Over the last few months I’ve been very occupied with interviews, but haven’t done much analysis. Now seems like a good time to check in on the major promotions and their champions. All Japan saw someone new gain the Triple Crown. New Japan has a series of big matches in the coming months. NOAH has made an odd booking decision. Dragon Gate is seemingly stronger than ever. Zero-One is not. PLUS: links to matches. Yes I’m shocked too.
Section 1- Results
All Japan: Takayama downed Muta to win the Triple Crown. He joins Sasaki as the only wrestlers to hold the IWGP, GHC and TC belts. Suzuki & Kea held onto the tag titles, while Hayashi fended off Minoru (Tanaka) in another ‘epic’-style junior contest.
Dragon Gate: Doi overcame Kanemoto to retain the top belt. Gamma & Yokosuka retained the tag titles by DQ. Shingo, Dragon Kid & Iwasa held on to the trios belts. CIMA nabbed the lightweight title from Yoshino. Cyber Kong beat Mori and got to shave his head.
New Japan: Round 2 of the NJ Cup was highlighted by Hirooki Goto getting his second singles win in a row over Nakamura. Once is a fluke, two is a trend. The semifinals were Goto over Nagata and Bernard over Yoshie, leading to Goto beating Bernard in the final. Takao Omori made a surprise appearance to announce he’s reuniting his team with Nakanishi. I shudder at the thought of those two versus the Dudleys, but that’s where they’re headed.
Section 2- News
All Japan: Mutoh is out with a slipped disc in his back. His knees are also in rough shape so he might need significant time off. Champions Carnival has two blocks of six. Block A features Takayama, Nishimura, Doering, Hayashi and Mutoh’s replacement. Block B includes Kojima, Suzuki, Suwama and Kea. Semifinals and finals will be on 4/12 at JCB Hall, the rarely used (for wrestling) “Korakuen 2â€. From what I can tell, the biggest show in May will be the 30th at Aichi Prefectural Gym, so that could be Takayama’s first title defense.
Dragon Gate: Horiguchi got injured in the tag title match (possibly forcing it to end abruptly) and is out indefinitely. The final member of Warriors 5 is a rookie, since they needed someone to drop falls.
New Japan: Added to the 4/5 Sumo Hall show are Tiger Mask defending against Black Tiger in a title vs mask match, Shelley & Sabin defending against Taguchi & Devitt, Nagata vs Iizuka in a chain match, and Nakamura vs Makabe. Black Tiger might unmask to reveal someone other than Takaiwa, with former BT Rocky Romero a strong possibility.
NOAH: Marufuji blew out a knee and is out 6-9 months. The tag league was bolstered by the addition of Takayama & Sugiura and Sasaki & Morishima. Kensuke Office will be back on this tour, hopefully meaning the rumors of their departure were false. Akiyama will defend against Shiozaki on 4/19 at a mid-sized venue in Sapporo. Kanemaru & Suzuki defend their titles against Aoki & Ito on 4/25. The Budokan show will be headlined by the final four tournament bouts, with the main event being Misawa & Shiozaki vs Sasaki & Morishima. KENTA will ‘defend’ the junior title against Davey Richards in ROH on the 3rd. I used scare quotes because there’s no chance of a title switch.
Section 2a- Meltzer News
All Japan: They drew 6500 for the 3/14 show, on par with NJ’s last Sumo Hall show.
Dragon Gate: Meltzer reports that they had an attendance of 9500 at Sumo Hall, which is great considering that a lot of seats weren’t set up in order to have a stage and entrance ramp. Very few empty seats. They will now be doing a Sumo Hall event every March.
NOAH: On the 1/11 Marufuji show, KENTA kicked Takayama hard and knocked him out legit. It was somewhat hard to tell what happened based on how the match went down, but Meltzer confirms it was a botch.
Various: There was a meeting between AJ, NJ and NOAH officials regarding cooperation. For once it might go beyond just wrestler crossovers, and into broad regulation. The latest IGF show drew 5200, a big improvement from the last couple shows thanks to the return of Naoya Ogawa.
Historical: In ’97, there was a bidding war between WWF, NJ and UFC over Ken Shamrock. NJ promised that he’d be put over Hashimoto for the IWGP title, but Ken signed with WWF. Baba cancelled the Champions Carnival after bad attendance 1982. The balance between having an all-star tournament and protecting the wrestlers became too much to work around. It returned in ’91 when the philosophy changed to clean finishes, and it was a financial success from then until the split.
Ali was paid $2.1 million for his match with Inoki, and it would have been much more had he agreed to do a worked loss. It was by far the biggest payday associated with pro wrestling until well into the ‘90s, and if that isn’t adjusted for inflation then it would still be on top. The rules were such that Inoki was limited to stand-up (which would be a slaughter) and the infamous low kicks. With a proper understanding of MMA now, Inoki clearly got the best of the match, for what it’s worth.
Section 3- WHICH IS SHILLIUS
Death Valley Driver best of Japan 2008 vote results. Yeah, I know it’s late for ‘best of last year’ stuff, but our vote is very thorough and lots of shows don’t get circulated until well into February.
Clark et al (including me) talk a variety of subjects.
Section 4- Media Corner
Classic greatness: Kobashi vs Akiyama, the hidden battles.
Kobashi vs Akiyama, Champions Carnival ’98.
This comes two months after Akiyama finally pinned Kobashi in a tag. On top of that, Akiyama comes in with more points and thus is better positioned to reach the finals of the tournament. Akiyama had a breakout singles match against Kobashi the year before, and this is in the same vein with a big finish.
Kobashi vs Akiyama, Champions Carnival ’99.
Their last match in All Japan, and the only time they met while teaming up as Burning. Much like the above bout.
Section 5- Taking stock
I wrote this prior to writing my part in the Reality column, so there’s a little overlap.
All Japan: Their situation reminds me of New Japan heading into the 2003 G-1 Climax. Takayama has the main title as an outsider, there are a couple veterans and a couple young wrestlers who could easily become a hot challenger by winning the tournament, and there’s no way of knowing how much longer Takayama will have the belt. There are some differences of course, for instance the 2003 tournament having more of a spotlight on Akiyama as the main outsider rather than Takayama, and Tenzan being the only person with a clear storyline behind him. This year’s Carnival casts Takayama as the obstacle to overcome and there’s no way to tell who (if anyone) will win out. I’ve had a sense for a while now that Kojima will win, leading to the fresh matchup of Takayama vs Kojima for the titles. Given Takayama’s questionable conditioning I just can’t imagine him having an extended reign, and Kojima beating him would mean far more than Kojima beating Muta would have.
Dragon Gate: I thought that Doi was a transitional champ at best and that Kanemoto would beat him to set up the same storyline that they did with Liger, climaxing at the Kobe World Hall event in the summer. And… Doi won. If they want to go the extra mile they can build to Doi vs CIMA in Kobe and have Doi win there as well, but that’s getting ahead a bit. YAMATO is overdue for a shot, and should have gotten one instead of Iwasa. Arai or Saito, fresh off heel turns, aren’t out of the question. Yoshino would be an interesting choice, and even the “but he just lost the secondary title†thing hasn’t gotten in the way of other title shots in the last few years. Mochizuki and Magnitude Kishiwada are both credible threats and due for a shot. Clearly there’s no lack of directions for them to take. If I had to put money down I’d say some combination of Doi, CIMA and YAMATO will headline Kobe in a few months.
New Japan: They’re still on top despite mediocre attendance at Sumo Hall. The company has a chance to get a lot of momentum going, with two title matches coming off the NJ Cup final. That means they have a solid 10-12 weeks to build up the June challenger, whomever that might be. I must say that I’m a bit flustered by the continued focus on feuding with TNA wrestlers who have to be flown in rather than NOAH wrestlers who deliver great crowd reactions and (from what I can tell) bigger crowds. Granted, NOAH is the competition, but when they’re only half-filling Sumo Hall with their absolute best effort then something’s got to give. I predict Tanahashi will retain over Angle, but he might not overcome Goto. New Japan hasn’t crowned a first-time IWGP champion since Tanahashi in June of ’06, so this might be a good time to put over Goto.
NOAH: They pushed Shiozaki more explicitly over the first two tours of the year than they have anyone in years. He’s their last hope for a mainstream superstar. So they’re giving him a title match in the far north of Japan, an area nobody has drawn big crowds in years and where the fans tend to come off as lethargic. I can somewhat understand not wanting to go all the way with putting Shiozaki in a Budokan Hall main event before he’s a more proven draw, but then they’ve taken dumber chances with Akitoshi Saito who never drew in his life. Go hasn’t had much interaction with Akiyama this year, and they have just one lead-in tag before the singles match. They could have done the title match in the middle or end of next tour to really make it feel special, as opposed to now when it feels like they’re just getting it out of the way. Akiyama gets his token first defense, Shiozaki has his token ‘lose the first title shot’, and Go gets shuffled back in with everyone else for a year or more. I anticipate the following challenger will be Rikio (as the head of the heel stable and Akiyama’s ex-partner) or Misawa (who hasn’t faced Akiyama since July 27th 2001). On a positive note I expect this to be their best tour in a while.
Zero-One: As much as someone like NOAH struggles to get over new talent to replace older stars, they’re in exponentially better shape than Z1, with just two remotely credible contracted wrestlers and top guys who would be midcarders elsewhere. Sato and Sai are pretty much busts, and the NJ feud is now milked. Ohtani has already dropped the title to Sai, so we’ll see what he can do in his latest push. Sato had two shots in the last two months, and most of Tanaka’s challengers were outsiders, so after they do Sai vs Tanaka I’m not sure where they go. Unless they can hook up another extended crossover with NOAH or AJ this will be a VERY painful year for them.
Next Time: New Japan results! I don’t know what else!
