Called the winner, but not much else
The biggest singles tournament in wrestling—New Japan’s G-1 Climax tournament—concluded this past weekend in one of the more eventful tournaments in recent memory. Long suffering mid-card wrestler Togi Makabe won his first G-1 tourney after losing in the final last year scoring a prediction win for yours truly who called Makabe winning the tourney a few weeks back. In other doings during the weeklong tournament, CMLL’s Mistico won the IWGP jr. heavyweight title, NOAH’s Takashi Sugiura reached the tournament semi-finals, Masato Tanaka made an impact missing the semis thanks to a coin toss, and Tajiri scored a clean pinfall win over IWGP champion Hiroshi Tanahashi. And speaking of the IWGP title, that became the center of attention right after the tournament’s conclusion.
P.C. Says: Makabe was the right choice for this year’s tourney winner, but IWGP champion is a totally different story
The fact that Monday morning’s news overshadowed Makabe’s career-boosting win is unfortunate, but that couldn’t be helped. The big news in question is Hiroshi Tanahashi having to vacate the IWGP title due to an eye fracture suffered at the hands of longtime rival Shinsuke Nakamura in their semi-final match yesterday. And while Makabe’s win was overshadowed by this, there is a silver lining as Makabe and Nakamura will get a chance to repeat their well-perceived outing yesterday on September 27 at New Japan’s big Kobe show as a rematch between the two will in fact be the decision match to crown the new champion.
While some may find reason against it, there is no better option than a Makabe/Nakamura rematch to decide the new champion. First and foremost, the match was well received by the crowd with Makabe becoming a face due solely to crowd response as the G-1 does have a tendency to bring the weirdness out of fans (Makabe has been a heel or has been heel-like for basically his entire career including during this year’s tourney). The match Sunday had the added bonus in the story it told, that story being Makabe playing the underdog against the dominant Nakamura who went unbeaten during the group stage of the tourney and getting the big comeback win. The fact that Makabe got the tournament win automatically means he should be up for the title and despite losing to him, Nakamura did beat everyone else he faced in the tourney and the list is no joke as Nakamura beat Goto, Sugiura, Tenzan, Iizuka, Nagata, Nakanishi, and Tanahashi during the tournament (not to mention scoring the winning fall in the only non-tourney tag he was involved in during the tour); not only did Nakamura win all of these matches, but he won them all with the move that ended up sidelining Tanahashi: the Boma Ye knee kick. So what we have is a potential face turn for Makabe and a very possible full heel turn for Nakamura (two things I never thought I’d see when Nakamura pulled a coup on Makabe’s GBH group earlier in the year), a great outing in a situation where it needed to be—Nakamura and Makabe have had better luck in their clashes on the mic and in hype than in the ring during their on-and-off feud of the last few years—and Nakamura’s finishing maneuver now being perceived as a finisher that kills people dead, and I’m talking even more than the pedigree people. This is a title match that I’m actually really stoked for.
The group stage turned into quite the show with booking that surprised many. I may have called Makabe winning the tournament, but the fact that he had to make a comeback during the group stage just to make the semis—something he did via a coin toss, I’m not kidding—was something I didn’t see coming. But in the end it turned out to be effective as the fans not only embraced Makabe, a blatant heel, but also cheered him turning Nakamura heel in the final. Tanaka and Tanahashi having a great match at the first of the two Sumo Hall shows (in the main-event slot no less) is something I not only expected, but seemed more like the inevitable, but Tajiri getting a clean pinfall win over Tanahashi is something I didn’t expect. I know it was the tourney and that is the time of the year where the IWGP champ can lose multiple times and it’s not that damaging, but I still didn’t expect that one, so kudos to the Japanese Buzzsaw for getting one of the biggest wins of his career. Takashi Sugiura making the semis only adds to the career year he’s having and once again, is another reason I tip my hat to New Japan. Bringing Sugiura into the tournament was really all New Japan was obligated to do as far as the NOAH/New Japan talent exchange is concerned, and they could’ve turned Sugiura into Iizuka for a week getting DQ loss after DQ loss through dastardly deeds, etc., but instead they booked him to look like a potential title challenger (something he should be) and even booked him into the final day losing in the semis to the eventual tournament winner.
The last few years have seen New Japan up the ante for this tournament as far as the outsiders they bring in for it and also as far as the talent putting on a quality tournament is concerned. Looking back at previous tournaments in the first half of this decade, they’ve been dominated primarily by one man’s performance throughout or a few specific matches mostly during the semis and finals. However, the past few years have seen both outsiders and natives collective up their game and produce more noteworthy tournaments as a result: Koji Kanemoto had one of the best weeks of his career in the ring during the ’06 tournament, the ’07 tourney saw the second of the three big Nagata/Tanahashi matches that year as well as Milano Collection A.T.’s coming out party as far as ring performance goes, and last year saw probably the best all-star cast in years for the tournament and they all (Kawada, Yoshie, Goto, Makabe, Nakamura, Tanahashi, Ohtani) delivered including the Goto/Makabe final solidifying Goto as quite possibly the best worker in the promotion. However, as far as match results go, the 2009 edition of the G-1 tournament probably offered the most suspenseful and head scratching series of results the tournament has seen as nothing became guaranteed as even during those increasingly better tournaments of the last few years, a few things were guaranteed as far as match results go. But if Tajiri over Tanahashi, and Nakanishi over Nagata, and Omori over Tanahashi, and the coin toss “controversy†prove anything, it’s that New Japan can really create unpredictable entertainment.
The Reality is…get ready for another Tanahashi/Nakamura Tokyo Dome main-event, if Tanahashi is able. I do believe that Nakamura has to win the IWGP title September 27 and while I’m not really that pleased with another Nakamura IWGP title reign, it has to happen. Like with Suwama’s title win quickly following a tournament win, it’s too much too quick for people. And Makabe being IWGP champion is something that should and likely will happen someday, but right now people are viewing his G-1 win as a big step in his career—the same way Suwama’s C.C. win was viewed last year—and a title win this soon after would wreak of desperation on the part of the promotion—the same way Suwama’s title win was viewed by many last year. Nakamura has newfound momentum thanks to his perfect record up until the finals of tourney, and a finishing move that is all his thanks to it being the finisher in all of Nakamura’s win over the past tour and the fact that it’s the move than put Tanahashi on the shelf. If Tanahashi is able to be back for the Tokyo Dome show January 4, that is the hook that would make this Tanahashi/Nakamura match different than their other Dome encounters: this one would be about more than just a title, it would be personal, that and the Boma Ye kick as well as Tanahashi’s face and head would be the focus of said match should it happen. A full heel turn combined with a title win would finally give Nakamura’s career a chance to fully take off as poor booking, poor timing, and injuries have derailed him at every turn, and is the main reason that Tanahashi was able to surpass him quite handedly over the last two years as the ace of New Japan, something most believed Nakamura would be at this point in his career. As for Makabe, they could give him the belt and run with it, but I hope they don’t. Nakamura has more momentum and a much better reputation, hence much more drawing power in big match settings than Makabe who is still a newcomer to the main-event scene when all is said and done and there is more to be gained in the long run from building and building and building to the eventual ascent of Togi Makabe to the main-event full time. If you need proof, look at how the careers of Tanahashi and Nakamura have faired because Nakamura was pushed the moon right away and Tanahashi was given the slow and steady approach and allowed to fully develop as a wrestler.
This week’s “FUCK YOU!†goes to:
JOSH BARNETT
The beginning of this month should’ve seen the biggest heavyweight match in MMA take place in the form of the long-awaited Fedor Emelianenko/Josh Barnett showdown, but someone messed up the arrangement, that someone would be Mr. Barnett. While UFC nuthuggers and so-called MMA fans will say that Lesnar/Mir II was the biggest heavyweight match in MMA, that is only in hype as both Fedor and Barnett have more wins under their belt than Lesnar and Mir combined and the Fedor/Barnett fight has been brewing for years whereas Lesnar/Mir II was basically signed after the first fight ended, the only question was when. Moving on, Barnett messed up when he was caught with a performance-enhancing drug in his system for both samples he gave to the California State Athletic Commission in the ten days preceding the fight. The drug in question was one that was used to keep muscle mass while one is losing weight; in other words Barnett was looking to keep up with Fedor’s stamina, but still wanted to be physically bigger than him. Unfortunately Barnett got caught and he didn’t have to as Dave Meltzer reported that Barnett could’ve stopped taking the drug around two weeks prior to the fight, around a week prior to his testing, and he would’ve been fine. Understand, that means Barnett was taking this drug basically right up until his test by the CSAC. To make a long story short: he got greedy or he got stupid, either way it’s bad. And I’m a huge fan of Barnett the same way I’m a huge fan of Fedor, but I had the “I’ll believe it when the bell rings†mentality towards this fight because the truly big ones—and this is one of those—are always fouled up by something and either never happen or happen years after they should’ve. In this case, the fight should’ve happened in 2006 or 2007, but since both men are still in the prime of their respective careers or just past it to such a miniscule degree that you could say both are actually in their primes, it still wouldn’t have had the feel that it came long after it should’ve (see Liddell/Wanderlei).
