Section 1- Important results & Title matches
All Japan- The round-robin section of the Tag League wrapped up earlier today. Kojima & Hayashi won block A, while Kawada & Nagai and Kea & Jamal are tied atop block B. There will probably be a tie-breaker match to determine who faces Kojima/Hayashi in the final. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Kojima pin Kawada there.
New Japan- Jado & Gedo defended the junior tag titles against American Dragon & James Gibson, as expected.
NOAH- They ran a 2-night tag tournament of mixed heavyweights and juniors. The tandem of Rikio & Marufuji beat Kobashi & KENTA in the final when Rikio pinned Kobashi with his ‘Muso’ backdrop suplex. This is the first fall Kobashi dropped this year, along with the first time Rikio pinned Kobashi ever. It probably signals a rematch of Kobashi vs Rikio for the GHC title, which happened this March in Kobashi’s 7th defense. I’d say Rikio would be the favorite there, and would expect it at the January 8th Budokan show.
Zero-One- Takaiwa made one (last?) defense of his junior title against Yoshito Sasaki. Friday saw the final Zero-One show ever, though Ohtani and the other Zero-One wrestlers made it clear that they’ll be starting over with a new group very soon.
Section 2- Other news & Upcoming matches
New Japan- All signs point to Hashimoto (who finally had shoulder surgery) returning to New Japan full-time, as New Japan wrestlers and management embraced him fully. Hashimoto could bring others, such as Kohei Sato, as well. Fujinami is now confirmed to be returning, though it might not be on the January 4th Dome show. Chono vs Choshu was set for that show. Last but not least, Naoya Ogawa has been touring big sporting events trying to promote his to-be-announced match at the Dome.
NOAH- Marufuji & KENTA will defend their junior tag titles in Mexico on the 18th against Juventud Guerrera and Mr. Aguila (aka Essa Rios).
Section 3- Health Club & Honda: NOAH redeems its jobbers
When it comes to All Japan’s great matches from the ’90s, a few names come up repeatedly from the Japanese end of things. Jumbo, Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Taue, Akiyama. All told they had an array of epics, sold out the Nippon Budokan dozens of times, and had blistering hot crowds without reliance on short-lived cross-promotional feuds. After those names comes a few solid juniors like Fuchi, Kikuchi, and to a lesser extent Yoshinari Ogawa. But surely that wasn’t the entirety of All Japan’s native wrestlers, right? Of course it wasn’t… but it’s all you ever needed to watch.
For Masao Inoue, Jun Izumida and Tamon Honda, their big exposure came from standing on the floor to watch matches better than they’re physically capable of having. Though good-natured, none of them have significant athletic ability. Honda has an accomplished amateur background, but lacks star power; Inoue practically defines mediocrity; Izumida was at best competent and at worst a war crime level atrocity. Though Honda and Izumida had some passable All Asia tag title matches in early ’99 against Hayabua and Shinzaki, even those wouldn’t rank among the 100 best matches from All Japan in the decade. Honda and Inoue also held the All Asia belts for a few months, but nobody cared. When it came time to make the transition to NOAH, nothing really changed.
The first spark of hope came in the summer of ’01, when Honda won a contendership tournament to be Jun Akiyama’s first GHC title challenger. Honda had what was at the time the match of his career, though it was hardly enough to make fans interested in him. What it did accomplish was getting him on the radar screen as a competitive wrestler, so that a year and a half later he could manage something far more important. In January of last year, Honda and Inoue reprised their All Japan union to face Akiyama & Saito for the tag titles. They lost, and it being on just the third or fourth biggest show of the month not very many people saw it.
That March Honda once more became number one contender to the GHC title, again against a new champion (Kenta Kobashi). The outcome of their match in April was never in doubt, but the match itself was an eye-opener. Honda made use of his extensive number of grappling-based finishers, which had been subtly developed over the years. He used a number of unique tricks, some good timing, and surviving several sick bumps at Kobashi’s hands to look like a bona-fide NOAH main-eventer. He lasted nearly 27 minutes, and when it was all said and done there were more flaws in Kobashi’s performance than Honda’s. Now the fans bought Tamon as someone worth watching, and NOAH followed right up. Kobashi and Honda teamed up, and with a stronger partner Honda was able to fell Akiyama and win the titles. Their reign lasted five months, ended by the New Japan invaders of Nagata & Tanahashi.
Well, if Honda could be salvaged, why not the others? NOAH gave it a shot with Jun Izumida next. On March 6th of this year he tagged with Akiyama and Takayama in a very entertaining (albeit short) tag where Izumida was by far the weakest man in the match. Izumida’s own weakness wound up making the match, as his stronger partners did the work for him. Izumida got the win by submitting Takeshi Morishima. This set up a match where Jun faced Morishima for Morishima’s WLW title, and though he lost, Izumida was surprisingly effective. In April Izumida began tagging quite often with Akiyama’s STERNNESS stable, climaxing with him joining it officially at the start of the tour. Could we see the two Juns win the tag belts? Don’t hold your breath, but it could happen.
Speaking of the Akiyama connection, in May he caused three of NOAH’s jobbers- Izumida, Inoue and Kashin Kawabata- to band together as the ‘Health Club’. Akiyama defended his GHC ‘Hardcore’ (now Openweight) title against all three over the tour in what was counted as 1/3rd title defenses due to their weakness. The trio decided to get in better shape because of the semi-humiliation of only being worth 1/3rd of a defense of a secondary title, and dubbed themselves the Health Club as they hit the gym more.
Last but not least is Masao Inoue. After the January ’03 tag title loss, Inoue resumed his rather meaningless midcard existence. Things got dramatically better for him in July, when he and former STERNNESS second in command Akitoshi Saito (along with Takeshi Sugiura) formed the Dark Agents heel stable. At the start of the August tour they got a win against Kobashi & Honda (something that wouldn’t have been even marginally notable when NOAH began), and at the tour climax in Budokan Hall (September 10th) they got a tag title shot against Misawa & Ogawa.
The match was the Masao Inoue show, and for maybe the one night of his life that was a good thing. Like Honda last year, Inoue handled himself well in the usual long NOAH finishing sequence, remaining competitive and even looking like he could pull off the win. What could have been a dismal crowd-killer of a match was instead effective storytelling that made the card one of the best this year (and in my opinion the best from Japan outright). Unfortunately, like Kobashi vs Honda, it isn’t something I’d recommend to puroresu novices. Having seen them doing dismal job-squad work is vital to getting into their underdog battles with NOAH’s icons.
Next Week: The vital importance of continuity, and how Japan uses competitive losses to build young stars.
