Newish W-1

Wrestle-1 2015/4/1

Wrestle-1 Championship: Hideki Suzuki vs. KAI ©

Not a great match like with Funaki, but still, this was another fun Hideki Suzuki gem. It’s so fascinating to see the slow and careful build in his matches even though you know they won’t last longer than cca 10 minutes. He’s a total badass and carries himself that way in the ring. KAI worked his ass off to climb the W-1 mountain, only to stumble upon the dangerous shooter in the first defense. The match was pretty rich and filled with happening for a seven minute affair, you got the sense it could end at any time, and that’s exactly what happened. Loved Hideki’s stoic approach, he was just bursting with confidence, it was like “KAI, you’re a fucking geek, I shit on you and all your Ace talk”, and even with KAI managing to hit some big moves you could feel they were just relatively minor obstacles on Hideki’s path of destruction. The moment of the match is KAI selling Hideki’s sleeper hold like a Godzilla apparition.

***1/2

Wrestle-1 2015/4/1

TAJIRI & Koji Doi vs. Ikemen Samurai (Masakatsu Funaki & Jiro Kuroshio)

Here I am, thinking we’re finally getting some Funaki/TAJIRI magic, only for Jiro to spend the 90% of the match as the FIP. Ouch. They did get in touch on a couple occasions, but they were not in major roles here, however now there’s at least SOME chance we might see them in a singles match, and oh boy, I think I’m going to love every second of it. You could already feel the HATE here, and it’s only the beginning. What else can I say about this match? Hmm, let’s see… Jiro is improving and Doi sucks a big one.

**1/2

Wrestle-1 2015/4/1

Wrestle-1 Tag Championship: New Wild Order (AKIRA & Manabu Soya) vs. Team 246 (Kaz Hayashi & Shuji Kondo) ©

I can be such a fool sometimes, I almost skipped this match because I so cannot stand Kaz Hayashi, but then I see it’s not very long, and it does have Kondo, Soya and AKIRA, all three good wrestlers, with Kondo being great most of time. And I’m so fucking glad I saw the match, because it was excellent. When you think about it, it’s so easy for tag matches to be great, all you need is a solid FIP segment or two, few dramatic saves and that’s it. And that’s exactly what this match was all about, the most simple and primal tag team wrestling. The story here was the old man AKIRA trying to survive the rollercoaster of a finishing stretch against the younger, faster and more athletic guys, and it was all great. Again, such a simple and cliché subplot, but it works every damn time when done properly and with right people. Watch this match!

****1/4

That Shinya Hashimoto Fed

ZERO1 Fourteen

(2015/3/1)

LEONA vs. Shinjiro Otani

LEONA is Fujinami’s ugly kid and is about to get schooled by Otani. You know it. Man, LEONA is not in good shape, in fact his 61 year old father is more fit than he is. He’s also not very good in the ring either, he’s actually getting worse and worse each and every time. Also, that ugly ass gear, what the fuck is that? Anyway, this was a TOTAL Otani carryjob, the veteran maestro displayed his amazing teaching abilities once again and carried the worthless sack of shit to a good match. Whether it was strike exchanges, counters, ground game, ringside brawling, crowd pandering, it doesn’t matter, he owned everything. I feel like LEONA should give up on pro-graps, he’s that awful.

*** (credit: Otani all the fucking way)

ZERO1 Fourteen

(2015/3/1)

Masakatsu Funaki vs. Hideki Suzuki

This match only had one flaw – it wasn’t longer than 7 minutes 17 seconds. Everything they did here was flawless, and although the story felt complete, they still left me wanting more, much more. This was a climax of the heated feud between these two shooters but they never met in a singles competition before, all the beef came from various tag team match combinations, and naturally I was really looking forward to this one. Needless to say, they delivered. This was a slick, clean and stoic semi-shoot style encounter where everything mattered down to a T. The first half was spent on the mat, both dudes were careful and defensive, attentively examining every hold and every next step. I loved the cross armbreaker sequence with Hideki avoiding it like plague, and man, it was pure struggle for life. Felt like watching a RINGS or UWFi match. The matwork was your good old school puroresu catching, it was based on simplicity and roughness, totally opposite of lucha’s gracious style. Korakuen watched with close attention and you could cut tension with a knife, it was only a matter of time before someone got tired of rolling on the mat, Funaki was the first one to throw a kick and from that point the shit was on – fast strikes, suplexes, catlike counters, etc. They ate some very nasty smacks, and shit man, that was rough stuff. It only lasted for a few minutes, but once it was over you didn’t feel like you missed anything. Like I said earlier, the story felt complete despite going for only 7 minutes.

Amazing match, and I really hope they meet again, preferably in Korakuen again, preferably in a title match of some kind.

****3/4

ZERO1 Fourteen

(2015/3/1)

NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Championship: Kohei Sato & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura ©

We start things off with a generic Sugiura strike exchange, luckily on the other side is Sekimoto so the boring drone from NOAH doesn’t get chance to totally suck. Then we get Tanaka/Kohei and it is totally vicious, they’re exchanging holds, both gain brief advantages before hitting each other really fucking hard. Cringeworthy already, lol. Kohei wins this battle and Tanaka is now a face-in-peril. He gets his ass kicked silly for awhile before breaking away and tagging in Sugiura. The latter, however, totally sucks as a hot tag asskicker, but thankfully his faux badassery doesn’t last for too long as he is quickly taken down, now he is a FIP. Tanaka proves to be a much better and more energetic hot tag, he kicks some ass but once again he fails and becomes a FIP for the second time. The challengers are completely dominating now. Tanaka breaks away somehow and now we’re officially in the finishing stretch, everyone’s just going all in as their respective health points are rapidly going down. The spot of the match is Kohei taking Yuji Okabayashi’s role in Sekimoto’s double suplex spot, great shit right there. The very climax of the match is fucking amazing as we get a Wild Kingdom scene of the lion Kohei fighting for his life against the hyenas, shit man, this is glorious. Definitely the best double elbow strikes spot Tanaka and Sugiura have ever done, the subplot of Kohei surviving everything they threw at him was smashing and super exciting. Eventually he falls down after few ultra vicious Sliding Ds, the match is over, the champs retain their gold.

What a fantastic match, pure war with smart and coherent layout, the key for success was neutralizing Sugiura’s shitty wrestling and they did exactly that. Sato and Tanaka have a crazy good chemistry.

****1/2

Random W-1 Stuff

Wrestle-1 2015/2/13

Ikemen Samurai (Masakatsu Funaki & Jiro Kuroshio) vs. New Wild Order (AKIRA & Manabu Soya)

Good tag team match with Kuroshio as a centerpiece of storytelling. I didn’t like him before, but all this teaming with Masa Funaki is doing wonders for him, they’re such an unusual duo and it works for both. Soya was excellent in this one, by the way.

***1/4

Wrestle-1 2015/2/13

Masato Tanaka vs. KAI

Typical Masato Tanaka tussles have both good and not so good parts. However, the good parts can be really fucking great sometimes and save the match, and that was the case here. He didn’t do his table spot, which is nice. KAI is on the winning streak and ready for a shot at Muto.

***1/4

Wrestle-1 2015/2/13

Wrestle-1 Tag Championship: Too Sharp (Minoru Tanaka & Seiki Yoshioka) vs. Team 246 (Kaz Hayashi & Shuji Kondo) ©

Mostly lifeless match. Minoru is still awesome, though, and you’d think the fallman should be obvious here, but take a better look. Basically, those two things saved the match from being bad. I could live without seeing another Kaz Hayashi match ever again. I wish Kondo would break away already.

**3/4

Wrestle-1 2015/2/22

Yusuke Kodama vs. Seiki Yoshioka

Solid match between the young guys, but could’ve/should’ve been better. I did like the BattleARTS inspired strikes, though. :)

**3/4

Wrestle-1 2015/2/22

Masato Tanaka vs. Shuji Kondo

A Masato Tanaka match. Too bad Kondo’s carryjob button wasn’t on the whole time.

***

Wrestle-1 2015/2/22

KAI, Ryota Hama, Yasufumi Nakanoue vs. Keiji Muto, Masakatsu Funaki, Shotaro Ashino

Very good, hard working 6-man tag with constant movement and well executed spots.

***1/2

Newish W-1

Wrestle-1 2015/1/30

Masayuki Kono vs. KAI

Good enough for me. I actually don’t mind Kono because he’s a very capable worker who can really shine when in the ring with a better opponent, it’s just that his current DESPERADO angle is holding him back and turns his matches into shit quite regularly. It can be fun, but it’s usually a miss. There wasn’t much of that here, the match was rather normal, with some grappling at the beginning, then some ringside brawling before the good closing stretch where they had to improvise due to KAI knocking out Kono during a double lariat spot. I liked this, good match.

***

Wrestle-1 2015/1/30

Hideki Suzuki & Yusaku Obata vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Jiro Kuroshio

Credit for all the stars goes to HIDEKI SUZUKI for being such a marvelous dickbag heel, he hijacked the match and fucking owned it. First he ripped Kuroshio’s jacket apart, then no sold him all the way ‘till the end where he destroyed him ringside while Funaki was busy in the ring. The Suzuki/Funaki heat is amazing and thankfully they’re finally booked for a singles slugfest in March, shit man, that match’s going to rule the world. They really hate each other, so much animosity in the air when they’re in the ring, everything is so natural and organic, that’s what a true wrestling rivalry should look like. On top of that, we also had Kuroshio and Obata smacking each other silly and punching each other after the match. God, I loved this match, such a nifty piece of storytelling.

****1/4

Wrestle-1 2015/1/30

Wrestle-1 Championship: Manabu Soya vs. Keiji Muto ©

Not as great as Sanada defense, but still very good. Muto is slow but he can still bump very well, and it certainly helps to see his opponents adjusting to his style and working his levels of pacing. Plus, of course, Muto’s always been a brilliant tactician and strategist with big ass wrestling IQ, it serves him good no matter the age. Soya is one rough fucker but Muto did his best to tame him and bring down to the ground, there were some neat hold-for-hold spots and reversals on the mat, Soya took a page or two from Sanada’s book. Huge points go to Muto for finishing off his opponents with Figure Four Leglock… in 2015. Like I said earlied, Muto is an amazing tactician whose “less is more” institute is glorious, and it fucking showed in the finishing run. Very good title match.

***3/4