All Japan 2/7: Zeus vs. Go

Excite Series 2015

(2015/2/7)

2.       The Bodyguard & Shigehiro Irie vs. Kento Miyahara & Yohei Nakajima

Average tag, should’ve been much better. The fallman was way too obvious, but the problem is they didn’t manage to disguise that. Miyahara/Irie needs to happen, btw.

**3/4

4.       Jun Akiyama, Takao Omori, Ultimo Dragon vs. Suwama, Hikaru Sato, Naoya Nomura

Good 6-man tag with everyone playing their roles well. This was another match with the obvious fallman, but with Suwama and Sato on his side you get the feeling that maybe Omori or UD might get clipped, and they worked with that very nicely. Apparently Nomura wants to join Evolution and I’d really like that, because Suwama works great with rookies (remember Takumi Soya?) and Nomura is clearly talented. However, Hikaru Sato was not pleased with his effort and he beat the shit out of him backstage, man oh man, that was some tough love (?) right there. Felt kind of uncomfortable too, hehe. Not only poor Nomura got his ass kicked, head smacked and bones stretched during the match (Akiyama is evil), but he also had to suffer a beating from a guy two heads shorter than him, lol.

***1/2

5.       Jr. Battle of Glory 2015 – Block B: Kotaro Suzuki vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru

You know what you get with these two together - some great moments and exciting chain sequences that make for a great match, but also a stupid moment or two that bring the match down from the “great” territory. Overall though, very nice and enjoyable match with an exciting closing stretch and some impressive struggle for moves, especially for brainbusters.

***1/2

6.       Jr. Battle of Glory 2015 – Block A: Keisuke Ishii vs. Atsushi Aoki

Excellent slugfest, Aoki was a major shitcunt here, he ambushed and sucker-punched Ishii before the bell and mauled him during the opening stages. He did a number on his arm and dropped him on the head few times. It was a classic story that wrote itself after that, Ishii’s comebacks and hope spots were great, Aoki continued being a DICK and the climax was excellent, especially with Aoki applying the sickest modified cross armbreaker ever, where he managed to lock both of Ishii’s arms. Sick match, loved every second of it.

****1/4

7.       AJPW Triple Crown Championship: Zeus vs. Go Shiozaki ©

The Goldberg and Scott Steiner fan Zeus was one of my favorite discoveries of 2014 and here he is, in the biggest match of his career and I’m pretty fucking pumped for it. Both dudes are careful at the start and they are feeling each other out with some hard chops and shoulderblocks. Zeus wins the first battle and outpowers Go. Go is bumping hard and making his best efforts to make the challenger look like a total beast. Zeus is awesome in controlling this opening phase. Go makes a brief comeback but loses the mini-chop battle. Zeus applies a nasty chinlock and it looks awesome. Go is totally working from behind right now, he loses every chop battle and Zeus is quickly destroying his health points. Go is desperately trying to reverse the course of the match but Zeus is just too damn tough. Eventually Go manages to buy some time by finally bringing down the beast via superkicks, chops, stiff spinning karate chop and nasty headdrop. However, Go’s control sessions doesn’t last for long as Zeus is able to regain the momentum once again. He even does a plancha. Great chokeslam too. Pure display of power by the challenger. But Go keeps insisting on chop exchanges and lariats, which pays off eventually and he brings some balance to the game, Zeus falls for his shtick and it’s the beginning of his fall. We get another chop battle, the long one, that Go wins and caps off with a vicious lariat and great plancha. We’re in the finishing stretch now, they’re out of bullets and it’s time for throwing bombs. We get ANOTHER rough chop tussle, Zeus is about to lose it again so he throws a gnarly punch out of despair. That was an awesome little character moment right there. However, Go fires back with a spinning chop and from that point onwards we get one of those typical All Japan climaxes where it’s obvious that a Player 1 is done, it’s just a matter of which Player 2 move is going to be fatal. Here it was a moonsault.

Fantastic Triple Crown match with great structure and layout, Go was great in working from beneath all the time and making Zeus look monstrous. Zeus totally delivered in his career showcase match and I hope this solidified him as the future main eventer.

****1/2