Takayama/Suzuki

NOAH 2015/07/18

GHC Heavyweight Championship: Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Minoru Suzuki ©

Even in 2015, even with Big Tak being one DDT away from dropping dead, you can still classify this meeting as “dream match”, or something like that. The screenshots for this were insanely attractive as they showed Takayama’s face soaked in blood. Also the story basically wrote itself, Takayama challenging for the GHC strap one last (?) time, etc. And yes, most of the match was really fucking good, they brawled very well and Takayama bled like a slaughtered pig, but unfortunately, many endless interferences really brought the whole thing down. I could live with Taichi being a colossal dickbag with his constant ringside antics, but the entire SZKG going after Takayama in the finishing stretch, with the ref getting bumped and stupidly distracted like ten times in a row… Wow, it was just too much. Makes you appreciate Bullet Club. Really, huge props to Takayama for his heroic performance, he looked like a fucking warrior, gladiator out there, also props to MiSu as well for playing the invader cards so well, but Jado’s booking prevented this from being a classic.

***

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

Around the World, Vol. 1

Wrestling World 2004

(2004/1/4)

Kensuke Sasaki vs. Yuji Nagata

Oh no,  shit boy, this is some scary ass helter-skelter, very minimalistic match where all they do is bleeding like pigs while beating bajesus out of each other. The match is only 13 minutes long and looks like a fucking CSI murder scene. Seriously, this has to be a top contender for the juiciest slugfest ever. Nagata is a well known barbarian who had his share of messy bloodbaths, but it’s kind of rare to see Kensuke leaving his powerhouse comfort zone to wrestle a match like this, this is the meanest Kensuke ever, he’s here to kill poor Nagata. Just the perfect brawl with amazing ending, so raw and gritty, manliness everywhere.

*****

G1 Climax 2004

(2004/8/8)

Block B: Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Kensuke Sasaki

Considering the fact Big Tak suffered a stroke after the match, it’s kind of hard to watch this, but waddaya gonna do, eh… This one had no blood, but instead it was in-your-face style with a plethora of bomb throwing and spine shattering drops. Ryogoku Sumo Hall went nuts for this match, especially in the crazy good finishing run, fuck me, that was magnificent. Two super tough bruisers going HAM at each other for 15 minutes, best shit ever.

****3/4

Wrestling World 2005

(2005/1/4)

Takashi Iizuka vs. Minoru Suzuki

Oh look, back when Iizuka wasn’t an immobile botchy lunatic. Solid match but nothing to write home about, MiSu did his stuff, Iizuka did nothing and there you go, at least they didn’t overstay their welcome, which is quite a plus in my book.

**3/4