Section 1- Results
Dragon Gate: Yoshino got a decisive title defense against Mori, while the CIMA/Hulk/Evans trio lost their belts to Ryo/Genki/Dragon Kid.
Section 2- News
All Japan: Minoru Suzuki’s challenger on the 29th will be RO’Z, aka WWE’s Rosey. Well that’s certainly”¦ different. Kondo vs NOSAWA is set for the same night.
New Japan: Tenzan is forming a stable, and so far has gotten Makabe and Koshinaka to sign up. There is significant attention being given to the prospect of Simon Inoki participating in a match. The Inoki Genome show has now been pulled from the Budokan and is scheduled for 11/24 in Seoul. Good ol’ Inoki.
NOAH: Makoto Hashi will return at the tour opener on Friday. Misawa vs Murakami will take place a week later, symbolizing buildup to Misawa’s unofficial title match and Murakami’s part in the GPWA.
Section 3- Link’z
My pro-Botter stance is unchanged.
Section 4- Risky business
Minoru Suzuki’s title win was already the worst-attended show with a Triple Crown match to date, even surpassing the low set by Kojima vs TARU. All Japan didn’t panic, of course; part of the problem was location. I can almost understand their decision to have the October tour climax at Fukuoka Int’l Center, as it isn’t a mega-venue and they might not want to over-saturate their Tokyo audience after the big Hase retirement show. But for the biggest non-Tokyo show since June ’04, and the first even mid-range non-Tokyo show since January ’05, they need to avoid having an overtly ‘bad’ attendance. The booking isn’t helping.
All Japan has justified giving RO’Z a title shot by having him dominate part of a big All Japan vs Voodoo Murders elimination match on Saturday. He pinned Kojima with a moonsault. I can see potentially justifying a RO’Z title shot for a show at the more reasonable Ota Ward Gym in Tokyo, and after Suzuki is a bit more settled-in. But as a first defense after a disappointing title change, at a venue which is more than a bit of a ‘reach’? No way. Then add in the storyline implications, where RO’Z is a recently-turned heel and Suzuki is the most heelish Triple Crown holder ever. What is supposed to interest fans about this? Barring either massive ticket giveaways or a huge dream match for support they’ll be lucky to get a half-full house. What a way to waste the momentum of the Hase retirement show.
NOAH has a little over three weeks to go before their show at the Budokan headlined by Marufuji vs Misawa. At present, nothing more is announced. It seems likely that there won’t be a shock dream match to bolster the card. Last year, Misawa in a title match was effective because the company was hot off its big Dome show where Misawa beat Kawada in the main event, and because Misawa hadn’t had a shot for two and a half years (his longest wait since the mid-80s). This year, without anything like that momentum (Akiyama vs Marufuji drew just a 70-80% full house), without a significant backstory or feud to build from, it seems to me that unless something changes we’ll have yet another unspectacular low-budget NOAH Budokan event.
There are any number of options at hand for strengthening the card. They could have set the tag tournament finals for the show and merely left Marufuji and Misawa out. They could have announced that this would be Misawa’s last GHC title shot; Misawa vs Kawada showed that he doesn’t need the title to draw and it would add emphasis to the ‘changing of the guard’ storyline in NOAH. They could have set up a big match for Takayama against Rikio or Morishima stemming from the tag match at the last Budokan, and though this is still possible it seems unlikely. Alas it seems that Marufuji will bear the burden of NOAH’s lackadaisical booking style on his shoulders.
Tanahashi is fortunate not to be in the same situation on Monday. He has a match with the G-1 winner, on a card where there’s at least some relevance to the top six matches and a card which is close to the absolute best the company can come up with. The return of Nakamura, the return of the Takayama/Suzuki tandem, the junior champ versus the BOSJ winner, even an Akebono vs Koshinaka “Ultimate Butt Showdown” tag (their words). It will be interesting to see if this does better than the G-1 final, which would mean that to a certain extent good booking tops tradition. If it flops, everyone from Tanahashi & Tenzan to Nakamura to Yukes will be in a bad way. If it is a success, then there will be something for the main event winner and the company as a whole to build from.
Let’s hope for the best all around.
