Belgian_Waffle
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Posts posted by Belgian_Waffle
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did the Masakatsu Funaki vs Manabu Soya Triple Crown match ever air or circulate online? And if anyone has actually seen it: is it awesome?
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I don't think I confused him with Okada or Raijin, I think I just wrongly assumed he had already done a tour there since the W1/TNA collaboration started. So my bad, doyyy. And yeah, to each their own, I'm certainly a lot harsher on Sanada and KAI than I need to be because I dislike that style and find them to be poor imitations (probably by design) of Tanahashi, as opposed to say Soya who I love to death because of my bias toward burly stiff guys.
I did like the match with Akiyama mentioned above, but would agree it was a big carry-job. So was the TV title match he had with Honma, which was a fun match but involved a lot of Sanada going through the motions and Honma working his butt off. But then Honma's another perfect example of a guy who I am a total mark for.
Kea in W1 makes me sad. Seems like even the last few guys who I was hoping would stick with AJPW (Kea, Soya, even Kazushi Miyamoto...) have all jumped ship. -
Really hope that Sanada/Aries delivered.
has a Sanada singles match ever really "delivered"? the guy has seemed like a lost cause to me for years now (granted I haven't seen anything from him since his TNA stint...).
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probably shouldn't be surprised that the only match that sounds legitimately promising to me is the one that doesn't involve any TNA guys. I've been a fan of Nakanoue since day one so we'll see if him and Kojima can do something fun and memorable.
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SPILERS BELOW for the big AJPW show from this morning:
So I don't think anybody really expectred it but Akebono retains. Miyahara beat Omori in the undercard (via referee stop with a crossarmbreaker) and is now challenging Bono for the belt.
I smell a "New Hero" booking swerve. Akebono now looks invincible having gone over Suwama, Doering, Omori and now Go. The only other guy is Akiyama, who Bono already beat in the openweight tournament he won late last year. Miyahara debuts what I'm guessing will be his new finisher and surprise it's a move perfectly designed to take down a big guy (it's not like he's going to pin Akebono in that German suplex he uses). Sasaki just retired suddenly and Miyahara is one of his boys---could add some sentimentality to his win. Soya aka the Traitor just debuted for Mutoh's stupid promotion so it's not like he's ever coming back; that makes Miyahara the lone new guy for AJPW to push for the time being.
Anybody else think he's gonna win? and more importantly will anyone care (except me and the other diehard AJPW marks who refuse to stop caring)? -
Any word on the status of Diamond Ring now that Sasaki's retired? If he folds it I can only assume Nakajima and Kitamiya would stay with NOAH. Miyahara is obviously already doing well in AJPW.
Do they have any other young guys who could make potentially interesting free agents if it folds? -
the Nakanishi thing is kind of sad. I never liked the dude and he was truly awful for a long time but he improved a lot towards the end of the last decade. when I watch him now with Strong Man it's like a Legends match or something. guy should pack it in and stay on as an on-screen character...he has the weird personality and goofy charm to still have some appeal outside actual wrestling.
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I always liked Taniguchi before the Maybach gimmick, maybe they could unmask him and try to build him up as a potential contender? I could see Marufuji getting another reign, if he doesn't keep getting hurt.
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I think the big question now is whether they do let Tanahashi win the belt and then push towards some type of unification match.
don't give them any ideas. also keep in mind Naito still has the NEVER title. why not have him go over Okada AND the IC wnner and create a watered down Triple Crown?
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YES to KAI vs GO but NO to KAI vs Akiyama (both from 4/29). I do not like KAI at all but I appreciated he and Go trying something different in their Carny semi-final, working toward the submission victory rather than the typical "lets toss out all our finishers until one of us can't get up" style that I imagined these two working in. it's why I'm voting NO on the KAI/Akiyama match: too paint by numbers, too predictable, finish seemed too inevitable. a great performance by Akiyama, but then I can't remember the last time Akiyama didn't impress me in a singles match, and this one felt too typical of the veteran vs future ace formula we've seen time and time again. .
YES to the 7/14 Suwama vs Go match. I'm a huge fan of Suwama but I didn't love either of his singles matches with Go this year. granted, they had some mighty big expectations to live up to, but I preferred their work together in the 6/2 tag match. that said, I still enjoyed their 7/14 match enough to vote for it. I liked the 8/26 match too, and certainly wouldn't "no" it, but it felt a little too drawn out and methodical, rather than the big heatfest I was hoping for. Shiozaki seriously needs to stop letting Suwama give him release-German suplexes; they look absolutely BRUTAL and he takes about 5 of them every time these two are in the ring together. anyway, not nutty about either match, but will toss a vote to the 2/3 falls from 7/14.
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YES to the Kobashi retirement for all the reasons everyone else will YES it
YES to Kondo/Ishimori.1/27 I either YES'd this or nominated it on the old board so YES again here. brutal match with a guy I never cared about before (Ishimori) giving a surprisingly convincing, hard-won performance as the underdog who just won't quit, no matter how huge of an ass whooping is being dished out but Kondo, who is always great. a clear homage to the classic Marufuji vs Takaiwa title match from back in the early days of NOAH.
big NO to KENTA/Morishima from 1/27. I must have missed something with this one. thought the match was heatless, directionless, and had an awkward finish that probably sounded better on paper. zero chemistry between two guys who have been working together for over a decade. I'll have to see the 1/6 match and see what they did differently.
conversely a big YES to Ishimori/Sabre Jr. thought it was a super fun juniors match and stood out from the typical excessive NOAH juniors style because of Sabre's freaky cool submission stuff. Sabre doesn't seem entirely comfortable in his roles as the cocky British heel (I get the feeling NOAH wants him to be their version of Devitt) but what the character lacks in charisma is more than compensated by his intensity in the ring. I marked out for the spot where Ishimori went for a leapfrog and Zach caught him mid-air by the lef and dropped him down into an ankle hold (that's how I remember it going down anyway/ feel free to correct me!). this is a match-up I'd like to see develop into an ongoing rivalry. .
also,
people will probably shit on me for this but I'm nominating
2/6 KENTA vs TORU YANO (GHC title): there are two very obviously bad things about this otherwise awesome match, one very forgivable and one I'm willing to admit is stupidly unforgivable.
FORGIVABLE FLAW; the: the fact that Yano is reeeeealllllly sssssslllllooooowwwww on his feet. he tries valiantly to keep up with KENTA during all the crazy rapid-fire exchanges that have kind of been KENTA's signature over the years, but he looks hokey and oafish doing it, almost like he's being deliberately goofy. maybe it was intentional comedy? may as well, right? it's not like anyone came into this one expecting Yano to keep up with KENTA every step of the way and start busting out avalanche-style Oni Koroshi's (I wish), why not just draw attention to their difference in size and mobility? that's what they do here, and it varies between silly and weirdly amusing. business-exposing as it is, it's fun watching Yano try his damndest to move like a luchadore
UNFORGIVABLE FLAW: the stupid table spot where KENTA jumps off the top rope, onto Yano, who is already KO'd, precariously lying down in the audience area. so you have KENTA, who is The Champ and clearly ranked much higher than his portly underdog challenger, and for some reason The Champ he feels that Yano is such a threat to his still-young title reign that he needs to not only beat him unconscious outside the ring but to also RISK HIS (KENTA's) OWN SAFETY by leaping from the top rope onto Yano with a double-stop onto the cement floor. this is all after he's already just nailed Yano with a table bump, mind you. it's the kind of dopey backyarder excess that makes people dismiss KENTA and his spot-crazy peers/imitators outright, and it bothered me a lot in this match.
THOSE FLAWS ASIDE: the match is pure wild fun and people should really give it a chance. Yano must have studied the KENTA/SUWA epic from back in the day or something. he just keeps irritating the HELL out of KENTA and KENTA keeps firing back and with each beating the crowd just wants KENTA to draw more and more blood, and with each of Yano's sneaky evasions the crowd just hates him more and more. plus a few legit well-timed near falls that, should the entire world have gone topsy-turvey during the closing moments of this match, could have served as a halfway-believable Yano title win. it's a novelty title match for sure, and certainly a flawed one, but one I'm willing to gush about and nominate on here. -
I never really thought Rikioh was their first choice to dethrone Kobashi. hasn't it always been the prevailing theory that they built up the Kobashi vs Akiyama match at the Dome to be the title switch and then changed the result last minute when everyone predicted Akiyama going over? even if that's not quite the case, Rikioh winning a one-night tag tournament by pinning Kobashi seemed an awfully abrupt way to suddenly announce that he would be the first of Kobashi's failed challengers to get a second title shot. I know NOAH didn't have an annual singles tournament at the time for him to win but I would think that if they were planning Rikioh from day one they would have built him up a little more credibly over the two year span of Kobashi as champ.
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fair points, though I'll now cover my ass by insisting i meant *major Japanese promotion.
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never heard of Takeshita until just now, has everyone already made crude jokes about the potential misspellings/mispronunciations of his last name?
TMDK for team of the year, a dismal step down from Get Wild! winning last year. -
there's no way they can still be thinking about putting Naito over in that match, is there? Nakamura should drop the belt to Tanahashi so they can start finally building to Okada vs Nakamura for the main strap. Tanahashi will have a flurry of great challengers already lined up to defend the IC against; Shibata, Makabe, Devitt, Ishii, Anderson, etc etc etc...
Naito winning would make him the biggest lame duck champ in a major promotion since Rikioh went over Kobashi. -
Yes to these two:
2/10 - Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Karl Anderson
3/11 - Satoshi Kojima vs. Tomohiro Ishii
Tanahashi/Anderson had some questionable selling that irritated me but the ending had all the crazy near falls and overall I thought it was really good. my boring and reductive summary of the past two years of New Japan main events: I'm not a huge Tanahashi fan or anything but he definitely knows how to work a certain kind of big title match and this is a very good example of that match. I feel pretty much the same way about Okada. this match has added uniqueness value because Anderson goes all-out from beginning to end and seems to know how important it is for his passion and energy to really shine in a big-singles-match setting like this.
Ishii/Kojima is a borderline vote just because it was short-ish and has that inevitable "first round match in what will be a long tournament" stigma of meaninglessness. if Ishii had made an underdog rush to the finals instead of Goto then in hindsight I would probably like this even better because it would sort of be like the Omori/Akiyama match where Omori wins in 9 seconds and then begins his quest toward Kobashi in the carny final; Ishii dropping out of the tournament so soon after this win makes him going over Kojima seem like less of a big deal for Ishii and more like a bad night for Kojima. all that griping aside: this is an excellent short-ish undercard match. I really hope NJPW continues to push Ishii the way they've been doing in 2013 and lets him get some big singles wins outside the flukey G1 and NJ Cup tournament settings.
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Oh wow I didn't realize that. I would have been less flippant in my initial post about it.
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Mascaras and Dos Caras won some weird tag title at NOSAWA's Gurentai show today. it's too bad NOSAWA sided with Mutoh in the in AJPW/W-1 split, I would have liked to see him book Mascaras & Caras vs.the Funks for the V1 defense.
http://oi44.tinypic.com/2hqh21h.jpg -
I'll add a YES to Shibata/Ishii from the G1. just realized that my liking their second match better shouldn't prevent me from YESing their also awesome first match.
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Ugh yeah and I actually really like Nakanoue, unlike Sanada and KAI whom I both can't stand. But he's not a main event dude (he'd make a great #2 guy in a top tag team, or a solid upper-mid-card underdog), and I'm guessing this string of matches headlining against KAI are just gonna show off his weaknesses.
Although until they start doing more televised shows, who knows. How about I bitch about the W-1 I've actually seen? Finally watched Funaki & Kono vs. Laughter7 from the debut show and holy hell did Masayuki Kono ever stink it up in there. -
Nominating the following AJPW matches:
TAKAO OMORI & MANABU SOYA VS. JUN AKIYAMA & GO SHIOZAKI (AJPW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE) March 17th
JUN AKIYAMA & GO SHIOZAKI VS. SUWAMA & JOE DOERING (AJPW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE) June 2nd
Still have to catch up on some of the later tag title matches from this year but these two early ones were both fantastic.The first was a great showcase for Manabu Soya, and re-watching it now during his lengthy absence makes me all the more hyped for his return, whenever that ends up being.
The Suwama/Doering match might be even better. Suwama vs Go is obviously the main story being played out, but Akiyama and Doering threaten to steal the show by having their own awesome little rivalry play out in the background.
also this:
KOTARO SUZUKI & ATSUSHI AOKI vs. SHIGEHIRO IRIE & KEISUKE ISHII (ALL ASIA TAG TITLE) October 27th
Four young guys absolutely working their asses off to put on a major league-caliber title match in a struggling company. Some of the more complicated sequences get a little sloppy, but it's easy to forgive when the action and story is this good. This was my first time seeing Irie and Ishii and they both impressed me a lot, though Ishii left the more lasting impression. He has this great deadpan sort of charisma where he remains stoic and arrogant throughout the whole match, no matter how overwhelmed he may be by the two more experienced AJPW guys. Sort of like the opposite of how Ohtani was the perfect underdog because he was so dramatic and expressive? Ishii is all non-chalance and quiet determination. -
YES to Nakamura/Sakuraba. One of my favourite matches of the year. I see it as a great throw back to a different era of New Jpan where you could have main events that clocked in at under 15 minutes but still maintained an epic feel. This was like a modern tip of the hat to Hashimoto vs Takada.
YES to Shibata vs. Goto though I'm not as nutty about it as some people. Thought it was impressive as a spectacle, especially the opening brutality. My big complaint is how unconvincing a lot of Goto's offense looked against a legitimate ass-kicker like Shibata. He put in a more than noble effort, but this did start to feel like a one-man show by the end. Still a really neat, entertaining match.
I'll nominate SHIBATA vs. TOMOHIRO ISHII 14 October. Liked this one even better than their G1 match; thought it had more story and was less of a rehash of the Shibata/Goto match. I complained above about Goto's offense being unconvincing against a shooter like Shibata; Ishii is the non-MMA guy who can hold his own. -
yeah i haven't watched much of the actual matches but the results are scary on paper. every show has at least one match that ends in a non-finish and then leads to an impromptu six-man tag. reminds me of old Heyman booking but without the charm that sleaze allows for.
also, KAI vs Seiya Sanada, and the endless sequence of rematches it has produced. is ANYONE other than Mutoh interested in this "rivalry"? -
Imagine if Ishii went to AJPW and feuded with Soya when he eventually returns...
What You're Watching, 2015!
in JAPAN
Posted
I try to keep up with AJPW out of loyalty so I watched the Go Shiozaki vs. Kento Miyahara match from the recent big Diamond Ring show (the one with Sasaki vs. Nakajima). The match was really disappointing. If AJPW is serious about pushing Miyahara as a future rival for Go then both guys are going to have to develop better chemistry quickly. Started off with some outside-the-ring brawling (I've noticed nearly every AJPW match since the WRESTLE-1 split has a lot of brawling in the crowd...not sure if this is just a coincidence or a conscious decision to "liven up" the product and encourage fans to come out and see the wrestlers up-close) which wasn't very exciting....then Miyahara starts working the arm but doesn't really have a lot of submission-based offense so the arm work sort of went nowhere. Shiozaki had that neat match with KAI in the semis of last year's Champion's Carnival which was all submission-based and ended with Go tapping out...this match had none of that match's energy and creativity. The finish was flat and abrupt even though the crowd seemed into it. I really like Miyahara in tags but he was a letdown here. Doubt his 9 minutes with Akebono the other day did much to develop him as a singles main-eventer.
Is this thread only for recent (ie, last couple months) matches? Because I also somewhat randomly watched Suwama and Omori vs. Miyamoto and Arashi from the Dec 2013 Rikidozan Memorial show. If you're into weird random tags then you could do worse than to check this one out. Miyamoto is so bad in this, which is too bad because I do like the guy. But his timing is horrible and he kills the crowd dead by doing stuff like putting Omori into a rear chinlock and acting like he's expecting a submission. Arashi looked physically bad (understandable) but seemed enthusiastic to be there, which is more than you can say for a lot of his old AJPW work where he was actually being pushed. Miyamoto came across as the clumsy guy who does everything wrong; otherwise this was fun.