Puroresu Pulse, issue 112: Joe in NOAH, Misawa defending in ROH, news and results galore

Columns

Section 1- Results

New Japan: Relevant results of the opening days of the G-1 include Tenzan over Chono, Nagata over Akebono, Bernard over Chono, Nagata over Tenzan, Bernard over Tenzan, Chono over Akebono, Koshinaka over Nakamura, and Makabe over Nagata.

NOAH: The Budokan show was once again far from a sellout. They witnessed Misawa defending against Taue and KENTA & Ishimori winning the junior tag tournament.

Zero-One: Masato Tanaka won the Fire Festival, beating Sai in the final. I think this is the first time an annual tournament in Japan had a repeat final since Inoki vs Hogan in the ’83 and ’84 IWGP leagues.

Section 2- News

All Japan: The 8/26 Sumo Hall show is coming together. Despite having his upper jaw busted by a Kojima chairshot, Kea will join up with Kawada to defend the tag titles against Kojima & TARU. Scott Steiner will team with Suwama against Muta & Tajiri. Nakajima will defend the junior title against Sabin. Last but not least, Suzuki vs Sasaki is confirmed as the main event.

Dragon Gate: CIMA vs Iwasa for the main title will happen on the 11th. Two days later, Kanda will defend the lightweight title against Jorge ‘Skayde’ Rivera, who pinned him last month. Skayde was one of the main trainers at the Ultimo Dragon gym and he maintained his relationship with Ultimo after the Dragon Gate split, so his appearance in DG is an interesting development.

Inoki Genome: Angle vs Josh Barnett is being set up for their next show, 9/8 at Nagoya Rainbow Hall.

New Japan: Sumo Hall has been booked for 10/8, likely Nagata defending against the G-1 winner.

NOAH: The core of the next tour is a ten-main round-robin (two 5-man blocks) tournament to determine Misawa’s next challenger. Pretty much everyone in the mid-to-upper card who hasn’t had a title shot in the last nine months is in there. The final is on the 9/9 Budokan, and on the same card are Akiyama vs Morishima and Rikio vs Marufuji, so I would assume those matches are de facto semifinals. Misawa gets the winner on 9/29 in Osaka. Looking forward, Samoa Joe will be on NOAH’s 10/25 show in Yokohama. Misawa and GHC title figurehead (and ex-All Japan ref) Joe Higuchi will be coming to ROH in November, with one show almost certainly in New York. Higuchi’s presence points to a Misawa title defense there.

Section 3- Wherein I link to a different column on Inside Pulse

Phil & me talking about Japan/US crossover action a couple weeks ago.

Section 4- TNA, ROH and Japan

There’s so many aspects to this, I’m going to bullet point them.

TNA working with everyone at the same time. You’ve got Steiner and Sabin in All Japan, Angle in IGF, Tomko in New Japan and Joe in NOAH. Over the course of the year TNA signed deals with several promotions, and at first it was confusing because this was taking place against the background of “who gets to use Angle?”. It turns out that the answer to that question has nothing to do with whether a given promotion has a good relationship with TNA. New Japan lost Angle to IGF, and that in turn led to the semi-stolen IWGP title being paraded around on Impact, yet they still have Tomko as one-half of the tag champions.

When all the “_____ announces deal with TNA” took place it seemed as if everyone just wanted to bid on Angle, but now TNA talent is becoming a major source for big-show talent. TNA gets more cash and more exposure with no real cost to them. They’ve played the table in such a masterful way that one wonders how they goof up everything else.

-The meaning of Joe in NOAH. This deal has been in the works for some time. NOAH wasn’t interested in Joe when he was ROH champ, but after his push in TNA and the Kobashi match he clearly turned heads. Akiyama namedropped him a year ago as a possible title contender, and Joe was allowed to pin Morishima earlier this year, but Joe couldn’t go to Japan unless he was used in a way TNA agreed to. That means he won’t do full tours, he’ll lose rarely if ever, and perhaps he’ll get the rare distinction of being an outsider NOAH books for single shows. They’ve never done that with a foreigner to my knowledge.

But you know what else it means? Joe is staying with TNA. Rumors that say he might leave in a few months? Joe would be in breach of contract if he booked this match today for the period after his TNA deal ends, and NOAH would be burning their bridge with TNA. Plus if that was the case Joe would be able to do a full tour and he isn’t going to. If Joe’s deal doesn’t end soon, this is the sort of thing that will make him happy. NOAH pays better than the indy scene (especially with ROH and PWG blacklisted), and it gives him an opportunity to go all-out as opposed to the watered-down, time-constrained style of TNA. Joe in NOAH could become a regular thing, to the benefit of all parties involved.

-Misawa defending in ROH. They aren’t flying old man Higuchi all the way over just so he can have a vacation, and even if they did, there’s no way that it would be announced on national television the way Misawa did. The only way this makes sense is if Misawa will be defending the title in ROH. Now, the way he said it sorta spoils the result of the 9/29 title match, and that in turn ruins the point of the next tour, but let’s leave behind such concerns for now.

It’s one thing for Marufuji to defend against Nigel McGuinness last year. Though the move was derided by NOAH’s Japanese smarks (yes they have those in Japan too) it was a way to get Marufuji’s token first defense out of the way and throw ROH a bone. It’s another thing for Misawa, who will be ten months into his reign and is far more important, to defend against someone. Who ROH chooses is a mystery to me since Nigel is the only heavyweight they’d want to put in that situation and Nigel would be a repeat of last year. Danielson would be a junior (and not even a ‘big’ junior) challenging for the heavyweight title, something that would rile Japanese smarks up even more. Outside of those two I simply can’t see any other possibilities; ROH wouldn’t trust the vast majority of the current roster with the biggest match in company history.

If you’re going to the next ROH show in New York or who have a friend who’s going, and you’re interested in seeing what could be Misawa’s only important match outside Japan ever, make sure you have cash lined up to buy tickets when they go on sale. Good seats will probably be gone before they can be put on the website.

-So many promotions working so intensely with TNA and/or ROH. It’s one thing for NOAH to lend ROH some juniors, or for TNA to put Angle up for bids. It’s quite another when you see a NOAH tour with so much ROH talent, a Dragon Gate tour with a similar amount of different ROH talent taking place in part at the same time, both ROH groups joining up for two ROH-in-Japan shows, and the all-but-announcement of a Misawa title defense all taking place within a month. TNA controls IGF’s centerpiece, uses Lesnar’s IWGP title freely, and is involved in two of the top four matches on one of All Japan’s only two big shows of the year. That’s a significant level of involvement which demonstrates a strong desire by Japanese promotions to build bridges to the US. Right now I’d say Dragon Gate needs ROH more than vice-versa. TNA won’t hesitate to yank Angle and sink IGF if Inoki’s backers don’t keep the checks coming.

Is it mutual respect? Is it desperation for fresh talent? Is it a desire to get protection in case WWE ever decides to start a new ‘brand’ in Japan? Whatever the case may be, I expect that TNA and ROH will be at the core of puro developments indefinitely.

Section 5- Media muddle

For those of you who frequent my trio of puro media pages, you might have noticed some issues. For a variety of reasons I’ve had to move my site twice in the last month, and considering that each “move” involves the manual uploading of over 110 GB of files it takes a while. Everything should be up and running in two weeks or so.