Stew Style
The Big Show #1: NJPW Wrestling World 2002 Preview
There’s no bigger place to start than at the Tokyo Dome, the Madison Square Garden of the Orient. It’s become a huge tradition in Japan since 1992 to promote a huge NJPW show on the 4th January every year, regardless of the day on which it falls. It is invariably the NJPW equivalent of WrestleMania, where whatever could happen will happen, and titles are likely to change hands. At last year’s Wrestling World spectacular New Japan held an unprecedented IWGP Title tournament to fill the spot vacated by Kensuke Sasaki following his non-title loss to AJPW’s Toshiaki Kawada at the October 9th ‘Do Judge!’ PPV in a truly memorable match. (Read my review of the card right here on PUK!) As expected, the finals of the said tournament came down to Sasaki & Kawada who delivered another great match (albeit a notch under their previous encounter) where Sasaki regained his respect and IWGP crown following his patented Northern Lights Bomb (aka Al Snow’s Snowplow) And so, one year later, let’s see what Shin Nihon Puroresu has to offer us…
Masayuki Naruse & Masahito Kakihara v Wataru Inoue & Katsuyori Shibata
Inoue & Shibata are NJPW Young Lions, and potential stars of tomorrow. Both have been given modest pushes in the last year, including an upset in the recent G1 Climax Jr Tag Team Tournament when Inoue got the submission won over Jr Heavyweight legend Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger as he and Shibata rolled over the veteran team of Liger and El Samurai. Shibata is seen as one of the top prospects for the future, and has already received an IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title shot, albeit one which he lost in short order.
Naruse is a rookie in Puroresu terms, but due to his successes in the shoot (legit) fighting field, was the recipient of the dreaded Inoki Blowjob push when he went over on the incredibly talented Minoru Tanaka to win the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title in his first pro match. He is inexperienced in the pro setting, and eventually that became obvious to even Inoki, who jobbed him out to Kendo Ka Shin in under a minute. Why Ka Shin? Well, Ka Shin had just beaten Ryan Gracie in a shoot fight under the PRIDE banner, and with Inoki, successes in the shoot fighting world are rewarded with pushes in NJPW. So while Ka Shin continues his dominance of the Jr division, Naruse has been reshuffled way down the deck until his talents are somewhere in line with the faith Inoki put in him.
Kakihara is an AJPW defector, who left Mrs Baba’s promotion a few months ago for a spot in the blooming NJPW Jr Division. Kakihara had some successes in AJPW, winning the All-Asian Tag Titles with Mitsuya Nagai and actually representing All Japan in the 5 on 5 series of matches on NJPW’s June 6th PPV. Fortunately for him though, he was working on a per-appearance deal as opposed to a full-fledged contract, and as Mrs Baba’s crazy business decisions and Genichiro Tenryu’s increasingly senile booking became clear, Kakihara jumped ship, and hasn’t looked back. He’s been involved in some good matches already, and seems in line for a more sustained promotional push in 2002.
The match is likely to be fought in a quasi-shoot environment, since that suits Naruse. Kakihara too has got impressive worked-shoot credentials from his days in the UWFi (known in the UK by many as Bushido.) I can’t see the match lasting over 10 minutes, due to the Jr Heavyweight matches propensity to go down like a lead balloon in the vast Tokyo Dome setting, and the fact that there are two Jr Heavyweight dream matches coming up later in the show. As a warm-up match though, the action should be pretty impressive as all four men have something to prove. I suggest that a sub 10-minute reasonably competitive match should end with either Kakihara’s Kaki-Cutter (STO) or Naruse’s Crazy Cyclone (Spinning Back Fist) finishers delivering the final blow. It’s not the time yet for Inoue or Shibata.
Minoru Tanaka & El Samurai v Koji Kanemoto & AKIRA
This is more like it. This time last year, Tanaka swept all before him, holding both the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title, but the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Tag Titles. His partner for that reign was none other than his opponent in this encounter Koji Kanemoto. Kanemoto suffered an injury in a match mid year, which resulted in Jushin Liger & El Samurai’s run with the Jr Tag Titles, and in a typically Japanese angle, he returned to the company in October and pledged his allegiance to the heel Team 2000 stable, thereby stabbing his partner in the back.
Kanemoto, of course, works so much better as a dick-heel, where he can humiliate his opponents in the ring with rudo tactics, rather than being part of a babyface unit with Tanaka. This is the first time they’ve stood opposite each other since the break-up, and the Dome crowd are bound to be up for this one. The presence of Samurai and AKIRA is irrelevant to the story of the match, and they are simply here to make sure that the promotion don’t give away too much of what is perhaps the most anticipated one-on-one encounter in the division. Knowing NJPW’s slow burn on these types of angles, the match may be set up for a spotlight encounter during the annual ‘Best Of The Super Juniors’ tournament later in the year.
That being said, both Samurai and AKIRA are top talents, especially the smooth AKIRA. They should add some high-flying to the action, which when Koji and Minoru are involved is likely to be kicks and submissions orientated. It can be assumed that if NJPW are serious about holding off the ‘real’ encounter between the ex-partners, it is unlikely that either man will directly beat his opposite number. That leaves potential finishes of Kanemoto going over on Samurai, or Tanaka going over on AKIRA. Taking into account the fact that Samurai is definitely the least pushed of the four, and Kanemoto needs to build himself up as a heel following his return, I predict that Kanemoto will probably extract a submission win from Samurai.
Either way, just wait for the eventual one-on-one showdown with these two…
Yuki Ishikawa & Kazunari Murakami v Kenzo Suzuki & Hiroshi Tanahashi
Suzuki and Tanahashi are another of NJPW’s Young Lion teams. Tanahashi has had the biggest singles win of the two, pinning Scott Hall in September with a rollup, but these two’s history is pretty much linked as a tag team. They actually ended the G1 Tag League with 4 points, with wins against Liger & Nishimura and Norton & Super J. Much more than Inoue and Shibata above, these two have a real chance to use 2002 as a breakout year. But, they’re booked with two members of Inoki’s army, which means generally bad news. Tanahashi has already crashed to Murakami on PPV this year on October 28th, as has Suzuki on December 23rd, and as much as the sensible booking would be for the young team to get the win back, the smart money is on the young team laying down for Inoki’s boys again.
Ishikawa is a superb worker, and was the leading figure in BattlArts until it closed its doors earlier in the year. Unlike his partner here, Ishikawa is a pro-worker who is very adept at doing shoot matches (although he has done legit work too) whereas Murakami is much more the shooter who is trying to work inside the pro environment. What that means is that generally Murakami matches are kept short, since he uses up whatever little pro knowledge he possesses very quickly. His singles matches are either squash wins, or he does a gimmick where he ‘snaps’ and gets DQ’d. In tags he is usually Naoya Ogawa’s designated job boy. However you look at it though, his matches are almost always the pits, and it will be up to Ishikawa (in a first Tokyo Dome match) to cover for his partner’s inadequacies and dictate the match to the young team.
I’d dearly love to see the team of Tanahashi & Suzuki pick up the win here, since they’ve actually got a future as a dedicated tag team, but you have to imagine that Inoki will make sure his boys pick up the win.
Jushin Liger, The Great Sasuke (Michinoku Pro Wrestling) & Tiger Mask IV (Michinoku Pro Wrestling) v Dick Togo (Michinoku Pro Wrestling), Gedo & Jado
You’re looking at the potential Match Of The Year for 2002 right here, a mere four days into the calendar year. This is the first match booked as a result of the resumption of the trade agreement between Liger (who books the Jr division in NJPW) and Sasuke (who owns and books Michinoku Pro Wrestling) and it’s a real dandy.
There’s back-story galore to the participants in this match. Gedo & Jado are the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Tag Team champions, having lifted those belts from the team of Liger & Samurai in July. Their first defence of those titles was a superb match against Michinoku Pro’s Sasuke & Tiger Mask on MPW’s ‘Birth Of Kokushi’ show on August 19th. Gedo also took part in Michinoku Pro’s annual tag tournament in the last month, and teamed with Dick Togo, all round dastardly heel, to not only do well, but actually win the tournament (and the vacated NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Titles) beating the team of The Great Sasuke & Sasuke The Great (Masao Orihara) in the finals. So Gedo is a double champion, and in this match, he’s linking arms with both his tag team championship partners.
Moving on to the babyface team now, and although Sasuke still pushes himself as the star of Michinoku Pro, just about everyone knows that the true babyface ‘ace’ in the promotion is none other than Tiger Mask. This is the fourth incarnation of the legendary Tiger Mask character, and comes second only to the original Sayama for consistent greatness under the mask. Whereas Tiger Mask II (Mitsuharu Misawa) and III (Koji Kanemoto) both seemed ill-at-ease under the mask at times, and went on to greater successes once they had shed the hood, this man seems to relish the opportunity to play such a beloved character. With NJPW being the ‘spiritual home’ of the Tiger Mask gimmick, he will arguably have the most to prove in the biggest match of his career. Joining the Michinoku Pro pairing is the bookerman Jushin Liger, who himself has both co-held the IWGP Jr Tag Titles and traded the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title with Sasuke. Liger & Sasuke are both past their mid-90’s prime, but both are still capable of turning it on for the big occasion. Liger especially will not want to be shown up in this match by Tiger Mask, and especially Sasuke.
I can see this match going down a similar territory to the classic 10 Man ‘These Days’ tag match from Michinoku Pro’s 3rd Anniversary show in 1996, where the babyface team will likely overwhelm the heel team for the opening 5 or so minutes, before the slick tag work and sneaky heel stylings of their opponents will slowly turn the tide, resulting in a lengthy heat session where presumably Tiger Mask will play Ricky Morton. Following the hot tag, we’re looking at highspot city, where everyone is likely to hit their finishers on their opponents. Taking into account that I already have the heel team of Kanemoto & AKIRA going over earlier in the evening, and combining that with the fact that Sasuke & Liger have a real dislike of jobbing, I can definitely see the faces going over here. Personally, I’d have Tiger Mask (who would benefit most from getting the win) pinning Jado (who means the least of the heels) and book a rematch in Michinoku Pro in a couple of months.
Either way, this will rule. Nuff Said.
Manabu Nakanishi v Giant Silva
From the penthouse to the outhouse…
Nakanishi has improved over the last year, but still has a long way to go before he can be called anything other than ‘average’, while his opponent here (who WWF fans will remember as part of The Oddities) dreams of the day he could be called average.
The Giants (Silva and Singh) have been getting a monster push (since the Japanese LOVE huge gaijin) and Nakanishi may be sacrificed to the greater push. For the sake of New Japan, PRAY that Nakanishi goes over and spares us the thought of the Giants any further up the card… In saying that, I’d still expect Silva to win with his Giant Press (Cross Body off the middle rope) in about 6 or 7 minutes.
Either way, this will suck. Nuff Said.
IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title
Kendo Ka Shin (champion) v Daijiro Matsui
Ka Shin is the latest guy to benefit as a result of Inoki’s hard-on for shooters, as mentioned before. He beat Ryan Gracie of the famous Gracie shoot fighting family on a PRIDE show on July 29th and has since chalked up wins against Minoru Tanaka in 1:14 on September 16th, Masayuki Naruse in 0:26 on October 8th for the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title and Katsuyori Shibata in 3:25 on October 28th.
Matsui has PRIDE experience, taking noted MMA practitioners Vanderlei Silva, Vitor Belfort & Ebenezer Fontes Braga to the limit (he lost on judges decisions in all three though) but also has wins over some less well-known names. Unlike some of the shooters who are brought in to do worked matches though, Matsui has got experience of working in a ‘worked’ environment in BattlArts and most recently teaming with The Great Sasuke at Antonio Inoki’s Bom-Ba-Ye New Years Show on 31/12/00.
That said though, although Matsui is in Inoki’s good books, he shouldn’t last any more than 5-7 minutes with the current champion. This match should have some decent ground action and matwork but the result is not in doubt. Matsui taps out to Ka Shin’s cross armbreaker.
Keiji Mutoh & Hiroshi Hase v Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Nishimura
Keiji Mutoh is the story of 2001, having Match Of The Year contenders with Hiroshi Hase, Genichiro Tenryu, Toshiaki Kawada and Yuji Nagata, along with other very strong matches against Tatsumi Fujinami and Masa Chono. He has collected in the space of 6 months AJPW’s prestigious Triple Crown singles titles, and in conjunction with his apprentice Taiyo Kea (formerly Maunakea Mossman) created the very first Triple Crown Tag Titles by unifying the AJPW Double Tag Titles and the NJPW’s IWGP Tag Titles. They followed this up by winning the AJPW Strongest Tag Team Tournament (formerly known as the Real World Tag Tournament) by beating Tenryu & Fuyuki and Kawada & Nagai in one night.
This match strangely doesn’t feature Taiyo Kea, which would’ve made this potentially a tag title matchup, and would’ve been two master-pupil teams, which would’ve been an interesting dynamic. Instead, Mutoh is teaming with Hiroshi Hase. Hase is a longtime Mutoh partner, sharing two IWGP Tag Title reigns (in late 91 and late 94) and most recently headlining the October 8th Tokyo Dome show together in the “Cross Generations” Tag Match against Yuji Nagata & Jun Akiyama.
Mutoh & Hase’s opponents here are Tatsumi Fujinami and his pupil Osamu Nishimura. Fujinami is a Japanese legend, and deservingly so. ‘The Dragon’ is a four time former IWGP Tag Champion (three times with Kengo Kimura and once, most recently, with Nishimura), two-time former WWF Jr Heavyweight Champion (the NJPW-operated forerunner to the ‘official’ IWGP Jr Title), and an astounding six times former IWGP Heavyweight Champion. In my own humble opinion, he smokes the other NJPW legends Inoki and Choshu by actually being, you know, ‘good’ at wrestling… rather than Choshu’s wearying ‘lariatooo’ offence, or Inoki’s faux-shoot stylings. In saying that though, this card is being promoted in 2002, which is at least 10 years past Fujinami’s prime, and despite his ability to still ‘go’ he will rely on his pupil Nishimura to help share the load here.
Nishimura is in a difficult place in NJPW. He is a very talented worker, but lacks the intangibles or the promotional belief by management to ever make it to the top of the promotion. He’s the sort of guy that had NJPW ever instituted a secondary title (like the Intercontinental Title) would likely be heading up that division. As expected with his relationship with Fujinami, he’s technically very sound, and has been sharpening his old-school modus operandi in recent matches with Dory Funk Jr, B Brian Blair and Bob Backlund.
This will likely be a superb mat-based corker, and if psychology and transitions are your thing, this is likely the match that will appeal mostly to you. Besides, you’d be a fool to expect anything other than brilliance from the miracle worker Mutoh these days.
Naoya Ogawa v Kensuke Sasaki
Naoya Ogawa is the kind of person you either love or hate. Nah, scratch that. Ogawa is just the sort of person you hate. He won silver in Judo at the Olympics, and as a result became Inoki’s most overprotected, overpushed waste of air yet. He was booked to humiliate the incredibly talented and popular Shinya Hashimoto, beating him in a series of matches 3-1, and has consistently been marketed since as Inoki’s chosen one, even going so far as to prove his fighting credentials in PRIDE. Of course, the only credential he proved was that he and Inoki were capable of paying off his opponents to take a dive for him. Yes, the feared Ogawa has never so much as had one legit Mixed Martial Arts fight.
Kensuke Sasaki, this time last year, was winning back his IWGP Title. Since then, he has had a strange year. A decent PPV title defence against Shinjiro Ohtani on February 18th was followed up by an inexplicable title loss to Scott Norton on March 1st. Norton, being the good transitional champion that he is, dutifully dropped the title to Kazuyuki Fujita, the current champion. Sasaki meanwhile, left NJPW, shaved his head, (allegedly) took part in a shoot fighting match in the USA, and returned to face Fujita on NJPW’s October 8th show. He crashed and burned in under seven minutes in one of the weirdest booking moves of the year. Since then, Sasaki has had a steady promotional push. His team with Dan Devine has been very successful, and he won a tournament at NJPW’s October 28th PPV, beating Nagata in the finals and re-establishing himself as NJPW’s ‘ace.’ That would be all very well, except that the loser of the tournament final (Nagata) has bagged a shot at the IWGP title on the biggest show of the year while Sasaki has the dubious distinction of trying to drag a decent match out of Naoya ‘I job less than Shawn Michaels’ Ogawa.
Ogawa does have a distinctive charisma that really engages the Japanese crowd, and with Sasaki’s resurgence as the promotion’s ‘ace’ we are looking at a match that will draw incredible heat from the native crowd. Sasaki has been working a slightly more shooty style since his return (almost a must in NJPW’s upper tier these days) and could work well with Ogawa, provided Ogawa is willing to co-operate and give Sasaki something to work with. Since it is an upper card match, you would expect something impressive, but unless the chemistry is there, the match could be little more than decent. Taking into consideration the push that Sasaki has had, I’d love to see him go over in this match. Unfortunately the chances of this are slim. I’d predict Ogawa to STO his way to victory in just under 15 minutes.
Masa Chono & Giant Singh v Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima
Interesting story with this match…
Tenzan and Kojima (affectionately known as Tenkoji) have been on a rapid fall since dropping the IWGP Tag Titles they held for over a year to the team of Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Nishimura on September 1st, losing matches to everyone. Suddenly, the Tenkoji machine hit high gear, and the boys won six consecutive matches to come from last and win the NJPW G1 Tag Team Tournament, beating the AJPW team of Mike Barton & Jim Steele in the finals. Tenkoji have been the class of the field in tag team wrestling for almost two years, and with a renewed push, they were looking at a marquee matchup against the Keiji Mutoh & Taiyo Kea on the biggest card of the year. However, with the injury to IWGP Champion Kazuyuki Fujita, the card as it stood with Tenkoji v IWGP/AJPW Triple Crown Tag Team Champions and 2001 AJPW Tag League winners was changed to incorporate Mutoh into the potential IWGP Title Tournament. Although the tournament idea was scrapped, NJPW didn’t see fit to give us back our potential dream match, instead lumbering Tenzan & Kojima with the pathetic Chono & Singh.
This is a match that was bound to happen soon anyway, since Tenkoji broke away from Chono’s Team 2000 group (the outgrowth of nWo Japan), taking all the native workers with them. Chono was left with a totally Gaijin T-2000, which is not a good thing. This therefore, would be the feud blowoff. As mentioned, the team of Kojima and Tenzan had been on a woeful losing streak for the last three months, and it is my opinion that the only reason they were pushed like crazy at the end of the G1 Tag Tournament was to set them up as worthy of facing Kea and Mutoh (where they would have no doubt stared at the lights for a three count anyway…)
With this match, you’re looking at probably the final Dome appearance of the classic Tenkoji team, since they are both incredibly over as faces and both are in line for prospective singles pushes in 2002 (I would confidently predict that at least one could make the G1 finals this year.) The only question is whether they will go out victorious or not. There’s nothing to gain for Chono & Singh in the tag team rankings by putting them over here, since the team is not a permanent one… but with Chono’s booking pencil hovering over the match, it is most likely that he will put himself over.
GHC Title
Jun Akiyama (champion) v Yuji Nagata
This was originally scheduled to be Kazuyuki Fujita v Yuji Nagata in a rematch of the main event of NJPW’s brilliant June 6th 2001 PPV when Fujita successfully defended his IWGP title against Nagata. Nagata, after winning the G1 Climax Tournament 2001, has been gunning for the rematch ever since. It was widely expected that Nagata would get the title in the biggest show of the year, presumably building to a mega-hyped defence against Sasaki, Ogawa or Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Jun Akiyama. However, with Fujita’s Achilles tendon injury putting him out for six months, this ‘dream match’ has been cobbled together at the last minute.
Akiyama is the GHC Champion (NOAH’s World Champion) and a personal friend of Nagata’s. Indeed, Nagata was sitting ringside to see Akiyama dethrone Mitsuharu Misawa for the GHC title earlier this year, and the two were successful when they teamed up on NJPW’s October 8th card against Keiji Mutoh & Hiroshi Hase in the interpromotional ‘cross generations’ tag match.
It’s been a year of mixed acclaim for these two, with Nagata becoming the internet’s darling (a shining light of pro-style wrestling in the increasingly shoot-oriented NJPW) while Akiyama has had a hard time convincing watchers of his abilities as a promotional ‘ace’, which is a hard thing to do since he’s trying to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Misawa, Kobashi and Kawada title reigns in All Japan. The truth is, Akiyama is good, but lacks the real pizzazz and intangibles of his predecessors. Technically sound, Akiyama is just a little blah. Nagata meanwhile participated in my Match of the Year against Keiji Mutoh on August 12th, and has had great matches with just about everyone he’s faced. However, it doesn’t come down to any abilities, how ‘over’ either man is, or how well they might know each other. What this comes down to is what happens 5 days prior on Inoki’s 2nd Annual Bom-Ba-Ye show on New Years Eve.
With Fujita out injured, Ogawa filling his pants with the thought of ‘actually’ fighting someone, Frye lacking the name value to headline the show, and Yasuda being absolutely pathetic, Inoki needed to find someone to be his ‘ace’ in his Inoki v K1 New Year’s Eve show. This show is crucial to Inoki, since his previous ‘Best of 3 Series’ against K1 (Legit kickboxing) resulted in a 2-1 defeat, and his crown jewel Fujita being stopped in a minute by K1 fighter Mirko Cro Cop Flipovic. As a result, Inoki singled out Nagata (who has no legit experience, outside his amateur career) to be the man who would get revenge for him against Flipovic (who has passed the time between beating Fujita and working the New Year’s Show beating up another pro-wrestler, Nobuhiko Takada.)
Puro observers had expected Nagata’s showing on the New Year’s show to be indicative of whether he would go over on the incumbent Fujita for the title on the Wrestling World show, and the same may be true here. Simply put… If Nagata wins his match against Flipovic, he should beat Akiyama. If Nagata loses his match against Flipovic, but looks good in doing so, he could still beat Akiyama. If Flipovic crushes Nagata, he will be beaten by Akiyama (and probably be buried for the next six months.)
The only random factor in this match now, is the presence of the GHC title. NOAH head honcho Mitsuharu Misawa is doing NJPW a favour by supplying his world champion on short notice, and there is theoretically no way in hell Misawa would agree to let Akiyama do the job to Nagata and lose control of his title. However, if Nagata beats a legit kick-boxer just 5 days prior, there is theoretically no way NJPW (and especially Inoki) would agree to job out their new superstar.
There is a chance that the potential dream match of Misawa v Mutoh (scheduled for March or April) may be the card that helps New Japan here. Mutoh is all set to job to Misawa once he offloads the AJPW Triple Crown to Toshiaki Kawada on February 24th at the Budokan, so the promise of Misawa’s hand being raised in the dream match may be enough to entice Misawa to sacrifice Akiyama. Maybe.
No predictions on this match then. Just check the results of the ‘Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye’ show on December 31st and you should be able to work it out for yourself.
Card Analysis:
This year’s Wrestling World card has seen some changes since it was announced, and although we may have lost the much-anticipated Tenkoji v Muto & Kea match, there are enough potentially great matches here to make this a must-have tape. The only FF match is the Nakanishi v Silva match, which should only last a few minutes anyway.
If the matches click, there’s no reason to suspect that the Akiyama v Nagata, The 6 man Jr Tag match with the Michinoku talent, Mutoh/Hase v Fujinami/Nishimura, and Tanaka/Samurai v Kanemoto/AKIRA matches can’t all break ****
Definite recommendation.