King
of Pro-Wrestling 2014
(2014/10/13)
1. Bullet
Club (Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga) vs. Togi Makabe,
Yuji Nagata, Tomoaki Honma, Kota Ibushi
Decent,
perky 8-man tag, no complaints here, they didn’t overstay their welcome at all.
**1/2
2. NWA World Jr. Heavyweight Championship:
BUSHI vs. Chase Owens ©
Decent
lowcard showcase, but nothing I’ll remember in a week or two. BUSHI got to
display his entire arsenal here, Owens was not bad, but he was kind of… just
there, the match lacked heat to be considered good. However, there was
something good at least, and that is Liger’s post-match promo, he’s really good
in ENGRISH and, of course, immensely over with the fans.
**1/2
3. NWA World Tag Team Championship:
Killer Elite Squad (Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr.) vs. TenKoji
(Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) ©
Okay,
everyone’s sick of this never ending rivalry, but they always kind of manage to
produce good matches together, and this one was no exception. It certainly
helped they haven’t faced each others in a relatively long time.
Yada-yada-yada, ARCHER!
***1/4
4. Minoru
Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka vs. Toru Yano & Kazushi Sakuraba
Right
up until the finishing run, MiSu and Saku were in leading roles here, and thank
fuck I say, that’s why the match turned out to be good, MiSu had this crazy
look on his face the whole time, he hates Sakuraba and wants to skin him alive.
Tremendous chemistry and heat between these two, both during and after the
match, can’t wait for an eventual 1-on-1 match.
***
5. 3-WAY
for IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team
Championship: Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) vs. Forever
Hooligans (Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov) vs. Time Splitters (KUSHIDA &
Alex Shelley) ©
Shit,
knew this would suck the moment I saw they’re going with only two legal guys in
there, instead of three like it should be. They should take a page from DDT’s
glorious book when it comes to 3-ways, because this really put me off and I
couldn’t get into it due to lack of proper rhythm and shit. Bad, bad, bad match
that went on for way too long, this should’ve been just Bucks/Splitters, the
Hooligans were a painful third wheel.
bad
6. IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship:
Desperado vs. Ryusuke Taguchi ©
They
had a good match in this year’s BOSJ, Taguchi’s coming off the amazing KUSHIDA
match, Desperado has improved himself tremendously, so naturally I was expected
a great match, potential MOTN even, but it didn’t work. The beginning with fake
Desperado was cool and well done, but the rest was kind of uninspired. Not a
bad match, but not a good one either. Taichi is the next challenger, though,
that might rock my world.
**3/4
7. NEVER Openweight Championship:
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yujiro Takahashi ©
This
match was fantastic, even better than Kizuna Road title match, and here I
thought it would be impossible to top that one because I thought that was
Yujiro’s peak. Well, I was wrong, this is the best Yujiro match ever and BY FAR
the best Yujiro performance ever, he felt the cheating alone will not bring him
victory this time and he was right (great callbacks in there), so he stepped
the fuck up in the “Ishii department”, he was quite rough and hard-hitting,
often matching Ishii’s rabid aggression and energy, you’ll never see Yujiro
being this tough again. It was a great character progression and logical
storytelling. His control sessions were never dull, which made Ishii’s
comebacks even sweeter. The finishing run was something else, pure ecstasy
right there, what an excellent match.
****1/2
8. Hirooki
Goto & Katsuyori Shibata vs. Shinsuke Nakamura & YOSHI-HASHI
Good
prelude to Power Struggle main event, Goto was useless once again, YOSHI-HASHI
brought fire and heat, once again. Could’ve been better near the end, but it is
what it is, many early parts were really good.
***1/4
9. Tokyo Dome 2015 Heavyweight Title Shot:
Tetsuya Naito vs. Kazuchika Okada (G1w)
This
year they had a borderline bad match at WK8 and a glorious one from G1. In the
middle of the match I was ready to be disappointed again because other that
Naito’s hard fucking slap from the early phase, nothing stood out of ordinary,
they were just playing by-the-book, almost on auto-pilot. But thankfully, they
improved their game massively in the second half, and the last chapter was a
high-end stuff that reminded on their superb chemistry. At the end of the day,
this was a damn fine match, but if I were to watch it again soon, I wouldn’t
mind seeing 5-6 minutes clipped from the early middle.
***3/4
10. IWGP Heavyweight Championship:
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. AJ Styles ©
Certainly
not a high-end classic like the previous two KOPW main events, but still a
great main event title match on its own way. The Jarrett interferences were
inevitable, but thankfully they didn’t happen at the end of the match as
expected, so he wasn’t able to ruin the finish, plus there was NAOFUMI YAMAMOTO
to prevent the further escalation of his WCW/TNA guitar fuckery, so no biggie
there, they booked it well – Jarrett interfered, Tatsu saved. The final 5-6
minutes was Tana and AJ fighting 1-on-1, great drama and nearfalls, your typical
big Tanahashi title match, did not see the title change coming, I was sure they’re
going with Okada/Styles for the Dome, but oh well, I’m not gonna waste my time
writing about obvious advantages/disadvantages when it comes to this booking
decision, it’s all over internet anyway.
So,
I talked about the post-Jarrett stuff in the match, but I have to say I really
dug the first half with all the careful and methodical approach, it’s a damn
shame it might fly under the radar due to interferences and title change.
****1/4
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