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.

***

Random January Puroresu

Wrestle-1 2015/1/11

KAI vs. Masakatsu Funaki

I always love when these two meet, they have a great chemistry where nifty simplicity runs wild and this match was no different. Funaki is such a class wrestler who always makes his opponents look good and KAI is in the position where he really needs that nowadays. Their “shoot” and “pro” styles mesh well and the finish was excellent. Hopefully one of them win the championship so we can see them in a big title match, preferably in Sumo Hall, that’d be swell.

***3/4

Wrestle-1 2015/1/11

Wrestle-1 Tag Championship: Yasufumi Nakanoue & Yusuke Kodama vs. Team 246 (Kaz Hayashi & Shuji Kondo) ©

This was an excellent wrestling story, the young underdog challengers wasted no time and decided to go full throttle right off the bat, they estimated their chances would be bigger if they cut an opening phase or two from the beginning and go straight to rapid fire moves. Well, they didn’t win but they came pretty damn close, probably closer than where they’d come under Hayashi & Kondo pacing watch. The crowd was very into the match and some of the nearfalls were glorious. I totally didn’t expect the match to be this great, these four guys killed it, Nakanoue looked amazing.

****1/4

Wrestle-1 2015/1/24

TAJIRI vs. Daiki Inaba

TAJIRI, an absolute master of the game, takes the talented youngster to school. He gives him a lot and makes him look amazing, TAJIRI is the best of the best. You don’t want to miss this mini-classic. Might be the best Wrestle-1 match ever.

****1/4

Dragon Gate 2015/1/18

Open the Triangle Gate: Monster Express (Akira Tozawa, Shingo Takagi, Shachihoko BOY) vs. Dia.HEARTS (Masaaki Mochizuki, Dragon Kid, Big R Shimizu) ©

Mostly dull as shit, with only Mochi and Shimizu being the saving graces, but not enough to elevate the match properly. I hated Tozawa here, he was awful. There was so much dead parts, and of course they didn’t want to call it a day until all the Dragon Gate trio ingredients were squeezed in. Yack…

**

Dragon Gate 2015/1/12

Akira Tozawa & Shingo Takagi vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & Big R Shimizu

Good match, Shimizu was the best here, dude’s the best thing in Dragon Gate now. On the other hand, when did Tozawa get so lame and annoying? Smh…

***

 

All Japan 2015/1/3

New Year Wars 2015

(2015/1/3)

1.       Yohei Nakajima, Naoya Nomura, Yuma Aoyagi vs. Masanobu Fuchi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Ultimo Dragon

Fun opener with a peculiar underdog trio led by jobber Nakajima battling against the super experienced trio, they stood no chance and the story went exactly that way.

**3/4

2.       Soma Takao vs. Atsushi Aoki

Killer little match, rough and heavy, Aoki was relentless with attacking Takao’s back and it paid off. There was that one totally fabulous sequence with Aoki shoving Takao into the guardrails repeatedly, smashing shit. Also, the finish was excellent.

***1/2

3.       GAORA TV Championship: Ryuji Hijikata vs. KENSO ©

This was actually passable until the unnecessary ref bump.

bad

4.       Jun Akiyama, Takao Omori, SUSHI vs. Akebono, Shigehiro Irie, Shuji Ishikawa

So cool to see my man Shuji in All Japan, man I wish it could happen more regularly. Anyway, fuck SUSHI, there was too much of him in the match and he brought it down, because that’s what he does best. Fuck SUSHI. Sure, he was the obvious fallman, but still – FUCK HIM.

***1/4

5.       Shingo Takagi & Zeus vs. Suwama & Hikaru Sato

The fallman is obvious here but it didn’t prevent the match from being really good. That’s because they worked smart and didn’t get overambitious. It was cool to see Shingo in All Japan, just like Shuji Ishikawa earlier, hopefully they come back.

***3/4

6.       All Asia Tag Team Championship: Mitsuya Nagai & Takeshi Minamino vs. Kento Miyahara & Kotaro Suzuki ©

This was really awesome until KENSO decided to stick his beak in, and it was all downhill from there.

bad

7.       AJPW Triple Crown Championship: Go Shiozaki vs. Joe Doering ©

Unfortunately, this didn’t live up to the massive hype, as much as it really pains me to say. Good title match, but nowhere near the MOTYC level or something. Also the atmosphere was falsely advertised as “red hot Korakuen”. The pacing was kind of off and some moves/transitions were too botchy and weird, dunno how it got overlooked by the smarks, lol. Go did some things that were awkward and had me scratching my head a lot. Their September slugfest was much, much better. But like I said, good match though, and even though I was disappointed because I expected a bonafide classic, I’m still very happy for Go and have big hopes for his reign. However, All Japan is going produce at least 20 matches in 2015 better than this one, you can put that in the bank.

***1/2