This is the first edition of a new weekly column focussing on Puroresu. For anyone wondering Shukan means weekly. Initially this column will borrow the format used by Pulse Wrestling’s resident Puroresu expert, David Ditch. As to whether I continue to use this format, that depends on David. The biggest wrestling event of the summer has been New Japan’s G1 Climax. Despite this my first column will focus on this Summers forgotten singles tournaments: Zero1’s Fire Festival.
Results
All Japan: The 8/3 Korakuen Hall show featured the final of All Japan’s Jr Heavyweight League. The final was a big upset with KAI beating veteran Luchadore Silver King. KAI had returned from a learning excursion in Mexico earlier this year. Taiyo Kea and Minoru Suzuki managed to beat the team of Osamu Nishimura and Triple Crown holder Suwama to retain their AJPW World Tag Team Titles.
Dragon Gate: Dragon Gate’s Summer Adventure Tag League has begun and the early leaders are PWG tag team The Young Bucks, the Real Hazard team of Cyber Kong and YAMATO and the team of the newly crowned Open the Dream Gate Champion Shingo Takagi and Dragon Kid. The big shock is the poor form of Kenichiro Arai and Taku Iwasa, who have not gained a single point so far.
El Dorado: The Dragon Gate offshoot’s Korakuen Hall show saw Shuji Kondo win the Greatest Golden League by pinning Magnitude Kishiwada. They had reached the finals by beating Toru Owashi and Kagetora respectively earlier in the night. The under card saw Dragon Gate stable Aagan Issuu reform but the team of Takuya Sugawara, Brother YASSHI and Shogo Takagi couldn’t beat the Tokyo Gurentai (NOSAWA, MAZADA and TAKEMURA).
IGF: Antonio Inoki’s IGF held a show at Sumo hall on 8/15. The more eye catching matches featured former WWE talent: Bobby Lashley vs. The Predator (former WWE wrestler Sylvester Terkay) and Rob Van Dam vs. Kendo Kashin vs. The Necro Butcher. The latter is one of the most random match ups that I’ve seen in a while.
New Japan: The big news is the unlikely story of Hirooki Goto winning the G1 Climax in his first attempt. After losing his first match to Toshiaki Kawada, Goto qualified for the final from group B with 2 huge wins over his RISE team mate Shinsuke Nakamura and Yugi Nagata. Outsiders Kawada and Yutaka Yoshie had strong tournaments but missed out due to a time limit draw between them on the last day. In group A both outsiders lost to allow Togi Makabe to reach the final. Shinjiro Ohtani, representing the Zero1 promotion, was beaten by Hiroshi Tanahashi, in Tanahashi’s second win in the tournament. Makabe beat Satoshi Kojima to qualify, partly due to interference from Kojima’s former Voodoo Murder’s team mate TARU. In this unlikely final Goto managed to use his Shouten to beat Makabe, winning the G1 Climax less than 1 year after returning to New Japan as a heavyweight after a learning excursion in Mexico. This now sets Goto up as Keiji Mutoh’s next challenger for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
Pro Wrestling NOAH: In a quiet period for NOAH the results are dominated by a series of SEM brand shows, particularly a show held in association with Kensuke Office. SEM is a NOAH sub brand that focuses more on singles matches and younger talent.
Despite an under card featuring legendary comedy wrestlers Kushinbo Kamen and Kikutaro facing off for the first time in 3 years and an Ultimo Dragon lead Toryumon team, it was the main event that really set this show apart. This was an 8 man 4 x 4 survival match, fought under elimination rules where you had to eliminate 3 wrestlers in a series of Tag team matches to win. The Kensuke Office team of Kensuke Sasaki, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Kento Miyahara and Takashi Okita took just over 55 minutes to see off the NOAH team of Kenta Kobashi, KENTA, Atsushi Aoki and Akihito Ito. This match looks to continue tensions between Nakajima and KENTA, as Nakajima won the match by pinning KENTA, who had been in the match since the start.
Zero1: Zero1 held their annual Fire Festival, with New Japan being represented by Togi Makabe and Manabu Nakanishi. The tournament final was between Makabe and Zero1 ace Masato Tanaka. Tanaka maintained his position as Zero1’s big hope in the New Japan feud, winning his third consecutive Fire Festival in the process. On the same show Ikuto Hidaka and Munenori Sawa managed to wrest the NWA International Lightweight Tag Team Titles from Minoru Fujita and Takuya Sugawara.
News
All Japan: Three matches have been confirmed for All Japan’s Sumo Hall show on 8/31. Taiyo Kea earns a shot at Suwama’s Triple Crown, KAI uses his All Japan Jr Heavyweight League win to get a Jr Heavyweight Title match against Ryuji Hijikata and Keiji Mutoh defends The IWGP Heavyweight Title against G1 Climax winner Hirooki Goto. Goto lost to the Great Muta at New Japan’s Tokyo Dome show.
Dragon Gate: Dragon Gate’s upcoming shows are dominated by the Summer Adventure Tag League but 8/23 stands out the most, with Shingo Takagi facing his upcoming Open the Dream Gate challenger Cyber Kong in League action. Another interesting match pits World 1 founders Masato Yoshino and Naruki Doi against fellow World 1 members BxB Hulk and Naoki Tanisaki.
Kensuke Office: It was announced that Kensuke Sasaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima will follow their appearance at Ring of Honor’s 9/14 Tokyo show by heading over to Philadelphia to compete at ROH’s Glory By Honour VII show on 9/20. This will be Sasaki’s first show in the US since his time working for WCW.
New Japan: The next New Japan event, on 8/26, is a 20th Anniversary celebration for New Japan and WAR referee “Red Shoes†Unno. The show has Tiger Mask I (Satoru Sayama) teaming up with Tiger Mask IV for the first time ever to take on Jado and Gedo. The Main event has Riki Choshu, Masahiro Chono and Genichiro Tenryu team up to take on the GBH trio of Togi Makabe, Toru Yano and Tomoaki Honma.
In addition New Japan released it’s financial statement for the 1st quarter of 2008, announcing that they had turned a profit of Â¥13,000,000 ($120,000). While this is not a huge sum New Japan lost Â¥70,000,000 in the same period last year, indicating that New Japan’s cost cutting and current direction is helping to make New Japan profitable. This is good news for the Japanese scene as a profitable New Japan shows that companies can put on good wrestling and make money.
Pro Wrestling NOAH: 8/23 at the Korakuen Hall marks the start of NOAH’s Nippon TV Cup Jr Heavyweight Tag League. Highlights on the show include KENTA & Taiji Ishimori vs. Bryan Danielson & Davey Richards, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki vs. The Briscoe Brothers, and build up for Kensuke Sasaki’s GHC Heavyweight Title shot against Takeshi Morishima.
In related news, Morishima won one dark match against Charlie Haas at the WWE RAW taping on 8/18 and another dark match against Jamie Noble at the WWE Smackdown taping on 8/19..
Zero1: The feud between Zero1 and New Japan continues on 8/29 with the two announced matches being Zero1 vs. New Japan matches. The first match has Zero1’s Ikuto Hidaka defend his International Jr Heavyweight Title against New Japan’s Ryusuke Taguchi. Both Hidaka and Taguchi have been key figures in the feud so this should be heated. Speaking of heat, Friends collide as former New Japan Jr Shinjiro Ohtani faces Current New Japan Heavyweight Yugi Nagata in another big singles match.
Down the Tube
This is a feature I will be running where I will have a couple of You tube Links relevant to the main article. Despite focusing on the Fire Festival I have a special treat to start off with. This is a match from this year’s G1 Climax: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Toshiaki Kawada. The second half of this match is here.
Weekly Feature: Fire Festival 2008
Zero1, formerly known as Zero1 Max, holds the Fire Festival every summer. For the last 2 years this had been won by the ace of Zero1, former ECW and FMW wrestler Masato Tanaka. This is a yearly opportunity for the young talent of Zero1 to show that they have what it takes to win the biggest tournament in Zero1.
This year the tournament was made up of 2 blocks of 5 men with the winner of each block facing off in the finals. Block A consisted of KAMIKAZE, Togi Makabe, Masaaki Mochizuki, Shinjiro Ohtani and Kohei Sato. Block B featured Manabu Nakanishi, Takao Omori, Ryouji Sai, Daisuke Sekimoto and Masato Tanaka. Mochizuki and Sekimoto represented Dragon Gate and Big Japan while the feud with New Japan was represented by the appearances of Nakanishi and Makabe.
Makabe comfortably won his group with youngster Sato stepping up to prevent Makabe from achieving the full 8 points by using a Cross Armbreaker. In Block B Omori fought back from a loss to Sai, winning matches against Nakanishi and Tanaka, taking Block B to a three way tie between Omori, Nakanishi and Tanaka. This match was won by Tanaka, who went into the finals with a chance to win his third straight Fire Festival.
The final was a violent affair, with New Japan’s most violent heel trying to beat Zero1’s strongest fighter on Tanaka’s home turf. Tanaka eventually won a hard fought match using his go to finisher, the Sliding D. Tanaka was crowned Fire Festival Champion for the third successive year but Makabe showed how dangerous New Japan can be, even in Zero1.
Block A:
Togi Makabe – 6 points
Masaaki Mochizuki – 4 points
Shinjiro Ohtani – 4 points
Kohei Sato – 4 points
KAMIKAZE – 2 points
Block B:
Manabu Nakanishi – 5 points
Takao Omori – 5 points
Masato Tanaka – 5 points
Daisuke Sekimoto – 3 points
Ryouji Sai – 2 points
Fire Festival Repercussions Tanaka cemented his status as Zero1’s ace and showed that this feud is going to come down to New Japan throwing their toughest fighters at Tanaka. Tanaka has now beaten Makabe, Nakanishi and Koji Kanemoto in singles matches this year so look for the upcoming Nagata vs. Ohtani match to set the stage for Nagata vs. Tanaka. This match looks to be the biggest match in the feud and could be a classic. Nakanishi continued to do well in what has been a great year from him, although the combination of Omori and Tanaka was too much for him to make it an all New Japan final. This tournament will add more momentum to Zero1’s feud with New Japan, which has already produced some great matches. Ohtani was announced as a competitor for the G1 Climax and is in the same group as Satoshi Kojima, Giant Bernard and Togi Makabe.
In non New Japan feud related news Kohei Sato got two big wins in his last two Fire Festival matches, beating the rampant Makabe and the wily veteran Ohtani. This could help provide the boost to one of Zero1’s four big hopes for the future (the others being Ryouji Sai, Yoshihito Sasaki and Osamu Namiguchi). Sato has managed to gain bookings for the Masahiro Chono produced Premium shows, teaming with Chono himself to take on Shinjiro Ohtani and Daisuke Sekimoto. Sai had a poor Fire Festival compared to last years, when he reached the final. Sekimoto must be equally disappointed that he didn’t pick up any big wins, only managing to beat Sai and draw with Omori.
Last thoughts
I hope you have enjoyed my first column, any feedback will be greatly appreciated. This week I focussed on the Fire Festival in order to highlight the fact that you can get some very good wrestling outside of Japan’s big 4 promotions. I heartily recommend people try to watch some of the New Japan vs. Zero1 feud, especially the April match between Masato Tanaka and Koji Kanemoto in New Japan. Shinjiro Ohtani’s matches in the G1 Climax have been good and his match against Makabe was a very enjoyable encounter. Next week I will focus on the results and repercussions of the G1 Climax.
