Destruction
2014 in Kobe
(2014/9/21)
1. Bullet
Club (Yujiro Takahashi, Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson) vs. CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii,
Rocky Romero, Alex Koslov)
Fine
opener with Ishii GOATing as the rabid hot tag. Nice to see the Bucks back in
Japan.
***1/4
2. Suzuki-gun
(TAKA Michinoku, Taichi, Desperado) vs. Alex Shelley, Maximo, BUSHI
These
two teams had a good match on 9/13, so I already got what I wanted from them
days ago, therefore I wasn’t upset about the lack of an actual match here, this
was more of an angle to sell the evil SZKG trio as vicious evildoing pricks, I
quite dug it, swell little segment.
N/A
3. Yuji
Nagata, Manabu Nakanishi, Tiger Mask, Cpt. New Japan
vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, Jushin Liger, Tomoaki Honma
I
don’t understand why they separated Liger and TMIV here, but oh well… I guess
it’s because they didn’t want two complete underdogs (Honma and Captain) on the
same page. Ha, I just remembered they did it few days ago too. *** 10 minutes
later *** Yep, it makes even more sense now, because – HONMA WON! HONMA WON!
HONMA WON! Short, but very eventful 8-man tag with a nice, feelgood ending.
***1/4
4. Minoru
Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka vs. Toru Yano & Kazushi Sakuraba
Thankfully,
MiSu and Sakuraba were in the main roles here, so much heat and HATE between
them, Suzuki didn’t give a shit about Yano or the outcome, all he wanted is to
brawl with Sakuraba and possibly murder him, there was an obligatory post-match
annihilation of the Young Lions and all the other mad stuff MiSu does
regularly. This was a strong build to their inevitable Sumo Hall singles match
and I’m really looking forward to it.
***
5. IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship:
Ryusuke Taguchi vs. KUSHIDA ©
If
you told me six months ago these two would work a match like this, I’d call you
batshit insane. But things change, this was a GLORIOUS Jr. title match that
felt like a beautifully done throwback to the 90s and the time of
Samurai/Liger/Pegasus/Otani, I got those vibes. I’m a sucker for a focused,
minimalistic style of pro-wrestling, these two did a wonderful job in that
department.
****1/2
6. Tetsuya
Naito & Kota Ibushi vs. AJ Styles & Tama Tonga
Decent,
but that’s about it. It had its moments of potential greatness, but it never quite
materialized properly, they held back and it was obvious, especially in the
finishing run.
**3/4
7. IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship:
Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows ©
Very
good shit, borderline great, my man YOSHI-HASHI delivered again in the role of a
ballsy underdog against the big bad wolves. There was a fantastic nearfall that
cemented fucking Yujiro as the most hated man in puroresu, good shit all over
the place, really nice tag match.
***3/4
8. Hirooki
Goto vs. Togi Makabe
Well,
this sucked, and I had some hopes for this because their G1 match was good and
their prelude interactions were heated and looked promising. Unfortunately,
this one was bollocks. Plus, Goto lost… again, another big show, and another Goto
loss.
bad
9. Katsuyori
Shibata vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
After
watching the first time, I thought this was good, but not great. But then I got
this feeling, my gut was telling me to watch again because I missed something,
and it was right, this match was fantastic. It feels like a complete match, like
something’s come to an end, like the stage one of the rivalry is now over, that
post-match handshake is big, and it affects the bell-to-bell action too, that
handshake was a significant part of the whole story they told here. These two
have a tremendous chemistry together, they really upgraded and build on the
first two matches, so like I already said, it felt like a complete match and there
was this tangible sense of closure. I loved how Tana was booked here, one part
of the story was that his style of puroresu is better than Shibata’s style, it
was clear cut storytelling and you could feel it every time Tana made
transitions from Shibata inspired stiffness to his own arsenal of signature
spots. “First I’m gonna stand toe-to-toe with you in YOUR OWN puroresu, than I’m
gonna finish you off with mine, SUPERIOR puroresu, ergo, I AM A BETTER MAN!”
Fantastic stuff all around.
****1/2
10. IWGP Intercontinental Championship:
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Bad Luck Fale ©
Good,
satisfying main event with a surprising result, did not see the big man
dropping the belt back to Shinsuke on his first defense, not to mention
Shinsuke won their last match, at G1. This was another good match between these
two, probably the best after the NJC Finale. Fale is a good big guy, but can be
great when he has someone on the opposite side to bump and sell for him, and
Shinsuke did exactly that. They played off their earlier matches, it was nice,
overall this was a strong enough main event.
***3/4
