NOWA Feeling Like it's 2005 (that one night...)

NOAH 2015/09/19

GHC Heavyweight Championship: Takashi Sugiura vs. Minoru Suzuki ©

Well, here we go, finally something truly noteworthy coming out of this SZKG angle, because this super clash is just stupendously awesome. MiSu is such a wizard of pro-scraps, and this instant classic should serve as the example and testament of his undisputed greatness, as he carried Sugiura to his very best singles match ever. Sugiura’s been such a shit wrestler since 2011, but credit where credit is due, he was good enough here. He sold well, even exceptionally well at certain instances, his strikes finally meant something and the crowd totally bought into his potential victory. It was awesome. Unfortunately, the match still had that one or two strike battles too many, and basically that’s why I can’t give this slugfest a full boat. It’s a relatively minor nitpick, because MiSu managed to make everything Sugiura did look so good and compelling, but it’s still a nitpick that bothers me and it took away from the middle portion.

But let’s be positive here, Suzuki took all the crappy Sugiura ingredients and blended them into his masterful human chessgame elements, hence why this match turned so goddamn amazing. I loved the structure, it felt stupendously organic and natural, very easy to keep up with everything, and yet nothing felt tedious or tiresome. Quite unique match, especially for NOAH universe, and it contains the best fucking slap battle in motherfucking YEARS!

****3/4

Takayama/Suzuki

NOAH 2015/07/18

GHC Heavyweight Championship: Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Minoru Suzuki ©

Even in 2015, even with Big Tak being one DDT away from dropping dead, you can still classify this meeting as “dream match”, or something like that. The screenshots for this were insanely attractive as they showed Takayama’s face soaked in blood. Also the story basically wrote itself, Takayama challenging for the GHC strap one last (?) time, etc. And yes, most of the match was really fucking good, they brawled very well and Takayama bled like a slaughtered pig, but unfortunately, many endless interferences really brought the whole thing down. I could live with Taichi being a colossal dickbag with his constant ringside antics, but the entire SZKG going after Takayama in the finishing stretch, with the ref getting bumped and stupidly distracted like ten times in a row… Wow, it was just too much. Makes you appreciate Bullet Club. Really, huge props to Takayama for his heroic performance, he looked like a fucking warrior, gladiator out there, also props to MiSu as well for playing the invader cards so well, but Jado’s booking prevented this from being a classic.

***

It's Been 6 Years

MiSu/Harada and TAKA/Marufuji

NOAH 2015/2/11

Minoru Suzuki vs. Daisuke Harada

Damn, MiSu’s in a tremendous shape! Harada sucker-punches the malicious invader from New Japan and it works in his favor for awhile, but the goblin is too much for him to handle eventually, Harada take helluva beating outside the ring. He gets his ass kicked and it’s all good and simple pro-wrestling. Harada still manages to sneak in a nearfall or two but no one’s buying that he could shock us all. One of the many insanely cool things about Suzuki is how he uses simple things such as SLAPS to turn things around, in this particular instance poor Harada could Usain Bolt the ropes all day long but to little or no avail.

***1/2

NOAH 2015/2/11

TAKA Michinoku vs. Naomichi Marufuji

Fun TAKA carryjob. Cool thing about Suzuki-gun invading NOAH is that we get all these short ‘n’ sweet TAKA matches that are totally cute and a great reminder of his huge wrestling IQ. He was great here in cheating and working over Marufuji’s leg, but it takes two to tango, and of course Marufuji didn’t bother to sell any real damage. That useless sack of penises! With a better seller (or a seller of any kind), this would’ve been a borderline great match.

***1/4 (credit: TAKA)

TAKA/Ogawa and Taichi/Zack

NOAH 2015/2/4

TAKA Michinoku vs. Yoshinari Ogawa

Fuck yes, amazing little match between two of the most cunning little fuckers on the planet, this was only 7 minutes long but it didn’t need more because these two veterans are so crafty and shrewd it made for a complete match. Well, minus the cheating at the end, lol, but that’s only for a rematch to happen, at least that’s what I hope. Ogawa was excellent here with all the tight armwork, TAKA was excellent in selling the damage and trying to find a different (sneaky) way to win this. Fabulous little match.

****

NOAH 2015/2/4

No. 1 Cont. for GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title: Taichi vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

Good match, but not as good as I was hoping. Taichi did his cheating stuff from New Japan, Zack tried to be a sympathetic babyface, yada-yada-yada… Good yet unspectacular.

***

New NOAH & K-DOJO (Cherry-Picked)

NOAH 2015/1/24

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima

Nice match with Zack working on Nakajima’s arm once again, and generally it was good, but the curse of NOAH is strong as its matches are often emotionally dry, and the fact Nakajima has regressed in quality tremendously certainly doesn’t help either, he’s such a lifeless wrestler now. So yeah, the match was good with some neat ideas thrown around but overall it’s nothing must-see as the paper might suggest. If this was Nakajima from 5+ years ago, then yes, but now I feel like a ***1/4 match might be his limit, even when facing someone as great as Zack, although the latter displayed his fair share of flaws as well.

***1/4

NOAH 2015/1/24

5-on-5 ELIMINATION MATCH: SZKG (Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Shelton Benjamin, Taichi) vs. Naomichi Marufuji, Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste, Mohammed Yone, Taiji Ishimori

Pretty average elimination tag, absolutely nothing must-see here. While it’s cool to see Suzuki-gun invading NOAH, the problem is they have no one to work against. TMDK is a duo of boring crackas who somehow make for a decent tag team, Marufuji and Yone are absolutely horrendous and make me cringe hard, Ishimori is the only good guy from the group, but he got whacked first. Dull aura surrounding NOAH shows doesn’t help either. Eh, at least the post-match brawl was well done. If nothing, it’s also at least cool to see the boring NOAH quasi-stars getting beaten.

**1/4

NOAH 2015/1/24

GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship: Daisuke Harada vs. Atsushi Kotoge ©

I get what they were going for, but ultimately they disappointed. Two Juniors doing a sluggish heavyweight battle is very interesting in theory and can be delightful when done right, but here I feel like it hurt the match. When they decided not to wow us with crazy Junior action, they didn’t really think it through, they didn’t deliver a Plan B that would require more engaging personality work as a substitution. Good match that falls under that category of three star matches I’d be fine with never watching again.

***

NOAH 2015/1/18

SZKG (Taichi, Desperado, TAKA) vs. Yoshinari Ogawa, Zack Sabre Jr., Hitoshi Kumano

I expected a lot from this match because I love the SZKG trio of dickheads, Ogawa is probably the best NOAH wrestler, Zack is really good with some tendencies for greatness, and Kumano is a solid young gun. Plus the storyline about SZKG invading NOAH is somewhat interesting, so there it is. Unfortunately, the match was kind of average, basic as fuck.

**3/4

K-DOJO 2015/1/25

Kotaro Yoshino vs. TAKA Michinoku

New Japan’s TAKA is an eternal goof who does semi-comedic wrestling and interferes into his stablemates’ matches all the time. The homefield TAKA, though, that guy is real deal, it’s such a breeze of fresh air watching him in K-DOJO where he is a seasoned veteran schooling younger guys, and he’s so damn good at it, his ground game is excellent in its simplicity, the way he uses headlocks is amazing, like a relentless honey badger he keeps insisting on them until he breaks his opponent’s spirit.

***3/4

K-DOJO 2015/1/25

Yuji Hino & Hiro Tonai vs. Shiori Asahi & Ayumu Honda

Good tag match overall, albeit little too by-the-numbers and dry at places. First time seeing the young Honda and kid looks promising. I love Shiori Asahi, that sneaky little rat fuck.

***

K-DOJO 2015/1/25

Strongest-K Championship: Saburo Inematsu vs. Kengo Mashimo ©

Holy shit, this was so boring.

bad