Okayama

Destruction 2015 in Okayama

(2015/09/23)

1.      Tetsuya Naito, Manabu Nakanishi, David Finlay, Jay White vs. Katsuyori Shibata, Yuji Nagata, Yohei Komatsu, Sho Tanaka

Killer opener. Obviously I’m rating and talking about the whole story here, not just bell-to-bell stuff. That stuff was good, but the post-match was pure gold, with Shibata just beating the shit out of Naito, he unleashed on him everything he held back during the actual match. Naito kept no selling everything, which fucking infuriated Shibata, who really looked like he wanted to murder Naito on three different post-match occasions. It was a fabulous payoff to when Naito sucker-punched Shibata from behind during the match, with Shibata literally going on like nothing happened. Oh boy, I can’t wait for their Dominion clash.

***3/4

2.      reDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) vs. Jushin Liger & Mascara Dorada

Good match, one of the best MMA geeks “Kaile” and Fish had in New Japan. Liger and Dorada are simply superb workers who didn’t leave too much space for the ROH drones to plague the match. Everything was a movement and done in a serious manner, Dorada hit his happy-go-lucky spots and all in all, the match was perfectly fine.

***1/4

3.      NWA World Jr. Heavyweight Championship: Tiger Mask vs. Steve Anthony ©

At least TM4 won, which means he might defend the strap against Liger down the road.

bad

4.      Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Matt Sydal

Good little Fale/Tana warm-up, with Sydal hitting all the cute spots to get over, and Tonga being the obligatory fallman. I think it wouldn’t have hurt if Fale went over Tana here, or even vice versa, to spice things up and add some suspense to their upcoming Kobe clash, but instead we got another generic Tama Tonga loss. Tana and Sydal taking turns as the FIPs really made this match good.

***

5.      IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) vs. Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows ©

A match.

**1/2

6.      CHAOS (Shinsuke Nakamura, Tomohiro Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI, Rocky Romero, Beretta) vs. Hirooki Goto, Tomoaki Honma, Cpt. New Japan, Ryusuke Taguchi, Alex Shelley

A match. Yeah, I know… The Ishii/Honma/YOSHI-HASHI triangle was awesome, though.

**3/4

7.      AJ Styles & Cody Hall vs. Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano

Another forgettable Okada/AJ tag. Cody Hall is the biggest waste of height in wrestling today.

**1/4

8.      IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Kenny Omega vs. KUSHIDA ©

Awesome match, vastly superior to the overrated Dominion match, and keep in mind this one was even held back by the Gallows and Anderson interferences. This was a great clash, with both guys performing very well and working super hard, I love how they kept it simple and played off each other’s strengths and (kayfabe) weaknesses. Omega is still an awesome wrestler held back by an unnecessarily silly gimmick, but this was a step into right direction, because I’ll take Karl and Doc interfering over the shitty Cleaner buffoonery every fucking time.

****1/4

9.      NEVER Openweight Championship: Kota Ibushi vs. Togi Makabe ©

This was an awesome main event, which is something I definitely did not expect, my biggest fear was they’d choose the by-the-numbers approach and just go out there and get done with it. Kota’s freakish athleticism is a gift and a curse, but here he meshed so well with Makabe, who gets so much hate from me quite often, but let’s be honest here, every year dude busts out few memorable gems loaded with great structural bits and wonderful psychology. This was one of those times. He led the game here, all Kota had to do is sell, and he did just that. Sure, Kota only has two facial expressions, but Makabe sure as hell used them to the maximum.

From a kayfabe perspective, Kota’s entire gameplan was a fatal error destined to fail sooner or later. He got sucked into Makabe’s brawling pace and it mostly didn’t work, even when he really insisted on it. Makabe was marvelous at giving a beating to Ibushi and controlling the pace and rhythm. The match was filled with awesome little touches and details, my absolute favorite being Makabe’s angry “now you’re done” look on his face right before hitting Kota with a vile spider dragon suplex (!).

Great match. I know many people were unhappy that Makabe won, that Ibushi lost yet another big match and that we’re getting Ishii vs. Makabe IV at KOPW, but fuck that shit, the match was great and had me rooting for Makabe, also Ishii is totally getting this championship back, so everything should be okay. Unless they decide to repeat the shitty Dominion recipe, lol.

****1/4