Those of you who have been reading for a while know that from time to time I’ll skip a week, most often when there aren’t any big show. This should have been one of those weeks, but as it turns out not only is there enough material for a column, there’s enough left over for me to contribute to an upcoming ‘Reality of Wrestling’. Perhaps I’ll get a respite next week since not much will go on between now and then either, but as it stands I’m nearing a record for consecutive columns. I hear if I hit 15 they’ll double my salary!
Section 1- Results
Dragon Gate: Tenryu worked there over the weekend, putting over Magnum Tokyo for a second time and then leading Don Fujii to victory over Tokyo & Mochizuki.
Section 2- News
All Japan: Milano Collection AT will debut on 4/20 to carry over his feud with Kondo.
Dragon Gate: Tenryu has been added to the 4/23 card, forming a Parejas Increibles of sorts with Dragon Kid against Tokyo & Mochizuki. I mean seriously, Tenryu and Dragon Kid?!
New Japan: There are continued rumors surrounding the company’s leadership. It’s widely expected that Simon Inoki will either resign or get canned as he struggles to handle the pressure of the situation. Kengo Kimura has left, with implications being that he was pushed out. Fujinami could shortly join him. Yukes seems to be favoring Liger and Chono among the established New Japan names as far as booking tours. April will be a big month when it comes to Yukes evaluating the situation. As this goes on the company continues to get a firm grasp on the senior Inoki. Inoki Office is closed in full, while New Japan now owns all rights to the use of Antonio Inoki’s likeness and matches.
NOAH: Tamon Honda will be Kobashi’s partner in gunning for the tag titles. It’s not certain when that match will happen. The structure of the contendership tournament was announced. Final will take place on 4/16. The eight participants are Masao Inoue, Takuma Sano, Kishin Kawabata, Kentaro Shiga, Kikuchi, Akitoshi Saito, Izumida, and rookie Shuhei Taniguchi. FEEL THE EXCITEMENT~. Finally, there’s a rumor that NOAH will forgo a Tokyo Dome show this year, and will instead use the Budokan for the big July show, plus add a show in December. More on that in a few weeks in the Reality of Wrestling column referenced above.
Zero-One/NOAH: Hidaka & Fujita defend the GHC junior tag titles in Zero-One on 4/13 against Takaiwa & Yoshihito Sasaki.
Section 3- Reshills
In case you somehow missed these, Emerald Emporium, the NOAH media hub, and All Japan Archive are open for your consumption. Just don’t post them on message boards lest they get slammed.
Section 4- Rikio vs Saito revisited
One of the nice things about Triple Crown matches before the Mutoh era was their reliability. Oh sure you got a dog now and then but typically you got either great action or sound technical work or great storytelling, or some combination of elements that led to it being well worth your while to see. The GHC title’s legacy has not been quite the same. Matches like Akiyama vs Nagata, Ogawa vs Rikio, Kobashi vs Chono, Kobashi vs Sano, Rikio vs Akitoshi Saito and Akiyama vs Minoru Suzuki have lacked either something or many things to make them worthy. And those are just some of the examples.
To me the most glaring example was Rikio’s first title defense. He wasn’t established like Kobashi, so they gave him a decent, veteran challenger in Saito. Nobody really bought Saito as a real threat because nobody bought Saito as someone who would get the title. Since neither of them has had success in leading a singles match the result was a dull, anticlimactic and outright life-draining endeavor that made Rikio [b]less[/b] over for having won it. I do blame Misawa for the booking to the extent that Saito had no momentum leading in and had just lost a token title shot to Kobashi a few months earlier. At the same time the wrestlers themselves worked a flat-out bad match, no bones about it. Those same factors are coming into play with Akiyama’s second defense.
Six of the names in the contenders tournament have no more right to a title shot than TARU, though I’m a fan of Izumida and would chuckle if he got it. The most credible names are Sano and Saito, but there’s a problem with them and the others that goes to the heart of the matter: Akiyama’s reign as openweight champ in 2004. In it he beat Masao Inoue, Izumida, Kawabata, Sano and Saito. The Saito win in particular was a quick drubbing. Three of those matches (Inoue, Izumida, Kawabata) were so routine that they were considered as 1/3rd of one defense. Sano’s GHC shot on Kobashi in 2004 was utterly missable and after that he hasn’t had a singles win of any value. The remaining names in the tourney are a rookie, a low-ranked junior and Shiga, who isn’t performing at near his 2002 level (where he was still just a midcarder).
If this tournament was leading to a match at a smaller venue, with a goal of 5 or 6 thousand attendance, that would be one thing. But to have it at the Budokan where expectations are so high, it’s a recipe for failure. It’s one thing to say that doing less than a full house is tolerable. Kobashi vs Taue from 2004 was several thousand short and did no real damage. It’s another thing when you do damage to a pivotal title reign for NOAH’s long term. Because a sellout will be hard to come by, and because none of the challengers are credible, and because none of them are superworkers, the match is liable to be so bad that Akiyama looks like a second-rate champ.
In kayfabe, Akiyama has been the one pushing for the tournament. If that’s true in real life then I can hardly blame Misawa for listening to one of the company’s top stars and the current champ. If it’s Misawa’s idea then I’m flabbergasted. NOAH is tops in Tokyo and perhaps Japan but they could take a tumble with more booking like this. It risks a lot and has almost no chance of getting a positive return back. After the Rikio debacle they can’t afford to damage Akiyama’s credibility and star power with two lackluster title defenses in a row.
