Puroresu Pulse, issue 170: Golden Week Results & Analysis

Columns

Section 1- Results

All Japan: Last Thursday, Kea beat Kojima, TARU & Viscera beat Akebono & Hama (who then split up) for the All Asia titles, and Suwama & Kono beat Suzuki & Funaki when Kono pinned Funaki. On Sunday, Minoru Suzuki beat Hama to win the Triple Crown, and Hayashi retained over NOSAWA.

Big Japan: Ito beat Miyamoto to win the deathmatch titles.

Dragon Gate: From the April 25th show, Warriors won the trios belt contendership, Yokosuka & K-ness won a 4-on-2 handicap elimination match over Deep Drunkards, and Shingo & CyKong retained the tag titles over Hulk & Yoshino. On the 4th, Yamato retained over Shingo, World-1 beat Warriors in an 8-man elimination match, Tigers Mask retained over Dragon Kid, and Deep Drunkards beat Mochizuki’s squad to win the trios belts.

New Japan: Plenty of upsets on Monday’s show. Makabe beat Nakamura to win the IWGP title; Nagata & Wataru Inoue won the tag titles (Inoue pinned Anderson, probably meaning a rematch with Yujiro & Naito); Yano pinned Tanahashi. Marufuji retained over Taguchi.

NOAH: Notable round-robin results include Bison Smith over Sasaki, Morishima over Kawada, Morishima vs Marufuji going to a time limit draw, and on the final day, Takayama over Morishima and Akiyama over Sugiura to set up Takayama defeating Akiyama in the final. No word yet on whether Akiyama will follow through on his vow to retire if he lost. Kanemaru retained over Delirious.

Section 2- News

All Japan: Kojima has what could be a going-away match on the 16th, as he and Hayashi go up against Suwama & Kondo. I’m guessing we’ll get Hayashi vs Kondo for the junior title based on that. The main storyline in the company is veterans (led by Suzuki) against young stars (led by Suwama).

Dragon Gate: Tigers Mask will defend the lightweight title against Shisa on an Osaka Pro show on Saturday.

IGF: More whacky matches for their show on Sunday at Osaka Prefectural Gym. Takayama vs Josh Barnett, Sapp vs Necro, and Minoru Suzuki & Marufuji vs Naoya Ogawa & Sawada (IGF young guy).

New Japan: Marufuji vs Tiger Mask was hastily added to Saturday’s junior tag tournament show. I have a feeling it was done to try and boost attendance, since they’re using JCB Hall.

NOAH: KENTA returns on June 6th.

Other: Sho Funaki is making the rounds on the indy scene. With Togo retiring in a year, I would expect at least one if not several Kaientai reunion matches. Funaki was allowed to come to Japan for one on New Years Eve in 2006.

Section 2a- Meltzer News

NOAH: Momota is going to return. (As a wrestler he wouldn’t be taken back, but he’s useful in the office). The company only drew 1000 people a show at Hakata Star Lanes for a weekend double-shot, the first one headlined by Sugiura vs Sasaki. The venue holds over 2500 and is regularly sold out when used by promotions like Dragon Gate, so this demonstrates NOAH’s continued weakness outside Tokyo. They’re running a show at Ariake Coliseum on July 10th, which hasn’t been used for wrestling in years, because it’s smaller than Budokan but still a big venue in Tokyo. One can infer that Sugiura vs Takayama will happen there.

Section 3- Max Shill 2010

Some Guy claims to be the longest running columnist on IP. I set him straight. Young punks always stepping on the OGs.

Section 4- Media Corner

2010

Sekimoto vs Takanishi, DDT title, DDT April 4th.

Sekimoto, the indy powerhouse who’s nearly as thick as he is tall, takes on scrawny no-name Takanishi for a title that has generated good matches more consistently than pretty much any belt in Japan. Takanishi uses speed and cunning to get himself breathing room, and eventually wears Sekimoto down enough to pull off a hot finish despite the visual mismatch.

I Love The ‘90s: Prelude #3 – New Japan & UWF in the second half of 1989

We have today a glimpse at two promotions heading in two different directions. In the mid ‘80s, New Japan was heavily influenced by early shoot-style wrestling thanks to the off-and-on presence of Maeda, Takada, Fujiwara and others. In 1988 the UWF promotion started for a second time, and by the middle of 1989 all the shoot-stylists had jumped ship. With Inoki not as involved as he had been, New Japan was largely placed in the hands of Choshu. This split was best for both sides, because New Japan simply couldn’t have accommodated all the wrestlers they had AND still had room for the steady trickle of dojo graduates. UWF birthed several crucial shoot-style promotions, while New Japan evolved distinct styles in both the heavyweight and junior-heavyweight divisions. Liger vs Sano amply demonstrated the latter; here is some of the former, along with some UWF.

George Takano & Super Strong Machine vs Choshu & Iizuka, tag titles, New Japan July 13th 1989.

Having recently finished a 175 match comp of New Japan in the ‘80s, I found that this match stuck out like a sore thumb as something in the modern heavyweight style. The way Iizuka is utilized as a spunky underdog is similar to what Kawada was doing in ’89, but there are slight differences that make Iizuka more of a “young lion proving himself” instead of a more generic “emerging heavyweight”. It’s nearly impossible for me to put into words, but anyway, Takano and SSM are great bullies, Iizuka is a great “weak link”, and Choshu is Choshu. This would only require the smallest of changes to fit in, say, eight years later. It’s also a far cry from the tag title bouts of two years earlier, which were dominated by shoot-style practitioners like…

Fujiwara vs Yamazaki, UWF July 24th 1989.

Fujiwara is essentially the father of shoot-style, learning grappling techniques from Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson and combining that with his background in Muay Thai kickboxing. He was also the first New Japan dojo graduate. He was instrumental in training many wrestlers, for instance his opponent in this match. Fujiwara was never as big a star as Takada or Maeda, which has sadly kept him from ‘hall of fame’ status, but he’s had that level of impact indirectly. This match isn’t what one might consider “spectacular”, but it’s two high-end shoot-style wrestlers rocking the mat and having good standing exchanges. It’s funny to think of Fujiwara as a kickboxer considering that he almost never throws kicks while his students rely on them.

Masakatsu Funaki vs Tatsuo Nakano, UWF July 24th 1989.

Normally I would list matches in their proper card order, but in this case I make an exception. This right here is one of the best matches under 10 minutes in Japan’s history, with tons of intensity, hate, nifty moves, hardway blood and a hot crowd. More than any other shoot-style match I think this can be enjoyed by any wrestling fan, and certainly anyone who would take the time to read these words. Must-see, folks.

Fujiwara vs Takada, UWF October 25th 1989.

Takada is younger, sharper, and a better athlete. Fujiwara uses guile and mat smarts to counter all that crap. This makes good use of the downs/points system, where if a wrestler uses the ropes or is knocked down a certain number of times he loses by TKO. When done right it generates constant tension at the end of a match, as every strike and hold becomes a potential finish. Makes up for the lack of pin kick-outs at least.

Section 5- Analysis!

All Japan: Yup, Hama was a transition. Now the belt is on Suzuki, and since he’s supposedly the new face of the company one would expect him to have a decent reign. The thing is, who does he have to defend against other than Suwama and Kono? They just made a big deal of Kea siding with him to join the veterans stable, and they’ve done Suzuki vs Funaki to death over the last year. I suppose that Viscera and Akebono are possibilities but… ugh. Looking at the schedule I don’t think there will be a title defense on the next tour (which ends on the 30th), so I’m guessing we’ll get a defense in June or July then one at the August show in Sumo Hall. Logic would tend to dictate Suzuki vs Suwama at Sumo Hall as the top vet vs youth matchup, but they did Suwama challenging at last year’s August event. Perhaps an outsider? But All Japan has been self-contained of late. Hmmmm.

Big Japan: Ito won, making him 4-1 as a challenger. He’s lost a lot of the luster he had a few years back when he was the unquestioned face of the company, and soon he’ll have only had one successful title defense over the span of five years. On one hand, that means he’s due for a decent title reign. On the other hand, that would probably mean 6 or 7 months with the title on someone whose best days are behind him. I suspect that will be the end result though, because the probable focal point of his reign will be building to a rematch with Jun Kasai, and the logical location for that will be their “big show” venue of Yokohama Bunka Gym. Since that venue won’t be booked until December at the earliest, Ito will be hanging onto the belt. As for who he’ll defend against in the meantime… beats me.

Dragon Gate: I highly doubt Mochizuki is winning the title at Korakuen Hall, so we haven’t really changed the “where are they going” scenario from my last column. I still lean towards Yamato vs Hulk for the July 11th Kobe show, but they haven’t done a thing with Hulk to lean that direction.

New Japan: Makabe pretty much had to win the title, but it’s not the most inspired booking. The guy loses in NOAH, then a few weeks later he makes a challenge without any momentum, and he beats the seemingly unbeatable Nakamura? Puzzling. Makabe with the title does provide a long list of potential challengers, from veterans (Nagata & Nakanishi) to cyclical challengers (Tanahashi, Goto & Bernard) to heels (Yano & Tanaka), and even midcarders might get in the mix (Inoue, Yujiro & Naito). Some of these (Yano, the midcarders) are not ones that would be good outside of small venues or as semi-mains underneath a dream match, but it would allow the company enough flexibility to stretch the reign out until Goto is freshened up to win the belt (which I think will be the outcome). What I’m afraid will happen for the first defense on June 19th in Osaka is Makabe vs Yano, stemming from Yano’s win over Tanahashi. That isn’t appealing on any level, especially in a 6000 seat venue.

NOAH: It’s a bit of a surprise that Takayama got the big tournament win, but then he hasn’t won much in NOAH over the last seven years. I imagine he’ll put Sugiura over in July, which would pay off their match from last October and the long history of Sugiura as a Takayama sidekick. We’ll still have a handful of credible challengers (Sasaki, Kawada, Morishima) left for the fall. Sugiura will benefit from besting Takayama, especially since he didn’t beat anyone important in the tournament. The company no longer seems to be in a tail-spin, but it does look to be permanently shrunk from where it was a year ago. A healthy roster plus getting Kawada on board should be enough for them to once again be firmly ahead of All Japan, but at this point I really wonder if Dragon Gate doesn’t have a better revenue stream. I can’t even fathom that there’s even a question about who’s #2 in Japan given where things were a few years ago.

Next Time: Issue 170! And you know what that means!

I hope someone does, because I sure don’t.