Section 1- Results
Dragon Gate: Mochizuki beat Doi, Dick Togo and Ryo Saito to win the King of Gate tournament. The reunited PoS Hearts unit won the trios titles. M2K has been dissolved in the wake of K-Ness becoming a part-time wrestler due to injuries. Blood Generation was also dissolved.
New Japan: Minoru Tanaka won the junior title from Kanemoto on Sunday, in the longest match in the title’s history.
NOAH: Takaiwa took the junior title from Sugiura on Saturday. Morishima vs KENTA went to a 20 minute draw. Shiga defended the openweight/hardcore title against Zero-One’s Kamikaze on a Zero-One show.
Section 2- News
All Japan: Yasshi vs Nakajima on 1/3 will determine the next junior title challenger. Either would certainly be interesting.
Dragon Gate: PoS vs Muscle Outlaw’z for the trios titles is set for 1/21.
New Japan: In a follow-up to the ‘Antonion Inoki meets with WWE’ story, it was actually Simon Inoki who met with WWE. He went to beg for help on the Tokyo Dome show, and was brushed off.
NOAH: Sugiura & Kanemaru will defend the junior tag titles against the Briscoes on the 1/7 year-opener.
Section 3- Linkin’ Park
Clark & Campbell give the run-down of the dome show that I’m not doing. It’s over a week old but nothing’s changed since then so give it a look.
Section 4- Everyone else does these year-end columns, who am I to say no?
These are more in terms of impact/importance than in-ring work or personal preference.
Ten from ‘06
Akiyama: It’s been a big year for him on multiple fronts. In the ‘push’ front he got to headline the first five NOAH Budokan shows, with a title win, two defenses and a pin on the returning Takayama. On the ‘backstage stroke’ front, he had even more control of the book as Kobashi took time off to lariat cancer. Though Akiyama’s reign was disappointing, there was some bad luck involved as Kobashi vs Sapp wasn’t there to back up the Inoue defense, and the planned Kobashi defense had to be scrapped which pushed Marufuji’s win forward. I get the distinct impression that there won’t be an epic title reign in Akiyama’s future.
Bernard: Prince Albert made a big impact last year, but he didn’t blow anyone away. This year he made a jump to New Japan and, thanks to his loyalty to the company, he’s positioned himself to be the gaijin ace for years to come. Demonstrating excellent big-man psychology, especially vs Nagata in April and vs Tanahashi in June, Bernard was one of puro’s bright spots in a largely underwhelming year. One and a half single title shots and one and a half tag title shots (he was involved in a couple ‘decision matches’) is probably more than he’ll get in 2007, but his importance to the roster will remain.
CIMA: After being very generous in not hogging the spotlight in ’05 during the Blood Generation saga, CIMA became the centerpiece of Dragon Gate in ’06. Blood Generation became the featured babyface faction, they won the tournament for the trios titles, and CIMA himself won the main event of the biggest show of the year. He was featured much more prominently than the two ‘ace’ figures in the title scene, Saito and Yokosuka, due to taking the lead against heel stable Muscle Outlaw’z. Unfortunately for more than a few Dragon Gate fans this was part of what made ’06 a major letdown. As it turned out, CIMA’s best bouts took place on US soil.
KENTA: More prominently featured this year than ever before. Headlined the Budokan in a match that swept ‘best bout’ awards in Japan, and was in the semi-main three times, plus a featured singles match against Kobashi. Also received a lot of coverage for his many ROH matches, and generally looked a lot more like his own man rather than one-half of a big junior tag team. He’s now moved beyond the junior division, and it will be difficult for him to move up the heavyweight ranks until NOAH decides to feed him big wins like it did with Marufuji.
Kojima: 2005’s MVP had another big year. He led All Japan at the start of the year, then was the core of the G-1 Climax and as a result reformed his team with Tenzan to win the Real World Tag League. This in turn has him on top of the upcoming Tokyo Dome show. Despite losing the Triple Crown to Kea, he remains the de facto ace of All Japan. Whether that means more big main events for him over the course of 2007 remains to be seen.
Marufuji: Huge year for him. Pinned Taue, pinned Akiyama, got his win back against KENTA, took Kobashi to the limit, headlined three Budokan shows despite being a junior, and won all kinds of year-end awards. 2007 will be a step back to be sure, but who would have thought that Marufuji would ever move ahead of Rikio as a long-term company leader?
Sasaki, Takashi: Mr. Deathmatch 2006, he was the heart of Big Japan and represented them well in several other promotions. He’s moved up quite a ways from being just another DDT regular.
Suzuki, Minoru: Puro MVP by a goodly amount. Appeared in every single major promotion, including a NOAH Budokan main event, a New Japan Sumo Hall card, the Dragon Gate Kobe supershow, HUSTLEMANIA, and of course numerous All Japan appearances as he became the star of the show there. Oh and BML, Real Japan, and countless other indy events. I wasn’t thrilled by his in-ring work aside from the shockingly awesome match with Mecha Mummy, but his omnipresence was quite a feat.
Tanahashi: Had the misfortune of Brock Lesnar backing out from their title match, which was set to be Tanahashi’s big win. He did win the belt anyway, and went on to score hotly contested wins over Tenzan and Nakamura. Another bit of bad news for him happened early in the year, when he was set to face (and beat) Shibata in February, only for Uei to yank Shibata in another of Uei’s idiotic games. Tanahashi’s reign will certainly survive Taiyo Kea, but once it ends I’d expect him to be shunted down the card for a bit.
Yokosuka: Had the top prize of Dragon Gate for most of the year, and came in with momentum from his King of Gate ’05 finals appearance. Though he was eclipsed by CIMA vs MO’z, he did get several big wins and established himself as being able to take down anyone on the roster.
Honorable mention: Kondo, Sugiura, Kanemoto, Kea, Tenzan.
Ten for ‘07
Danielson: With his ROH reign finished, and with the ability to heal himself up, American Dragon will be in position to do several NOAH tours this year. After a very good match with KENTA, and with SUWA stepping aside as top junior heel, there will be plenty of room for Danielson to do his thing. He might be held back like he was in New Japan, but with all the attention he’s received from his epic ROH reign I doubt it.
Kawada: His 2006 was odd to say the least. I think he was jolted by the fallout with NOAH, and combined with his age he took it easy by mostly taking HUSTLE and indy bookings. Now he seems to be more committed to wrestling full time, adding more All Japan dates and de-emphasizing HUSTLE (where Takada is taking more of the headlines). With the mileage he has, Kawada needs to do what he can while he still can and I have a feeling he will.
Kobashi: His absence really hurt NOAH and I don’t need to delve into what his return means. Oddly enough cancer might extend his career because it forced him to give his joints some much-needed time off.
Mochizuki: All signs point to him being the ace of Dragon Gate this year. In addition he plans on running some spot shows of his own, and he could become a semi-regular for New Japan, especially if he and Fujii win the junior tag belts.
Morishima: I don’t have much confidence in him becoming the 4th different NOAH champion in under 5 months, but it isn’t out of the question after the great year he had. Even if he loses it’ll mean he probably wins his next title shot, he’ll have a Budokan main event under his belt, and he’ll still have the tag titles to work with. The ace up his sleeve is that he’s never had a high-profile singles war against Kobashi. I can guarantee a lot of hype when it goes down, and win or lose it will do a lot to put Morishima ahead of the rest of his peers. Decent chance that happens this year regardless of the result of his match with Misawa.
Nagata: He dropped off rather badly in 2004 and 2005, having good matches now and then but nothing like his norm from previous years. This year was a return to form, and he has the respect of New Japan’s fan base more than any native save Chono. A Triple Crown win next week is a possibility, and even if that doesn’t happen he has an excellent chance to become a key factor in New Japan’s heavyweight division simply by process of elimination. More than anyone on the NJ roster he has what they need in an ace.
Nakamura: Started the year in the main event of the 1/4 show against Lesnar, and lost. Went away to bulk up, came back, challenged Tanahashi and lost. He won his first IWGP match and hasn’t won it back in his next four challenges, but I have a strong feeling he’ll win the next. Without shootfights or beefing-up to distract him he should have the most straightforward year of his career to date, and between his talent and fans’ disenchantment with Tanahashi that could mean very big things.
Sasaki, Kensuke: Could very well be this year’s Minoru Suzuki, or considering 2004, this year’s Kensuke Sasaki. He has ties to all the major promotions and thus can work when and where he chooses. Kensuke Office is gearing up to run semi-regular shows. Sasaki himself should have momentum coming off his return and can leverage that into any number of title shots, tournament finals and dream match tags. Sasaki’s injury was a blow to the puro scene, especially with Kobashi out, and having him back will be very nice.
Sekimoto: He spent this year paying a lot of dues in a lot of places. In Big Japan, Zero-One, Apache, Lock-Up and other promotions he played the role of a budding but not-quite-arrived heavyweight powerhouse. At times he seems very ‘indy’, though the same can be said for a number of younger big-league heavies. At times he showed incredible potential, and in the right environment with the right veterans to help him structure and pace himself he could become a star for years to come. 2007 could be the year where he be either an indy supernova or, just maybe, earn a contract with one of the big three.
Takayama: His big return in July didn’t lead to setting the world on fire, or at least didn’t result in a return of the world-beating do-no-wrong 2002-2004 Takayama we all knew and loved. With all the ring rust worked out of the kinks and hopefully a lesson learned from his brain-damaging 2004 summer sprint, he can use his talent and connections to become the MVP if things go his way. Already he’s positioned to be a major part of Zero-One with the start of a feud with Omori, and he’s always a credible challenger to any heavyweight title. Maybe I’m just wishing for Takayama vs Morishima on top of a Budokan Hall card”¦ I can’t be the only one.
Next Week: New Japan vs All Japan at the Tokyo Dome. Results and fallout the day after the event!
