Section 1- Important results & Title matches
All Japan- Mutoh’s anniversary show was held on Halloween. Kaz Hayashi defended his juniors title against AKIRA. Nishimura declared war on Abdullah the Butcher, saying he’d bring in Dory Funk Jr., one of Nishimura’s teachers. There’s a battle for the aged. I mean ages. Kojima’s win streak continued with a win over a masked Jim Steele, which is a far cry from Vader. Kawada retained the Triple Crown against Taiyo Kea. In the main event, Mutoh and Misawa beat Sasaki and Hase when Mutoh pinned Hase. This could set up freelancer Sasaki in NOAH, and the long-rumored Misawa vs Mutoh singles match.
New Japan- Their rather poorly attended Sumo Hall show had a couple significant events. Jado & Gedo retained the junior tag titles over Tiger Mask 4 and Ishimori. The team of Nagai & Naruse beat Tenryu & Fuchi to win the All Asian belts, an All Japan staple. Kawada ventured to New Japan once more to beat Shibata in a match with two spectacular strike sequences (and little else). Sasaki retained the IWGP title against Tanahashi in a solid match. And in the main event, Choshu made his New Japan return in Chono’s anniversary match against Tenzan and Nagata, with Chono *again* pinning Tenzan. Afterwards Hashimoto made an appearance, and there are signs that when he returns from his shoulder injury it’ll be in a New Japan ring.
Section 2- Other news & Upcoming matches
All Japan- They announced teams for the Tag League. Among them: Kawada/Nagai, Mutoh/Nishimura, Kojima/Hayashi, Kea/Jamal, D-Lo/Bull Buchannan (smell the ticket sales!), the Love Machines, and last but not least, Love Machine Steele and GREAT MUTA, a white guy doing the Muta gimmick who first appeared two years ago in New Japan.
The lineups look roughly a billion times better than last year, where the final was Kojima/Hayashi against the mighty tandem of Jamal and Justin Credible. Nothing says King’s Road like the lesser half of the Impact Players and the fatter half of Two Minute Warning. They also announced a Sumo Hall show for 12/5. Only match thus far is Mutoh vs MUTA, though a Nagata/KaShin defense of the tag titles would seem to be in order as well. Kawada vs Kojima is rumored, though Kawada told the press he didn’t think Kojima was up for it. Finally, All Japan will return to the Tokyo Nippon Budokan early next year for a supershow to commemorate Giant Baba’s death.
New Japan- They set their big (and risky) 11/13 Osaka Dome show up with hardly any time to spare. The three big singles matches all had titles added to them. Kawada vs Tenzan is for the Triple Crown, Sasaki vs Suzuki is for the IWGP, and Tanahashi vs Nakamura is for Tanahashi’s U-30 belt. The fourth title up for grabs will be the junior title as Minoru Tanaka defends against Kanemoto in a re-rematch. Last but not least, Chono and Choshu team against Nagata and Nishimura in an elimination match. It’s expected that this will lead to Nagata vs Choshu on the big January 4th Tokyo Dome show. The last piece of the puzzle might be Naoya Ogawa making a challenge to the winner of Tanahashi vs Nakamura, which oddly enough is the main event. Ticket sales have been rather dismal thus far.
They’ve also released the schedule for their next tour. Jado and Gedo defend the tag titles on 11/28 against American Dragon and James Gibson (Jamie Noble). 12/9 will be one of their ‘big singles matches’ cards, with Kanemoto vs Liger, Chono vs Nishimura, Nagata vs Norton and Tenzan vs Nakanishi. The tour caps off in the smaller Osaka Prefectural Gym with Nagata vs Chono and Tenzan’s far-too-delayed IWGP title shot. This produces a very interesting possibility involving longtime friends and former partners Tenzan and Kojima, who are rumored to have a singles match on January 4th. If Tenzan loses to Kawada, Kojima beats Kawada for the Triple Crown, and Tenzan wins the IWGP, then we might see a Triple Crown vs IWGP double (quadruple?) title match. But as with all such scenarios that’s just fantasy booking and as such is unlikely.
NOAH- Kobashi looks set to defend the GHC title against Mike Awesome or Marufuji at the end of the next tour (in early December). Also at that show, Kanemaru will defend the junior title against Sugiura. The match I’m most looking forward to will happen at the tour opener when KENTA’s trial series concludes against his partner Marufuji.
Section 3- IWGP meets MMA
Though the occasional shootfighter (Ogawa, Don Frye) challenged for the IWGP, and though shoot-style wrestlers from UWFi also effected things (Takada, Yamazaki), it wasn’t until 2001 that a shootfighter won the IWGP title outright. In 2000, former New Japan young lion and Inoki stable member Kazuyuki Fujita made a big splash in PRIDE, with wins over big names like Ken Shamrock. April 2001 saw this translate into an IWGP win, which came during the power shift from traditional Choshu to shoot-lover Uei. New Japan used Scott Norton as a transitional champ between Sasaki and Fujita. Fujita then defended the belt just twice in eight months before sustaining an achilles tendon injury and vacating it. The next champion was supposed to be G-1 2001 winner Yuji Nagata, but Inoki’s 12/31/01 shootfight show changed that.
Nagata took on Mirko “Cro Cop”, one of the most feared shootfighters in the world. He was beat down in twenty-one seconds. This was a huge blow to his public credibility. The main event saw New Japan midcarder Tadao Yasuda choke out world-renowned kickboxer Jerome LeBanner, thus raising Yasuda’s stock tremendously. Sadly for New Japan that appeal didn’t translate well. After Nagata challenged Jun Akiyama for the GHC title in a heatless match to headline the 1/4/02 Tokyo Dome show, Nagata and Yasuda faced off in the finals of the tournament to decide Fujita’s IWGP replacement. As expected, Yasuda won. What followed was fan backlash as the awkward, uncharismatic Yasuda got pushed as company ace for two months. Finally in April the misery ended as Nagata- before a 1/2 full house in the Budokan Hall (not even the Nippon Budokan)- beat Yasuda to start a very long reign.
During that time Nagata defended against Fujita and several other shootfighters. The reign was designed to make Nagata into a sure-fire company leader for the decade, but the inauspicious events leading up to the title win put a big damper on that. Oh, here’s another gem. After winning the G-1 2001 over then Triple Crown champ Mutoh, Nagata took on Sasaki in a mini-tournament to see who faced whom on January 4th. Nagata lost, and faced Akiyama. Sasaki won, and got to face the aforementioned Naoya Ogawa, who was more ‘prestigious’ than the GHC champ because of his status as a judo star. Sasaki vs Ogawa went to a messy no-contest, adding to what was a very dismal show. In an every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining note, Yasuda used his unpopular title reign to develop a heel persona, and he was one of the most effective heels Japan has seen in recent years.
Nagata lost to Takayama, who lost to Tenzan a year ago. Tenzan was set for a reign similar to Nagata’s, having won last year’s G-1. And like Nagata he was cut off at the pass by shootfighting. Shinsuke Nakamura, New Japan’s phenom, was handed a title shot last December after doing nothing whatsoever to earn it (including a loss to Nagata in under 5 minutes on the previous tour). Nakamura was set for a big shootfight against kickboxer Ignashov on New Years Eve. Despite all logic pointing to Nakamura winning *after* a shoot win, he was given the belt *before*, beating Tenzan with a very unsatisfying fluke armbar. Nakamura lost in controversial fashion to Ignashov, and had his face busted up. Four days later he defended the belt against Takayama, who only worsened the facial injury, to the point where Nakamura had to vacate the title.
In February, New Japan had an 8-man tournament to decide the new champion. Tenzan bled three times in one night, and won a harrowing match against Tenryu in the final. After a ‘blah’ defense against Suzuki (who along with Takayama had took the tag titles from Tenzan and Nishimura), Tenzan faced Sasaki. And lost.
2001 then re-appeared in bizarro fashion, as Sasaki was the intermediary between Tenzan and Bob Sapp. Sapp defended against Nakamura at the May Tokyo Dome show, and both he and Nakamura went into key shootfights at the debut of K-1 MMA. Nakamura beat Ignashov in a rematch, while Sapp was beat down hard by… Kazuyuki Fujita. Sapp vacated the belt, and in June, Fujita beat Tanahashi in a decision match for the title. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Fujita completed the three and a half year circle by jobbing to Sasaki (without really jobbing). New Japan rolled the dice repeatedly by linking their top prize to shootfighting. It’s produced some memorable battles, but also king-sized headaches.
Next Week: Osaka Dome results! How Japan and the ‘net changed the face of American indies!
Before I forget, a little memo to Eric Szulczewski: cartoonish over-reactions only hamper your ability to reach moderates. Stick to something everyone can agree on, like fighting spyware, and reel in the tinfoil a tad.
