoto, and Hashimoto is great at punishing Ogawa as punishment for not getting Misawa right off the bat. I was not expecting Misawa to give that much presence to Hashimoto, and I loved it.

But what I *really* wasn't expecting was Alexander Otsuka - not even a Z1 guy at this point so basically a BattlArts guy teaming with a Z1 guy as a band of outsiders - being the superstar of the match. Hashimoto/Misawa was the entree everyone went to the restaurant for, but Otsuka is the dessert that everybody is raving about as they leave the place. I can't believe Otsuka didn't get some kind of big fed run after this match. Maybe he wanted to stay freelance shootstyle Butcher, but can we just assume that Mohammed Yone got his cushy consistent paycheck undercard BattlArts slot? Yone didn't show up in NOAH until the end of 2001, that job was probably Otsuka's for the duration of the year until they just went with the guy with the afro instead of the bald guy playing hard to get. And after a performance like this, it's no wonder they pursued him the entire year, in this scenario I've almost entirely fabricated. But Otsuka's the guy driving the outsider angle, the guy taunting all the NOAH boys at ringside.

Now, young boy attire is what puts some of these feuds into legendary status, with the genre peaking at Karate Dojo OP Surf Punk in FMW. Biggest complaint of the match is the NOAH young boys, as their emotional thermometer never rose above "Hey guys come on, let's keep things on the level and not take away from the show here", and their gear made them look like a JPOP band, all of them wearing black and red athleisure wear in different styles. Marufuji was clearly the star of the group with his baggy track suit and gelled up hair, but Izumida was the bad boy wearing black capri pants and a teen mustache; Morishima was the baby faced fat guy who is always wearing a muscle tank on the beach when the other group members in the music video are shirtless, and Ikeda is the cool guy with his open jacket and caesar haircut. Meanwhile Z1 just brings Tadao Yasuda as their giant track suit goon, and he has the crazed eyes of the dad from the I Learned it from Watching You commercial as he thrust kicks Ikeda during a post-match melee. And here's Otsuka talking shit to NOAH's resident boy band (their band name would be "NO4H"), egging them on, and then starts bullying Ogawa. But the kicker is when he belts Ogawa with a great elbow, then holds his elbow up to Misawa and points at it. That's the kind of juice I NEED. Otsuka also has a genuine claim to Best European Uppercuts - when we talk about who does what best - as nobody throws an uppercut quite like him (his is the fastest, and slices sharp, getting really fast speed for such close contact). He has a real cool showoff showcase of all his coolest throws and strikes, peaking with a gorgeous bridging German.

Perhaps Otsuka's best gift to this match is his selling, as he puts in one of those Lawler/Finlay performances where you can't imagine seeing anybody take a specific offense any better. One of the real joys of this match is seeing both ways Otsuka sells Ogawa's jawbreaker, the first time really rubbing out his jaw and flexing it side to side while getting back to his feet, and the second taking a backwards bending bump on the recoil. He's a tremendous stooge for Misawa and Ogawa's offense, knowing how to play straight to camera as he sells the drop toehold/Misawa elbowdrop like he was at the proctologist, and the way he staggers and stumbles and flies into the ropes for Misawa's revenge for that earlier taunt. Misawa's two hardest elbow strikes of the match are clearly leveled right at Otsuka's jaw, holding Otsuka's coconut with his left hand while shifting his molars with his right elbow.

The Hash/Misawa sections were fun, while never getting to a real volcanic section, with the best part being Hash stomping him into the corner and refusing to quit, leading to NO4H finally thinking he had gone too far. The match stoppages and stalls were built well into the match, and the visual of Hash stomping and kicking his way through Misawa and Ogawa was like a mad lumberjack razing a forest. Misawa's stoicism played well off Hashimoto's fire, and I loved his casual, subtle communicating with Ogawa, loved the way Ogawa finally got Hashimoto to take him seriously and knocked him down, and how he charged Hash at the finish to keep him away from Otsuka. Look at how Misawa rubs the finish in Hashimoto's face, hitting a tiger driver while facing Hash, staring at him during the whole pin, planting Otsuka just out of reach. It's such a Calmer Than You Are way to handle being the house boss. This match should have been the beginning of 4 months of different NOAH/Z1 matches, and judging how well all four player their role in this one, it would have been fabled.


PAS: I am also a Japanese interpromotinal feud superfan, but I thought this fell well short of the heights these matches usually achieve. I am normally a much bigger Misawa fan than a Kobashi fan, but I thought he looked more annoyed than filled with hate and disgust, which is what you need from a match like this. It feels like Kobashi or Akiyama would have been a better top dog. I normally love stoic Misawa, but this felt more like card filler six-man Misawa, and I needed to feel more desperation and fury from him. I liked how they kept Misawa and Hashimoto apart,  it added more juice to the times they actually went head to head, and Misawa pinning Otuska while staring down Hashimoto was great. I think Otsuka is one of the great wrestlers of the 90s and the 2000s, but he didn't pop for me here, he felt a bit steamrolled and we didn't get to see much of the killer offense which makes him so great. There are ways that the lesser partner in these matches get chances to shine, watch what Ohara or Takashi Ishikawa bring to WAR vs. NJ tags, or even Ogawa in this match, but I felt like Otsuka never got to be Otsuka. This is a great Hashimoto performance, he is an incredible interpromotional wrestler and is eager and willing to try to murder both opponents, all of the seconds, and the front row of the crowd. I totally agree that the NOAH vs. Z1 series was a total lost opportunity, but I got that more from the Z1 tag than from this match.


El Hijo del Santo vs. La Parka Review

Verdict: 

ER: I thought this was great, with a strong Otsuka performance that showcased his full range on offense and defense while highlighting his personality. That is was right next to an amped up Hashimoto performance made this extra special. This was the only time Otsuka and Hashimoto tagged, and it felt like a glimpse at a pairing with all time potential. I thought Misawa played his stoicism into brief desperation, into calm cool, and I thought it was an extremely confident performance from the ace of the company, and I love how it felt like he was disrespecting Hashimoto by insisting on Ogawa staying in longer and fighting. These feds could have had some barn burning interpromotional stuff, and I'm glad we at least got this. That said, I think the Park/Santo bloodbath is going to prove to be a tough to kill champion.

PAS: It's Santo vs. Parka for me pretty easily. This would lose to the other 2001 challengers we have put forward, and I didn't like it nearly as much as the other Z1 vs. NOAH tag. Worth watching especially for the Hashimoto performance, but not a top tier contender.

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2001: Akiyama vs. Honda VS. Santo vs. La Parka

Jun Akiyama vs. Tamon Honda NOAH 9/5/01

PAS: The Hondasance happened in 2003, but I guess we were all too distracted by 9/11 to realize how awesome he was in 2001. There was a really cool mini-tourney which built up to this match, and this was a great GHC title match. One thing that NOAH really added to the All Japan formula match was cool matwork and submissions, and that was the focus of this match. Honda was an olympic wrestler, and really well versed at escape predicaments from the ground. Akiyama attempts some stuff early and gets flummoxed. He ended up DDTing Honda on the ramp and spending the next couple of minutes yanking on his giant water head. Honda is able to take over by taking Jun's back, and when Akiyama blocked a choke, Honda yanked him up and over with his gorgeous german suplex. We go into a cool finish run with Akiyama attempting to lock in a front choke, while Honda tries for STF variations. Loved that it took three tries for Akiyama to finally drop him with the choke. I didn't love the DDT on the apron stuff, and could have used some Olympic Hells, but this was a great example of what Honda could deliver.

ER: Honda really was one of those good wrestlers who everybody ignored until that was impossible to do. Mid 90s Honda isn't great and doesn't share a lot of similarities with early 2000s Honda. He worked as an almost fast junior in '94-'96, with very little grappling, hardly any suplexes, weird lockjaw comeback faces, and way too many headbutts that ranged from so-so to kind of cool. I think people wrote him off somewhere during this run and it took us a few years to realize he'd blossomed into a deadlift suplex god. Phil is right about NOAH matches getting to stretch out a bit more with matwork, and it's probably not a coincidence that Honda really came into his own at NOAH's inception. The grappling in this was really cool, and I love how Honda knows how to utilize his freaky body, bridging into rolling clutches and using his legs to add leverage to chokes. I love all the STFs and rolling Olympic Hell variations we got in the match, with the side triangle choke being especially sick. Every sub of Honda's looked like a finish. But I also like Akiyama playing dirty and spiking Honda on his head, then working that giant dome over with a can opener and a headscissors. Akiyama can be a real dick, but this really ramps up when Akiyama starts with the exploders. "Oh, suplexes? Sure, we can do that," Honda agrees, and starts dropping Akiyama with increasingly unstoppable throws. The home stretch is filled with some great nearfalls, as Akiyama starts lands a strong jumping knee to Honda's chin that drops him hard, and the exploders start landing Honda more and more vertically, and after an extremely close kickout, Honda is put away with a sub in the middle.

Hijo del Santo vs. La Parka Review


Verdict:

PAS: This is close. The Santo match was awesome but marred with a stinko ending. I loved this but maybe wanted another moment or two at the end.

ER: I think this had selling issues that weren't an issue in the lucha bloodbath, and the finish to that lucha match doesn't bother me. Akiyama seemed like he was getting up too easily after some of Honda's nastiest stuff, and that's what drops this below that legendary bloodbath for me. Champ retains.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Suzuki vs. Shiozaki

50. Hideki Suzuki vs. Go Shiozaki NOAH 7/27

ER: With less free time than ever these days, I watch 2019 Japanese wrestling maybe slightly more than I did in 1997, when I had never seen one second of Japanese wrestling. But there are still guys I like, and I typically check out matches that are recommended to me. If someone says a Hideki Suzuki match will make our list, that's something I'll watch. This ends up going to a 30 minute draw, which isn't something I love in wrestling, but I'll say that it definitely didn't feel like 30 minutes. I was surprised when the bell sounded, not only because they hadn't really built to a big finish, but because the work was still at an engaging enough level to leave me wanting more. I'm not a big Shiozaki guy, and so I liked how this was mostly structured as Shiozaki showing moments of hanging with Suzuki, but mostly Suzuki wearing him down while Go survived. Suzuki's facials and bully nature, worked in a deliberate and sadistic pace, were the stars of this one. Go shone bright during one of the best corner chop sequences I've seen in a long time, really the moment that felt like overcoming Suzuki was possible. But Suzuki was a real meathead jerk here, working over ever joint in Shiozaki's body: loosening a knee cap with twisting, wrecking an elbow and shoulder by yanking it behind his body and locking in a hyperextending armbar, throwing out a back with a bearhug, tossing Go around by a cravate, really wearing him down and working through limbs like a game of Hangman. When Suzuki wore him down enough he started throwing him with brutal suplexes, and going after that taped up arm even more. I dig these kind of matches where the hero comes up against some unstoppable force, and gets ground down and only saved by the bell, and after the match the unstoppable opponent looks calm and cold. Shiozaki seems like he won by default, and that's a really cool way to work the first singles match. It feels like the first chapter, and I'm already wondering how Shiozaki is going to strategize, and he has not been a wrestler I typically think about.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, Suzuki is a really throwback guy strong, slow and violent. He is like an old school post player in today's space and pace NBA. Shozaki is a little dry, but was great as an underdog getting violently picked apart. I also liked the Misawa elbows felt like a cool tribute and also something organic. You have to love a guy coming in with a taped shoulder and having the whole match be about ripping apart said shoulder. I actually liked the draw finish as it came off like Suzuki's deliberate pace coming back to haunt him. He probably has Go beaten if he pushes the gas pedal, but that isn't how he is built.


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A Re-Evaluation of Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Samoa Joe

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Samoa Joe NOAH 10/27/07

ER: I know this match got written off as a disappointment in 2007, and because of that I never actually watched it. I absolutely loved NOAH from inception to around maybe '08, arguably my favorite overall fed in pro wrestling during those years. Segunda Caida were definitely high votes on Unforgiven Misawa era title matches, both of us loving his running on empty charisma. His Bison Smith defense several months prior was really great, and it just feels like I need to see Misawa vs. Joe with my own eyes. Were people at the time disappointed because it didn't have the same aura as Kobashi vs. Joe? Or was it genuinely just a bad style clash with a dash of "off night"? Even though Misawa passed away 18 months later and worked a full schedule up to then, he was clearly winding things down in a way. He had less than 10 singles matches after this match, and that's notable. It might be a very fun/very sad project to look at the very last Misawa singles bouts (two vs. Nakajima, one vs. Sugiura, a Makoto Hashi match I'd love to see, and obviously one vs. Keith Walker - the most important of the Misawa singles). This match vs. Joe turned out to be a big deal as it was his last successful title defense.

Misawa was only 45 in this match, but moved and reacted many years older. Part of the allure at the time of this era Misawa was his natural surliness played more like pain and weary vulnerability. We knew he was tired as hell from holding this company up on his back, but I don't think any of us actually expected what happened. Watching Misawa from this era now, and it all just plays sympathetically. He's a guy who more HAD to be there than actually wanted to be there, but that attitude combined with his still present charisma made him a unique character, a guy punishing people for the punishment he had to endure, due to cultural obligation and occupational choices.

This was not a great match, but it sure had plenty of moments. It appeared like they were billing this as a kind of interpromotional dream match, with Joe representing TNA. That's really weird! In retrospect I assume Joe only got this title match due to the hype from facing Kobashi, but that doesn't make much sense as it was literally 2 years prior and hadn't happened in Japan. How did Joe get a GHC title shot? Those didn't happen frequently, and Joe was hardly a known star in Japan. When this match happened, Joe hadn't worked Japan in several years, and wasn't ever a major part of Zero-One during his stint there. Samoa Joe is one of the weirder NOAH main event title contenders in the first 8 years of NOAH. Were fans supposed to be excited that a wrestling journalist really liked his match against Kobashi 2 years prior? What was the actual reasoning behind Samoa Joe: GHC Title Contender?

I think there was a good match in here, but the layout needed to be a little different. This was pretty unimaginative, just Joe dominating for the first 75% of the match, until a switch flips and he gets pummeled by Misawa for awhile. Those kind of frontloaded dominant matches are probably my least favorite layout, and would only be made interesting by the dominant guy convincingly selling exhaustion from dishing out a beating. I'm not sure I've seen someone do a very good "my fists and legs are tired from punching and kicking you" sell, but it's something I'd like to see. I liked Misawa's selling during Joe's assault, dug Joe scraping that boot across Misawa's face and seeing Misawa repeatedly check his nose for blood after. Old Misawa excels at selling during submissions, his seemingly constant pain expressed well when Joe locks in a nasty twisting facelock, and we get a good nearfall when Joe has the gall to plant Misawa with his own emerald flowsion. This all of course builds to a big Misawa comeback, which was not as big as they used to be, but not without its charms. Old retired gunslinger Misawa still had a shooter's chance, and could throw elbows as hard as anyone, and it's a joy watching him light Joe up with left right combos. I liked that Joe got to kick out of Misawa's emerald flowsion, because the actual finish right after was much cooler: Joe sits up after kickout out, framing his head perfectly for a hard Misawa elbow right to the back of the head.

So, no, this was not a great match and people at the time probably were not unfair to it. But it's a match that obviously has different meaning and sympathy now than it did then, which boosted the drama in unfortunate ways. And I still really wish the Keith Walker match had been taped.    

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Low-KI Advent Calendar Night 10: 2006 NOAH Trios

Low-Ki/Mushiking Joker/SUWA vs. Mohammed Yone/Dakota/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi NOAH 3/5/06 - FUN

PAS: Pretty disposable NOAH trios match, with a moment or two, but some really bad stuff. Dakota (who I assume is one of the Harley Race trainees who would get NOAH runs, he was more Bull Schmidt then Trevor Murdoch) and Mushking Joker are both pretty bad here and Kikuchi was really washed. SUWA is always worth watching and he hit his great John Woo dropkick, Ki had a fun finish run too, with a great looking wheel kick and Ki Krusher. Good doesn't outweigh the bad, but there is some good for sure.

ER: Really feels like I watched a different match than Phil. Dakota was not a guy I remembered at all (even though this was a pretty major NOAH show from an era when this was my favorite fed) and he's green but also spends much of the match eating a beating from SUWA and Low-Ki, two guys you wouldn't want to eat a beating from. He also wrestles barefoot and I give extra crazy points for guys who do that. He hits a great plancha early on Marvin, pops the crowd with a crossbody off the top coupled with a YEEHAW, and is fun as the guy clearly eating the pin. The heel team is a real fun combination that teamed a few times, three real favorites of mine with SUWA da GOD, Ki, and Ricky. They're really complementary as workers while being different as workers. Marvin had a couple great bumps here, an awesome bottom rope springboard low dropkick, took a fast bump to the floor early to eat a Dakota plancha, big flip bump on a lariat; SUWA was at his best here, targeting Dakota's bare feet the moment he tags in and stomping all over them, stomping over his ankles too, big fistdrop, nice elbowdrop and a slingshot elbowdrop, really made Dakota duck clotheslines and a backfist while running ropes, just doing every single thing that makes SUWA an all time favorite of mine. Shoot, SUWA even kicked at a cameraman on the floor while walking to the ring. He's exactly what I want a pro wrestler to be. Kikuchi is a step slower here but a fun SUWA foil, hitting his calf kicks and dropping a nice snap suplex/fisherman's suplex combo and stays out of the way for the rest. Yone is a guy who I have watched a ton yet often forget how much I enjoy. My brains always thinks of Ikeda as the former Batt guy in NOAH, but there's Yone the whole time, and man Yone is STILL IN NOAH. He throws a few awesome running big boots to the face and chin (loved Marvin leaning right into that kick) and he drops his big damn heavy legdrop. Ki was doing a fun elbow-based offense that he's mostly dropped, flying into people a few times with standing elbow drops, and the group's concentrated effort on getting Dakota away from the pack for the finish is a great run off chain offense. The big SUWA atomic drop and running dropkick (thought Dakota's dazed sell in the corner after the dropkick was fun) looked great, and Ki hits a big cartwheel kick and sticks him with the Ki Krusher. The thought that this trios has more bad than good really doesn't make sense to me as the only sketchy moment I saw was Dakota leaning away from a Ki springboard kick too early. There might be some miscommunication between Dakota and SUWA but I can't tell what it is as SUWA did something different than planned and it worked fine. I thought Dakota overall added to the match and was a fun Mandela Effect guy (rodeo cowboy junior working NOAH in the mid 2000s is something I clearly saw all of yet I would have called you a liar about before watching this), and everybody else wrestled as well as you would expect those names to wrestle. Who was taking the pin was never in doubt, but we got a long fun heat section on him and some awesome hits from the others.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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Low-Ki Advent Calendar Night 6: 2005 NOAH Trios

Low-Ki/Bison Smith/Mike Awesome vs. 2 Cold Scorpio/Doug Williams/Ace Steel NOAH 3/20/05 - GREAT

PAS: What a goofy on paper bunch of guys to work each other and it was pretty fun to watch the match ups. You wouldn't think Ace Steel and Mike Awesome would have ever wrestled each other, and that is a fun matchup, I would have dug seeing a singles match. Ki and Scorpio have a couple of fun exchanges, and I clearly need to dig up their IWA-MS singles match up. I loved Scorpio trying to big time Ki at the beginning only to get lit up with chops and kicked in the face. We get a neat dive train and a fun finish run, all around good time although it never hit the top level which NOAH matches can get to.

ER: I love this era of NOAH, and love NOAH six mans, and I loved when NOAH or AJPW would seemingly throw nearly every single gaijin on the tour into their own match. Ricky Marvin was the only non-native on this tour who was not in this match, and it makes me wonder if any fans that night in Korakuen were entertained by this in the same way that a few hundred people were entertained watching Kaientai DX in some tiny town in Massachusetts. Ace Steel is a guy I always forget did several NOAH tours, and I liked him a lot here as "guy clearly taking fall" as he worked like a guy over his head with nothing to lose, so he was aggressive about attacking Mike Awesome and Bison but great at stooging when they would catch up to his initial surprise attacks. He hit a big missile dropkick off the top and got a few moments to shine. I'll always have a soft spot for Bison. I saw a bunch of his very first matches when he came up in APW, and was a big fan of his APW turn as Super Destroyer 2000, my friends and I all loudly whooping when he'd break out his heart punch finisher. So it was great to see him get such an extended run in NOAH, really one of the longer gaijin runs in history (which is nuts when you think about it). Here he was super generous bumping around for Ace Steel and gamely going along with and getting into position for all of Doug Williams "exact same order every time" World of Sport stuff, actually selling being off balance when Williams crawls backwards through his legs and schoolboys him. The dive train was nuts as there's just not much room between ring and guardrail at Korakuen, but Awesome hits his no hands dive, the camera misses Steel almost blindsiding Awesome with some kind of wild dive (no clue what he did but it sends him into front row laps), Ki does a big phoenix press that 4 people manage to miss, and Bison does a huge crossbody off the top to the floor (and watch Ki run the hell out of the way so he doesn't have to catch the big man). It was really cool seeing Scorpio and Ki go against each other as I had only seen them teaming in NOAH (looked it up, and this match is literally the only time they were on opposite sides in NOAH, and that's incredible to me! What a missed opportunity.). Scorpio amusingly asks for one of the big guys to tag in but Ki is totally cool hanging. NOAH six mans from this era are some of my absolute favorite junk food.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2004: Necro vs. Klein VS. Kobashi vs. Takayama

Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (NOAH 4/25/04)

ER: Wow. I...didn't actually love this. And I feel kind of stupid about it, because everything I've seen written about the match is about how great it is, and this was a period of NOAH I loved. In fact it was probably still my favorite promotion in the world at this point. But this felt much more like Omega/Okada than any of my favorite NOAH/AJPW singles main events. I liked elements of the match - several of them - like the slow early build that felt ominous, as if neither man wanted to take the first shot, and how the build made that first backhand by Kobashi feel even nastier. Kobashi's chops to the neck all match looked vicious, and Takayama's shots looked bone rattling. Takayama's armwork made sense, and Kobashi sold it nicely, sometimes very subtly (using his other arm to chop)...and things just got weird for me from there. We got more stand and strike exchanges, we started trading ugly headdrop suplexes, Kobashi randomly grabbed his arm 10 minutes after the arm work - something I hadn't seen him do yet - and within a minute threw one of several burning lariats (so he overtly reminded me his arm still hurt, right before using his arm more than he did the rest of the match. I guess I'm supposed to buy that he's working through the pain?), both do death selling before getting right back up and throwing suplexes again. 

A lot of it just didn't work for me and the build felt scattered all over the place. I liked Takayama going MMA, but felt like it was too late in the match. I didn't like it as a desperation move, I like it more when a guy does it as a condescending move. Kobashi dumps him with the nastiest brainbuster and hits more lariats. The suplex trading and strike exchanges felt too modern NJPW to me, and it's not something that does it for me anymore. The strikes and basics here looked much better - and that counts for a lot, as I do think this is a better version of modern NJPW and will always look better than Okada/Omega - but it's not a framework I enjoy. I honestly think I need to revisit this, as it felt like I was watching a different match than the one that gets 100% praise.

PAS: I think Eric is nuts, this is a great heavyweight slugfest between two monstrous dudes, a big boy fight which has all the drama and violence the moment demands. Takayama has some of best thudding shots in wrestling and everytime he lands a knee or kick it has this awesome bass sound like a cricket bat hitting a watermelon. There were a bunch of cool individual moments.  I loved the spot when they are battling on the floor, Kobashi tries to get into the ring and Takayama just throws him off the apron with a german. Lots of the times an apron spot is set up and teased, but here it is just a surprise moment of violence and it is awesome. Kobashi diving into the corner on an attack and getting caught mid air with a huge knee was great. During the final run Takayama flipping out and throwing this great MMA combo was awesome, this was the fight of his life and he was going to go back into PRIDE to finish this guy off, so cool like something out of an epic Low-Ki match. The arm selling complaint is really odd, Kobashi sells the arm during the entire finish run, including failing to getting Takayama up for a couple of suplexes and the burning hammer, and I totally buy a maniac like Kobashi continuing to throw lariats with a busted arm, he sells each lariat like a boxer with a broken hand who was going to punch through the pain. This was a NOAH Kobashi bomb fest, they aren't my favorite type of matches, but this was an all timer for that style.


Verdict:

ER: This really surprised me. Takayama was one of the main reasons I got so into puro in 2001/2002, but this didn't do much for me. Maybe it's because I know both guys are brain damaged and/or crippled now, but I just didn't like this. And on memory I was expecting it to be the new champ. But Necro retains his improbable crown.

PAS: Kobashi and Takayama wins pretty clearly for me, at this point the Necro match retaining the title has an Eric as twin Hebners feel to it.

ER: I would be fully willing, wholeheartedly, to rewatch this match if enough people think I didn't give it a fair shake. Chalk the challenge up to questionable officiating and run the rematch. I just can't shake that something felt off for me about the match...

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2006 Match of the Year

Jun Akiyama v. Masao Inoue NOAH 4/23

PAS: Inoue as ineffectual schmuck is one of my favorite wrestling characters. Here he is in his ultimate challenge. Inoue is perfect as the lovable heel loser getting his improbable big match. It starts with Inoue (who has visable indentations from his reading glasses) jumping Akiyama at the bell and hitting a big suplex and a roll up. Akiyama is established as a guy who can get upset quickly and the crowd buys the near fall. Akiyama locks on the choke, and you also buy Inoue going down quickly. Inoue then spends the next couple of minutes with some awesome stalling, and then some really great eye rakes. When Akiyama responds to the eye rakes with rakes of his own, the crowd starts booing him unmercifully. Akiyama is great as a guy who can't deal with the crowd booing him. There is a point where he just decides "fuck it, you want to boo, boo this" and just murders Inoue, including a calf branding into the steel barricade. Inoue is working as a guy with a limited number of options, he can't go toe to toe with Akyama, and he can't out quick him, out wrestle him, or out power him. He needs to either catch Akyama in a mistake or outsmart him. The rolls ups, and the stalling fit into that, and he keeps getting near falls by tricking Akiyama into almost getting counted out. Including a great figure four on the ramp which he just held it until the last possible second and sprints into the ring. Near the end Akiyama is just killing Inoue, but Masao won't go down. It isn't no-selling because he is so tough, it is more like he knows this is his only shot and despite all of his flaws wants to die on his sword. Not a ton of cool moves or fancy sequences, but still the best match of the year.

ER: Ahhhh, the match that made me love Masao Inoue. He's my absolute favorite chubby little loser. You know he has to be tougher than every one of us, but he's so convincing as himself that it's almost impossible to imagine. I would love to see footage of him training in the dojos, and I'm already laughing at the mental image of all the different fatigued faces he would be making. Tons of those faces are on display here, the full color wheel of schlub. He jumps Akiyama at the streamers with a lariat and a big sleeper suplex and gets about the most convincing nearfall of the match. He locks on his torture rack but Akiyama immediately grabs a choke out of it, due to Inoue being a schlub, and you buy that Akiyama could basically just hang out in that choke until Inoue passes out. Akiyama, for possible sportsmanship reasons, let's him go. Inoue spends the next several minutes recovering on the floor, hilariously rolling like a log out of the ring when Akiyama tries throwing him back in, and devotes a great deal of time to having the ref back Akiyama off so he can safely get back inside.

Inoue does all these great eye rakes, digging his fingers into Jun's eyes, and violently scraping his wristbands over the bridge of his nose. The second Akiyama does the same the crowd boos him, and he has this perfectly incredulous face, as the camera cuts back to Inoue rubbing his eyes, like your little brother after you got him to stop crying by saying the word poop a lot. Inoue somehow reverses Jun's attempt at a suplex on the ramp, hits his own vertical, then casually walks to the ring before going "oh shit wait!" and doing a funny run back to Jun, just to lock on a sloppy figure 4. The anticipation building in the crowd was tremendous as they catch on to his plan, as the ref count keeps getting higher and higher, and Inoue breaks the figure four at 17 to rush back to the ring, limping along the way as his own knee was hurt during the submission. But Akiyama makes it back in, and the beating commences. The crowd keeps booing Akiyama in a "why ya gotta pick on him" way, and Akiyama embraces his Legend Heel persona for the match. The calf branding into the guard rail was disgusting, not sure how Inoue came out of that one without a busted nose or mouth. Akiyama is pretty coolly vicious from this point, being cautious to not slip up and allow an opening, but knowing that he can coast. Inoue still surprises him with a couple great cradles, getting a really high scoop and honestly making it seem like Akiyama will be "the doof who keeps losing the title to cradles and roll ups", and nobody wants that moniker. So he starts killing Inoue not because he needs to, but because he can, and he wants that potential embarrassment buried FAR below. We get a bunch of knees to the back of the head, some exploders, and then one final, unnecessary wrist clutch version that we could have gotten a 15 count on. Very unique title match, and we basically owe it to ourselves and the world to go back and review tons of Inoue matches.


ALL TIME MOTY LIST

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All Time MOTY Head to Head: Ishikawa v. Ikeda V. Captain's Fall NOAH

KENTA/Naomichi Marufuji/Kotaro Suzuki/Ricky Marvin vs. SUWA/Makoto Hashi/Takashi Sugiura/Yoshinobu Kanemaru NOAH 4/17/05

ER: Well, this stunk. And it stunk differently from the typical bad match stink, because this stunk AND lasted 50 minutes. That's just cruel. I remember really liking a few of these NOAH Captains Fall matches. This must not have been one of them. This match was all over the map, paced poorly, structured oddly, and just not very good. It was long. And I can't for the life of me understand why it took 50 minutes for them to accomplish what little they did. At minimum, it was a masterful SUWA performance. Everybody looked their best against SUWA, even when he had to wait eternities for Marufuji to set up his horrible offense. SUWA made some little things mean more, took offense like he and few others can (that dragon rana that Marvin pinned him with, yeesh), and just looked like a boss. Sugiura feels like a guy who got really overlooked during this era, and during his career, as I liked all of his contributions here. Whereas KENTA would be breaking up pinfalls with weak ass stomps, Sugiura would come blazing in with a vicious spear. All of his spears looked like the best version of any spear. Hashi really didn't blossom until a couple years later and peaked in FUTEN, but he still has some fun contributions, and he's a certified psycho for all of the damage he's no doubt doing to his body with those diving headbutts. But man that babyface team was junk. Marufuji is arguably the worst wrestler of the last 15 years that anyone thought was "good". He's terrible. He's super klutzy, his selling is out the window (watch him sell a brainbuster from Kanemaru by just standing up and slapping him in the side before getting the pin with a roll up) and his offense looks convoluted and weak. He's so, so terrible. KENTA looked slow and weak in a lot of this, with him finally getting inspired to throw some full force slaps in the midst of his awful combos and overly rehearsed junk. Marvin had some beautiful flash and I always liked him. His fast flip moonsault with his knees hitting face was amazing. Suzuki is a weird guy, as his offense always kind of blew, but he knew how to sell damage better than most of the other babyface juniors. Watch him lock on an octopus, get clonked by a Hashi headbutt, and then crumble to the mat out of his submission. There was also a lot of questionable reffing, as many times he would prevent the faces from making saves while the heels ran wild, and that never made sense. And right out of the gate the heels were the underdogs as Kanemaru got beat first. Who ever books a multi man match and has the heels outnumbered!?!? I am normally one to piss all over quick eliminations, but this really could have had 20 minutes lopped off and benefitted so much more. But I really, really disliked this.

PAS: I didn't mind this, it was way too long, there was about twenty minutes before the first elimination, and while there was some OK stuff, it really dragged. I also don't get the psychology of having KENTA and Marufuji v. Sugiura as the final guys in the match. Sugiura team was working the match as heels, so having the heel fail to fight off two blowjob babyfaces is odd, you didn't see Arn taken to the back, while Tully valiantly fought off Ricky and Robert. I am always happy to see SUWA and he was pretty great in this, SUWA was Toryuman trained so he had lots of experience working with pretty boy flyers, and every time he was in, his opponent looked awesome. He absolutely slaughters Suzuki with his John Woo dropkick, and the Ricky Marvin dragon rana was about the slickest I remember seeing.  I also really liked KENTA throwing shots with Hashi (who has a lifetime pass for me based on his FUTEN tag) and Sugiura. Enough good stuff in this, that I basically enjoyed it, although it isn't anything I would strongly recommend.

Ikeda v. Ishikawa review

Verdict:

PAS: I didn't hate this as much as Eric, but it doesn't even come close to Ishikawa v. Ikeda. This is a wire to wire win for FUTEN

ER: I thought this stunk. Killer SUWA performance, but no moment in this even came close to sniffing Ikeda/Ishikawa.

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All Time MOTY List HEAD to HEAD Honda v. Kobashi V. Honda v. Saito

Tamon Honda v. Akitoshi Saito NOAH 3/30/03

ER: This is a match to determine the #1 contender to Kobashi's GHC title, and it's a killer game of Saito unloading more offense than he's probably ever unloaded in a match, while Honda was desperately trying to survive. Both men went hard, harder than usual. Honda isn't really a guy known for his strikes, more for his grappling and freaky tendon strength. But here Honda lobbed stiff elbows and stiff arm lariats in a way I've never really seen from him. They start with some nasty-as-expected shoulderblocks and from there Saito mostly takes over, ripping into Honda's knee with kicks, going after him with elbows and chops, cutting him to the mat with an axe kick, even getting to hit the Dead End before Honda even attempts it. Honda fires back with occasional headbutts, lariats and elbows but his knee keeps getting kicked (and him propping Honda's leg on the ropes and kicking it looked brutal), and Honda makes that knee injury look great. So as Saito keeps dishing a beating, Honda's muscle memory kicks in, and he just starts grounding Saito with the Olympic Hell. He turns pinfalls into it, tosses in his rolling version, even throws in an Olympic Hell suplex that I don't recall seeing (and thanks to the doofus camera work we didn't even see Honda hit his Dead End, as the director chose to cut to a 10 second shot of bored ass Kobashi at commentary. Thanks guys!), and Saito starts to wilt. After everything else fell short, Honda just spammed the Olympic Hell and wore Saito out. And while the finish does kind of come out of nowhere, and somewhat feels like Saito controlled 75% of the match, Saito passing out unexpectedly nicely put over the OH as a submission that should not be taken lightly, and one that could make for an immediate comeback.

PAS:  I really loved this when it happened and loved it again each time on rewatch. I didn't remember Saito using Honda's moves, but early in this he hits both a Dead End and an Olympic Hell, which was odd but kind of cool, you didn't really see that kind of thing in early 2000s NOAH. Saito was also really brutal with his kicks to the knee, Honda has these big lumpy looking knee braces under his tights and Saito was teeing off on them. I loved Honda's run of Olympic Hell variations, he feels like a anaconda who just tightens and tightens his grip, he can hit that move out of anywhere no matter how hurt he is, and if he locks it tight, you will be blowing spit bubbles. Though that it kind of came out of nowhere made it even better. Great match, career match from Saito and a notch in Honda's belt.


Honda v. Kobashi review

Verdict:

ER: I really loved this match, but it has nowhere near the drama of the title match a couple weeks later. And not just the crowd really getting behind Honda, but the build itself within the match felt larger. Kobashi's star power combined with the fans finally viewing Honda as a threat, and the drama that comes with a title bout, makes the champ an easy winner for me.

PAS: I think I might have liked the actual work in this a little better, I really loved Saito as a crowbar and Honda fighting through the asskicking to grab a choke was cool stuff, plus the right guy went over. Still the big match feel of the Kobashi match has to win in a MOTY battle.

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2003 Match of the Year

Tamon Honda vs. Kenta Kobashi (NOAH 4/13/03)

ER: Tamon Honda's big coming out party! How were we all wrong, for so long? Before this match (and possibly the Saito match that set this title match up) I never heard anybody praising Honda. I heard plenty of people dumping on him, especially for his 90s AJPW matches. Before this title match he was most famous for that match teaming with Izumida against Hayabusa and Shinzaki, where he conked Shinzaki with a headbutt that busted him open hardway and was probably the first bloody AJPW match in well over a decade. We've gone back and seen 2001 NOAH where he's clearly awesome, but I don't remember anybody talking about that in 2001. Was he a guy who just took a long time to "get it"? Or was he a guy who just took a long time to get? Nobody liked Takayama in UWFi or AJPW, and suddenly about a decade into his career he got great. When did Honda get great?

That Honda investigation is for another time (and is something I definitely want to do, time to start seeing who has all the AJPW 90s stuff) because this match is here and it's wonderful. It feels very different from almost every other GHC title match during NOAH's heyday. There are far less strikes than in any other contest, no big bomb throwing portion, no rail ride, and had a sense of someone trying to outlast as opposed to learning their opponents' methods. The whole vibe didn't feel "NOAH" to me, it felt like some big match from an alternate universe fed, that just happened to be using a neon green ring. Honda tries to grind him down early with headlocks and Kobashi repeatedly brushes him off, and there's a neat establishing moment where Kobashi locks on a headlock, which results in him immediately tossed off by a rolling throw from Honda. It really showed that Kobashi was only going to be along for the ride whenever he attempted to grapple with Honda. They brawl to the ramp and Honda just gets flat out spiked by a DDT. I'll note it now as it applies to the whole match, but Honda's bumping was just incredible in this match. The way he threw himself into moves really belied his awkward physique, and this DDT was the first instance of that awesome bumping. Honda struggles already to get up and starts crawling back to the ring, and I like how cocky and almost dickish Kobashi is here, attacking him from the ring while Honda is still on the ramp. And then in the turn of events nobody saw coming Kobashi goes for the kill with a spinning chop and Honda ducks, catches Kobashi in a sleeper, drags his ass out over the top rope and plants him on the rampway with the Dead End. At that moment the whole crowd was suddenly taking Honda seriously as a contender, and he would look like a threat the rest of the match.

Even when Honda would fall behind, the fans now knew he had aces up his sleeves. And Honda goes right after that big lariat arm, rips off the elbow pad, works the wrist, traps Kobashi in several Olympic Hell variations (the rolling OH is so damn cool) and at one point, the way Kobashi is struggling to get out of it, he genuinely seems like someone who is being smothered by his own arm. Kobashi is always ready to threaten with a lariat, even through the pain, and boy does he. He hits a couple of absolute beasts in this match, just obliterating Honda. But Honda just hangs on, sometimes literally, grabbing that Olympic Hell and just dragging Kobashi down with it. The craziness really ramps up and the crowd is white hot for the stretch, with both guys bringing body breaking offense. The Dead End soon became my favorite finisher in wrestling. Watching Honda drag guys up and over was like getting to the verrrrry top of a rollercoaster, and that feeling you feel as it momentarily stops before crashing down....except now you're going backwards. And the dead ends are brutal here, but perhaps nastiest of all is a double leg that looks like it dislocated Kobashi's pelvis. It wasn't a spear, wasn't a spinebuster, it was a double leg, and it looked like Kobashi ran off the ropes right into a bus. But Kobashi has no problem giving back, and before long he's dropping Honda directly on his head with a couple half nelson suplexes, an insane sleeper suplex, and finishes things with an all time Burning Lariat. Such a wonderful, unique match, with Kobashi eventually going along for Honda's ride, helping the crowd really buy into Honda. Apparently, it helped all of us buy into Honda.

PAS: Goddamn is Honda a grappling master in this match, pure old school Olympic grappling, I can't remember a better performance of straight up wrestling from any in a pro-wrestling match ever. His early double leg was awesome, as was the way he twisted and turned Kobashi's arm, his grip and core strength in this match was unbelievable. Kobashi looks way bigger then Honda here, and Honda just snatches him and throws him time and time again. Even when Kobashi was in control, Honda could just grab him and drag him down to the Olympic levels of Hell. The Dead End on the ramp was my favorite ramp spot in NOAH history and they did a ton of them. I also loved how Honda ripped and tore at the arm, he felt like a guy in the match of his life and he was going after every hold like this was his last chance at glory, the battles for the Olympic Hell's felt like that as well. We also have to give Honda credit for his bumping, he takes some truly nasty drops right on his giant lollipop head and it looked horrific, that monster sized Family Circus thing compressing his neck bones, yuck. Kobashi was fine, his main contribution to the match was being Kenta Kobashi, he was the mountain Honda tried and failed to climb, and all of those years of greatness needed to be there, to make Honda's near triumph so sweet.

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All Time MOTY List HEAD to HEAD: 2005: Kenta v. SUWA VS. Ikeda v. Ishikawa

KENTA v. SUWA NOAH 9/18/2005

PAS: This match was all about SUWA as the kind of shitbag Southern heel that Japanese wrestling didn't really see much of in 2005. Now this kind of thing got totally played out by the Bullet Club, but you normally didn't see a guy get DQ'ed on purpose or shove Joe Higuchi. SUWA had this short but awesome run as a nasty asskicker who bumped huge and had nice punches, this was probably his apex point. I loved him as a desperate pockmarked creep above his pay grade, but desperate to take his shot. The spot where he countered the springboard by just hurling the ref at the ropes was great. KENTA's role in this was to land all of his spots, and they looked fine, his kicks really thudded as did the GTS. KENTA isn't a very natural babyface, and this would have been better with someone who evinced more sympathy. Still a great match, and as a long time SUWA fan, something I really enjoyed re-watching.

ER: I have an unabashed love for SUWA, and there's a fair chance that I love him more than anyone. I - perhaps foolishly - didn't contribute to PWO's Greatest Wrestler Ever poll because I missed the nominating process and realized SUWA didn't get nominated, and therefore I wouldn't have been able to vote for SUWA. And there was just no way I could turn in a ballot without SUWA's name on it. He meant too much to my late 90s to mid 2000s wrestling fandom. He was a great composite of so many things I love about pro wrestling. A disrespectful southern heel operating in front of a super serious backdrop, and this match was him doing his thing on his biggest stage. Minoru Suzuki brought a different brand of irreverence to large Japanese feds, and a few years later The Bullet Club would bring awful Attitude era cheating to New Japan. But SUWA didn't feel like an impression of a southern heel in any way. He seemed like a man oddly rebelling against his culture, a man out of place and a man with different goals than the goals presented by NOAH and that fans of NOAH accepted and respected. NOAH was a simply booked fed with a hierarchy and more respectful face/heel interactions. There weren't really traditional American heels in NOAH, it was all respectful athletes who merely disagreed over who deserved a title more. "I've worked hard and *I* deserve the title." "Well, I also feel that I've worked hard and deserve the title. Let's showcase our hard work and determination and see who is the victor." And in this match SUWA showed the crowd that he didn't care about a title, didn't care that he was in a big spot on a big show, didn't have a need to put aside his personal grievances with people who weren't a part of the match; to the crowd he was a guy who didn't respect them, didn't respect the brand, didn't respect the ideals of his employer. He acted like a guy who worked comfortably doing his thing under the radar, and when faced with more spotlight said "Okay, but you may regret this." The employee who loves his job when he's able to dick around without being noticed, but the second he's given responsibility he tries anything he can to get shunted back down to how things were.

I remember my friends' reactions when I showed this to them within a year of it airing, and telling them how great it was - but not why. The confusion within the first minute when it looks to end in a DQ was hilarious, and watching it back now I think it works great as a non-gimmick performance. SUWA coming out, ripping up Higuchi's proclamation, and then immediately getting himself DQ'd at the first sign of trouble, that got a genuine reaction. And you just didn't get genuine heel heat in a major Japanese fed at that time. SUWA's fist raise the second the DQ bell rings is classic, really rubbing the ideals of the promotion and fans back in their face. He stalks around the ring, arm raised, pointing at fans, soaking up the jeers. His walk to the back is the best, shrugging his way to the back while still laughing at people. The fans had seen SUWA be a dick before, but not in a title match on a major show. And by the time the match is restarted and KENTA is kicking SUWA back to the ring, the fans are more behind KENTA than they would have ever been before. KENTA is mostly a zero from a personality standpoint, and SUWA did all of his babyface work for him. He was such a dickhead that KENTA became a mega face just by doing what he would have done anyway. And SUWA adds these things throughout the match, kicking KENTA right in the balls twice, ramming him balls first into the ringpost at another point. KENTA could have been a debuting stranger and the crowd would have gotten behind him. SUWA makes a flat out babyface out of any person even tangentially related to the match. When he spills to the floor and screams at Higuchi, and Higuchi starts to take off his ring jacket? Listen to the crowd. SUWA gives Higuchi the biggest pop of his career, 10 years after his retirement. I bet there were people who went home talking about Higuchi removing his jacket, before talking about the Misawa title match or big Tenryu tag match that came after. Later on SUWA boots Kikuchi in the face and spits on him as he tries to replace the turnbuckle pad SUWA had just ripped off, and later in an all time great spot he shoves the referee halfway across the ring to interrupt a KENTA springboard spot. We've seen that kind of spot since, but I've never seen it come off more genuine or been used so effectively. The ref flew into those ropes as if he had zero clue he was about to fly into ropes, and further cemented how little shit SUWA gave.

SUWA being a tremendous asshole really elevates things, but I think even without him being who he is, the match itself would be very good. Strip out any sort of character work and just look at how the match builds, and it's really a wonderful match. The one drawback is that SUWA seemed like he could have this match with practically anybody, and just didn't normally have the stage to do so. He was so great at crafting openings for KENTA's comebacks that KENTA just had to hit his marks. It's a total one man show, and that's not a real diss to KENTA. KENTA was KENTA, SUWA just found a way to craft the best KENTA match. He lead KENTA to every great babyface comeback, bullying him around the ring would always lead to KENTA firing back with bigger shots, only broken up by a kick to the dick or something else untoward. SUWA bullying him in the corner with chops, the best punches and a huge dropkick lead to KENTA doing all the same to the bully. The build around SUWA hitting his finisher was classic Kings Road, with KENTA doing everything he could to sandbag himself, eventually leading to KENTA flipping out of it and hitting his G2S. And SUWA gets into ring position far better than any opponent KENTA ever faced. Look no further than the finishing stretch. KENTA hits his big running knee, and watch SUWA stand up and fall into the bottom rope, steadying himself against the middle rope, stepping on his own feet. He's drunk me standing up out of a chair and realizing how drunk I am. KENTA sets him up for the knee that will finish things, and runs off the opposite ropes fully expecting SUWA to just stand still in the center of the ring for 6 seconds while KENTA runs back and forth before hitting the knee. SUWA stumbles, expertly drops to a knee and struggles back to his feet just in time to take that knee, occupying himself more interestingly than any other KENTA opponent before or since. And really the fans don't care. They would have reacted the same to that knee no matter how SUWA occupied himself in the meantime. He laid the groundwork for the big reactions, and the match build delivered. He didn't need to pay this extra attention to what happened in the seconds leading up to the finish. But he did. And that really sums up SUWA. He was a guy who knew how to occupy himself, his matches, and his surroundings, from opening match status, to his one big match.

Verdict

PAS: I think Ishikawa v. Ikeda still holds the belt. I enjoy heel shtick more then most, but parts of SUWA's stuff felt a little cosplayish, the most awesome version ever of Ziggler having HEEL in his twitter handle. Nothing felt winking about the grotesque violence of Ikeda v. Ishikawa and that kind of war will always have an edge up for me.

ER: This still ranks as one of my very favorite all time matches. I don't rightly know that I could say whether or not this was better than Ikeda/Ishikawa. They both scratch very different itches for me, but they each scratch those itches like the best possible backscratcher. The horrific violence of one versus much of what I love about wrestling in the other. One might be the most brutal war in wrestling history, the other hits me on a more personal level. It's the old "Greatest" versus "Favorite" argument. Is your favorite movie the same as what you think is the greatest movie? Favorite album the same as greatest album? SUWA/KENTA is one of my favorite matches. It's one I'll watch more often over the course of my life than this specific Ikeda/Ishikawa match. Both of these matches feel like #1 to me. And since I can't decide I will yield to Phil, who has a clearer feeling which match is better. However, if we were to do an All Time Match list some day I feel there's a good chance KENTA/SUWA finishes above some matches that finished #1 in their respective year. Or at least I'll argue for it to be.

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2001 Match of the Year

Shinya Hashimoto/Tadao Yasuda v. Tamon Honda/Masao Inoue Zero One 4/18/01

PAS: Nothing I love more then a inter promotional Japanese brawl. Team NOAH is undermanned and are awesome fighting from below. Serious Inoue is great, he is such a shlub, and I love it when he steps it up and goes to war. The Yasuda experiment was a pretty huge turn of the century failure, but this was his crowning achievement, he is a great bully smacking around Inoue with sumo thrusts and chucking him to the ground. In one of the cooler moments Yasuda has Inoue mounted and Honda runs in and chucks him with his awesome german suplex. Finish was totally boss, Hashimoto is a serial killer in this, he comes in a demolishes Inoue with these brutal looking over hand chops, they have to stop the match because his shoulder is so damaged. Has everything you want in this kind of match, bad feelings, great character work and  big time violence.


ER: Yeah these type of matches are bread and butter for me. All time asskicker, former sumo, former Olympian, chubby little loser. That's a winning combination for me. There's a lot to love in a short amount of time here, and I loved it all. Inoue gets his own ring entrance and he really soaks it up, but Hashimoto's entrance is just charisma beyond compare. A top 10 favorite of mine at the peak of his all time badass powers, sideburns with the Paul Weller shag, truly The Jam of assbeating. I'm a big fan of former sumos in pro wrestling, even the ones that aren't too great. The crowd seems to get extra electric for them, their sumo spots always get a big reaction, and they bring a "legit athlete" credibility to matches. So I'm excited right off the bat as Yasuda rushes Honda and bullies him into the corner, and then does it again with Honda catching him in a choke, followed by Honda tossing the ref aside so the can grapple. They keep coming to stalemate but the intensity burned. And then Inoue - like a 13 yr old boy trying to kiss a girl way out of his league- rushes Hash and begins blasting him with elbows, even dropping Hash down to a knee. Inoue staggering Hash is an all time great moment, but Hash has to spoil the glee by standing up and throwing the meanest overhand chops to Inoue's neck and trap and shoulder. Yasuda gets to pick on Inoue, chucks him with his underhook suplex and rolls right into mount, blasting Inoue several times. Honda breaks up the punches by coming up behind Yasuda and lifting him up and over with his great great great German suplex. We get a wonderful Honda/Hash throwdown, with Hash getting overzealous and headbutting Tamon Honda, the way a fool might. You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't open attachments from parties you don't know, and you don't try to headbutt a man with a noggin like Tamon Honda. Honda smirks at Hashimoto's headbutt and then drops Hashi to the mat with his gigantic sledgehammer of a dome. But we knew who the weak link was before we even saw a visual of the match, and before long Hash has Inoue all to himself, kicking and chopping, and Inoue's shoulder - to this day - probably sounds like a rock grinder every time he moves it. And on rainy days he is reminded of Shinya Hashimoto.


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