BJW 2014/10/31

Saikyo Tag League 2014

 (2014/10/31)

BJW 2014/8/21, 8/24, 8/31

Daisuke Sekimoto 15^th Anniversary

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

Random New Year Puroresu

Dragon Gate 2015/1/16

Monster Express (Akira Tozawa, Shingo Takagi, Shachihoko BOY) vs. Dia.HEARTS (BxB Hulk, Masaaki Mochizuki, Dragon Kid)

Good trio with a particularly swell and frantic climax. Mochi is pretty much the best DG guy ever.

***1/4

Dragon Gate 2015/1/16

No. 1 Cont for Open the Dream Gate: Big R Shimizu vs. Jimmy Susumu

Excellent, excellent match, Shimizu is improving rapidly and he’s a rock solid powerhouse now, this was a stellar performance by him, superb sense for timing and pacing, and on the other side we have Susumu, probably the most underrated and underappreciated Dragon Gate wrestler ever. Such a smart contest with a well worked layout that made both guys looked great. Susumu’s old man selling was impeccable.

****1/4

NOAH 2015/1/10

GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste) vs. Takashi Sugiura & Masato Tanaka ©

Pretty damn good every time TMDK was hitting their hope spots and signature sequences, but also incredibly dull every time with the champs on offense, especially with Sugiura who gives Marufuji a serious run for his money with how boring and shitty wrestler he is. Nicholls and Haste are two boring crackas with next to zero charisma or interesting personality, but somehow they work well as a team and their double team spots are impressive, at least they’re well aware of their limitations and know the limits of the comfort zone. Sugiura, on the other hand, makes me despise pro-wrestling after watching his matches.

**3/4

NOAH 2015/1/10

GHC Heavyweight Championship: Satoshi Kojima vs. Naomichi Marufuji ©

Good match totally carried by Kojima who somehow managed to soothe Marufuji’s horrendous wrestling. Obviously Marufuji still pushed through some of shit, but Kojima is the absolute class who brought legitimacy and prestige to the match and it looked normal for once. So, yeah, a three star stuff is probably the absolute maximum you can get from a Marufuji match nowadays, so in that context this shit totally overdelivered. One thing I do like about Maru is his rough looking knee blasts, if he based his strategies and offense around that weapon, he’d even had a chance of developing into a solid performer.

***

NOAH 2015/1/12

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima

One day I hope we get a proper match between these two fuckers, because this looked more like a tease, but it was a good tease, though, Zack obviously worked Jima’s arm and it’s good the match had some focus like that. Nakajima’s been lost for years now, being in NOAH certainly doesn’t help his chances, so why not give him good guys like Zack, Ogawa or an outsider to feud with?

***1/4

ZERO1 2015/1/1

5-on-5 GAUNTLET: Yoshihiro Takayama, Daisuke Sekimoto, Akebono, Takashi Sugiura, Ryoji Sai vs. Shinjiro Otani, Yusaku Obata, Hideki Suzuki, Masato Tanaka, Kohei Sato

Featured matches: Takayama/Otani (this was more than ten min long but they only aired five, motherless fucks; damn fine five minutes, though, Big Tak still bumping hard, god he’ll die in that ring), Otani/Sekimoto (phenomenal four minutes, truly outstanding), Sekimoto/Obata (another phenomenal mini-match, five minutes long; Obata went full throttle on Sekimoto, but it wasn’t enough to take down the beast), Sekimoto/Suzuki (damn good match with Hideki slowing Daisuke down to set up his own pace, the climax was awesome), Suzuki/Akebono (decent stuff, the weakest thus far though, only four minutes and they ended just when it got interesting), Akebono/Tanaka (excellent four min slugfest), Tanaka/Sugiura (holy shit, these two mutilated each other silly with all the ultra stiff blasts, one of the roughest matches ever, crazy stuff, the best Sugiura has looked in a couple of years), Sai/Sato (good little match but this gauntlet needed something better and more dramatic to follow up Tanaka/Sugiura).

As you can see, this was a highly enjoyable gauntlet match full of glorious action packed mini-matches, with Sekimoto and Tanaka being the standout performers. Unfortunately, Ryoji Sai was not a match for Kohei Sato’s badass swag in finale, hence the gauntlet not ending on a high note it needed after the fabulous Tanaka/Sugiura tussle, if only Kohei worked with someone like Obata then we’d talk about a true masterpiece here. Still, that’s just a relatively minor complaint, this was one helluva ride, top notch entertainment.

****1/2