Newish W-1

Wrestle-1 2015/4/1

Wrestle-1 Championship: Hideki Suzuki vs. KAI ©

Not a great match like with Funaki, but still, this was another fun Hideki Suzuki gem. It’s so fascinating to see the slow and careful build in his matches even though you know they won’t last longer than cca 10 minutes. He’s a total badass and carries himself that way in the ring. KAI worked his ass off to climb the W-1 mountain, only to stumble upon the dangerous shooter in the first defense. The match was pretty rich and filled with happening for a seven minute affair, you got the sense it could end at any time, and that’s exactly what happened. Loved Hideki’s stoic approach, he was just bursting with confidence, it was like “KAI, you’re a fucking geek, I shit on you and all your Ace talk”, and even with KAI managing to hit some big moves you could feel they were just relatively minor obstacles on Hideki’s path of destruction. The moment of the match is KAI selling Hideki’s sleeper hold like a Godzilla apparition.

***1/2

Wrestle-1 2015/4/1

TAJIRI & Koji Doi vs. Ikemen Samurai (Masakatsu Funaki & Jiro Kuroshio)

Here I am, thinking we’re finally getting some Funaki/TAJIRI magic, only for Jiro to spend the 90% of the match as the FIP. Ouch. They did get in touch on a couple occasions, but they were not in major roles here, however now there’s at least SOME chance we might see them in a singles match, and oh boy, I think I’m going to love every second of it. You could already feel the HATE here, and it’s only the beginning. What else can I say about this match? Hmm, let’s see… Jiro is improving and Doi sucks a big one.

**1/2

Wrestle-1 2015/4/1

Wrestle-1 Tag Championship: New Wild Order (AKIRA & Manabu Soya) vs. Team 246 (Kaz Hayashi & Shuji Kondo) ©

I can be such a fool sometimes, I almost skipped this match because I so cannot stand Kaz Hayashi, but then I see it’s not very long, and it does have Kondo, Soya and AKIRA, all three good wrestlers, with Kondo being great most of time. And I’m so fucking glad I saw the match, because it was excellent. When you think about it, it’s so easy for tag matches to be great, all you need is a solid FIP segment or two, few dramatic saves and that’s it. And that’s exactly what this match was all about, the most simple and primal tag team wrestling. The story here was the old man AKIRA trying to survive the rollercoaster of a finishing stretch against the younger, faster and more athletic guys, and it was all great. Again, such a simple and cliché subplot, but it works every damn time when done properly and with right people. Watch this match!

****1/4

Two More from ZERO1

ZERO1 2015/3/29

KAI & Ryota Hama vs. Kohei Sato & Hideki Suzuki

Fun little by-the-numbers tag, KAI and Suzuki were building towards their W-1 Title match and it was good, the post-match stuff with Suzuki kicking the rookies around was hilarious. All that with a smirk on his face. Hama has solid chemistry with Sato and Suzuki.

***

ZERO1 2015/3/29

Shingo Takagi vs. Masato Tanaka

Your typical Masato Tanaka rollercoaster (of moves), a full throttle tussle where “my turn-your turn” is the be all and end all. Lots and lots of slams, elbows, strikes, lariats and kickouts, there were no rest periods at all, everything was constant movement. Naturally, considering this is a Tanaka match, the closing stretch was an overkill of big moves and cheap kickouts. However, they did beat the living shit out of each other on many occasions throughout the match and I’d feel really bad not to label this match “good”. Shingo looks so compelling and fresh out of Dragon Gate.

***

OTANI~! (and some other scrubs)

ZERO1 2015/3/29

Ikuto Hidaka & Fujita Hayato vs. Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

Otani’s always been fabulous and severely underrated, but now he might have evolved into his best version yet – a grumpy cutthroat whose biggest pleasure in life is beating the shit out of people. Basically, a new Tenryu. Here he is, a force to be reckoned with, going all the way with the fierce Juniors, and really, Otani made this match great, everything he did was awesome, in every part of the match, whether it’s feeling out process, crowd pandering spots, laying smackdowns, hot tag, etc. Hidaka and Hayato were solid enough and Takaiwa wasn’t anything good until the finishing run. The match ended on a very high note, I gotta say, the climax was exciting and well done with all the nearfalls and fall-breakers, great drama right there, plus they never went over-the-top, everything felt organic. What a great tag team gem, this mustn’t remain hidden under the big pile of other March wrestling.

****

ZERO1 2015/1/23

Shinjiro Otani & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Kohei Sato & Hideki Suzuki

Technically, this wasn’t exactly a ZERO1 show, it was a joint (?) show with Onita’s (?) Super Fireworks indie promotion (?), but waddaya gonna do, I’m putting this into a ZERO1 drawer. Jesus, on paper this looks like a total dream match of utter asskicking and manliness. They never really got there, though, partially because the match wasn’t very long and partially because they didn’t quite create a different story other than “four men married to violence”. For that, the match was very good, but ultimately – aimless. There’s no need for singling out any particular match-up here, because pretty much everything was solid/good/great, and you know what you get from all the names involved. The finishing stretch with Otani and Suzuki was brutal. Too bad this was basically a B-show, put this pairing in Korakuen and you’ll get something truly special.

***3/4

That Shinya Hashimoto Fed

ZERO1 Fourteen

(2015/3/1)

LEONA vs. Shinjiro Otani

LEONA is Fujinami’s ugly kid and is about to get schooled by Otani. You know it. Man, LEONA is not in good shape, in fact his 61 year old father is more fit than he is. He’s also not very good in the ring either, he’s actually getting worse and worse each and every time. Also, that ugly ass gear, what the fuck is that? Anyway, this was a TOTAL Otani carryjob, the veteran maestro displayed his amazing teaching abilities once again and carried the worthless sack of shit to a good match. Whether it was strike exchanges, counters, ground game, ringside brawling, crowd pandering, it doesn’t matter, he owned everything. I feel like LEONA should give up on pro-graps, he’s that awful.

*** (credit: Otani all the fucking way)

ZERO1 Fourteen

(2015/3/1)

Masakatsu Funaki vs. Hideki Suzuki

This match only had one flaw – it wasn’t longer than 7 minutes 17 seconds. Everything they did here was flawless, and although the story felt complete, they still left me wanting more, much more. This was a climax of the heated feud between these two shooters but they never met in a singles competition before, all the beef came from various tag team match combinations, and naturally I was really looking forward to this one. Needless to say, they delivered. This was a slick, clean and stoic semi-shoot style encounter where everything mattered down to a T. The first half was spent on the mat, both dudes were careful and defensive, attentively examining every hold and every next step. I loved the cross armbreaker sequence with Hideki avoiding it like plague, and man, it was pure struggle for life. Felt like watching a RINGS or UWFi match. The matwork was your good old school puroresu catching, it was based on simplicity and roughness, totally opposite of lucha’s gracious style. Korakuen watched with close attention and you could cut tension with a knife, it was only a matter of time before someone got tired of rolling on the mat, Funaki was the first one to throw a kick and from that point the shit was on – fast strikes, suplexes, catlike counters, etc. They ate some very nasty smacks, and shit man, that was rough stuff. It only lasted for a few minutes, but once it was over you didn’t feel like you missed anything. Like I said earlier, the story felt complete despite going for only 7 minutes.

Amazing match, and I really hope they meet again, preferably in Korakuen again, preferably in a title match of some kind.

****3/4

ZERO1 Fourteen

(2015/3/1)

NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Championship: Kohei Sato & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura ©

We start things off with a generic Sugiura strike exchange, luckily on the other side is Sekimoto so the boring drone from NOAH doesn’t get chance to totally suck. Then we get Tanaka/Kohei and it is totally vicious, they’re exchanging holds, both gain brief advantages before hitting each other really fucking hard. Cringeworthy already, lol. Kohei wins this battle and Tanaka is now a face-in-peril. He gets his ass kicked silly for awhile before breaking away and tagging in Sugiura. The latter, however, totally sucks as a hot tag asskicker, but thankfully his faux badassery doesn’t last for too long as he is quickly taken down, now he is a FIP. Tanaka proves to be a much better and more energetic hot tag, he kicks some ass but once again he fails and becomes a FIP for the second time. The challengers are completely dominating now. Tanaka breaks away somehow and now we’re officially in the finishing stretch, everyone’s just going all in as their respective health points are rapidly going down. The spot of the match is Kohei taking Yuji Okabayashi’s role in Sekimoto’s double suplex spot, great shit right there. The very climax of the match is fucking amazing as we get a Wild Kingdom scene of the lion Kohei fighting for his life against the hyenas, shit man, this is glorious. Definitely the best double elbow strikes spot Tanaka and Sugiura have ever done, the subplot of Kohei surviving everything they threw at him was smashing and super exciting. Eventually he falls down after few ultra vicious Sliding Ds, the match is over, the champs retain their gold.

What a fantastic match, pure war with smart and coherent layout, the key for success was neutralizing Sugiura’s shitty wrestling and they did exactly that. Sato and Tanaka have a crazy good chemistry.

****1/2