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Purotopia General Discussion: 2017!


Kevin Wilson

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While obviously his early death was incredibly sad since he was only 40 years old, his body was pretty broken down at that point and he was still recovering from injuries. And a lot of his 'aura' had already faded due to the aforementioned reasons. I am sure he had some quality big matches left in him if he had fully recovered but I doubt he would have come close to regaining his old form on a regular basis.

I got into puroresu right around 2003 so I missed a lot of this stuff live at the time, although I was around just in time for the Lesnar/Chono/Fujita shit so I still feel like I witnessed much of the worst of it in real time.

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Ugh, the Lesnar crap. I'm glad I was out of the loop back then.

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Approximately one year later on June 29, 2007, Lesnar defended his IWGP Heavyweight Championship against TNA World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle in a champion versus champion match. Inoki Genome Federation (IGF) promoter Antonio Inoki had stated Lesnar was the "proper" IWGP Heavyweight Champion as he was not defeated for the title. Angle would defeat Lesnar by forcing him to tap out to the ankle lock to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship as recognized by IGF and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).[72][73] This was Lesnar's last match as a professional wrestler until 2012, when he re-signed with WWE.

More Inoki sticking his chin in where it doesn't belong. Plus, TNA! How awful was this? 

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5 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Ugh, the Lesnar crap. I'm glad I was out of the loop back then.

More Inoki sticking his chin in where it doesn't belong. Plus, TNA! How awful was this? 

The match itself was fine, a cookie-cutter WWE-style match where neither went outside the box, but Angle has never known when its appropriate to mail it in. I mean a ridiculous premise but not the worst Brock match in Japan.

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10 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Wasn't that all just done to eventually get the belt back to NJPW?

Yea but the argument was why didn't Brock just lose in New Japan instead of losing in IGF so Angle could then go lose in New Japan. It was all a bit odd.

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Because Brock was being an asshole at the time. He refused to lose it to Tanahashi. At least that was the general story/rumor at the time. Considering NJPW's problems at the time it could have been something more legit like payment issues. Angle, the Inokis, & TNA were just middle men arranging to get the belt back.

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Ok, if we're talking Inoki-ism in the later years let's go through the golden age of title booking that was New Japan from 2003. Let's see how many events are left unfucked. I start following around a similar time to Kev and the Nagata MMA losses missed my attention, but I can add the detail that for at least one of the fights Nagata was only informed he would be participating about two weeks prior.

 

May 2003 - Nagata's record breaking IWGP run brought to an end by Takayama who was still hot from his shoot fight against Don Frye the previous year. This is fine because Takayama is great.

November 2003 - That year's G1 was won for the first time by Hiroyoshi Tenzan, felling special guest tournament entrant Jun Akiyama in the final. In hindsight the biggest job New Japan ever got out of NOAH in their entire working relationship. Tenzan won his resulting title shot to make a feel-good moment for the fans seeing the long time company bridesmaid break out and get his glory. Probably would have felt a lot better at the October dome show when most G1 winner / champion matches take place. Inoki didn't think Tenzan was legit enough to main event the show and punted the challenge a month down the line in favour of a 5 on 5 elimination tag match between Inoki favourites and New Japan. Every home grown talent jobs leaving Suzuki and Sapp standing tall. Fucked.

December 2003 - Tenzan fails in his first defence. Shinsuke Nakamura becomes the youngest IWGP champion in history with only a few pro wrestling matches under his belt. Fucked.

February 2004 - Nakamura vacates due to aforementioned injuries following a new year's eve MMA loss and dome show victory days later. Fucked.

February 2004 - Hiroyoshi Tenzan begins his second reign after winning a one night tournament for the vacant title. A shame for Nagata, who was meant to win before Tenzan moonsaulted a knee into his face. Fucked.

March 2004 - Kensuke Sasaki wins his first championship since returning to the company as freelance. Tenzan managed to squeeze in a quick defence before dropping this time, leaving him with a win/loss record of 1-2 while champion over two reigns. Fucked?

March 2004 - SIXTEEN DAYS later Sasaki drops the belt to BOB SAPP. Fucked.

June 2004 - After a reign consisting entirely of beating the big young hope of Nakamura at the dome, Sapp vacates following a convincing MMA loss to Fujita. Fucked.

July 2004 - Fujita beats Tanahashi for the title in yet another tournament. Better than Sapp, I guess.

October 2004 - Sasaki pins Fujita (one successful defence) for the title in two and a half minutes after Fujita forgets that being pinned is bad. Already mentioned, and I'll second that the show up to that point was good stuff. Fucked.

December 2004 - Sasaki drops the championship to begin Hiroyoshi Tenzan: IWGP Champion attempt number three. Let's be optimistic.

February 2005 - Tenzan's first title defence after losing a non-title bout at the dome. Oh boy. Real big match. New Japan's Tenzan against All Japan's Satoshi Kojima. Former tag partners, both trying to lead their company as champions. IWGP heavyweight and the Triple Crown both on the line for the first time in history. The match went an astonishing fifty-nine minutes and forty-nine seconds. Kojima wins by knock out. More astonishingly, the result was booked as a draw. Tenzan legit couldn't hold on for those last eleven seconds. In hindsight the stalling towards the end makes sense, as does Nakamura going nuclear when Kojima purposely drops the IWGP belt on his way out. Which leads to... (fucked)

March 2005 - Satoshi Kojima vs three year part time pro Shinsuke Nakamura, time limit draw. Fucked because it was clearly an ego thing to prove NJPW guys could go the distance. I never saw it but I'm guessing at the fan's expense.

May 2005 - Tenzan becomes a four time champion by getting his belt back from Kojima at the dome with a head droppy TTD variant if I recall.

July 2005 - A magnificent second successful career title defence for Tenzan by beating Scott Norton in Italy before dropping the belt to... *drum roll* Fujita! Inoki clearly angsty seeing New Japan fucking themselves for six months without his help. Fucked.

October 2005 - Swapping a shooty unreliable monster with a foreign shooty unreliable monster, Brock Lesnar is your new IWGP champion. No title matches occurred between Fujita winning and losing the belt, and he lost it in a three way so that Chono could take the fall instead. This is coming off of Fujita guesting in the G1 that year and winning every match except a highly emotional final against Chono whose victory was an emotional tribute to the recently deceased Shinya Hashimoto. Fucked.

July 2006 - Brock Lesnar's nearly year-long reign comes to an end. After beating Nakamura at the dome in under ten minutes and winning dream title matches against Akebono and Giant Bernard, he no-shows a supposed loss to Tanahashi and vacates the title. This is the kind of 'vacate' that involves refusing to give the belt back. Fucked.

July 2006 - Hiroshi Tanahashi starts his first reign as champion after winning a tournament becoming only the second full time home-grown champion after Tenzan since Nagata. His first act as champion is to remove the picture of Inoki from the New Japan dojo and spends the rest of his career on a crusade against strong style. Everyone lived happily ever.

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Kensuke beating Tenzan in 2004 was the right move too IIRC. Kensuke was on fire and Tenzan isn't a great IWGP champ by any stretch. It was what they did after that which was fucked.

Tenzan as a legit star basically peaked with the 2003 G1. Never been a big fan of his because of how awkward and sometimes dangerous he can be and that's only gotten worse as his body has broken down. He can certainly go with the right opposition even now though. Just not a big fan of that generation of heavyweights, as they all lacked that charisma compared to the 3 musketeers (a hard act to follow) AND psychology. Kanemoto was the best worker to come out of that early '90s era, Kojima a distant second.

I was a bit fascinated by the return of the time limit draw in the early to mid 2000s. You had the Chono/Misawa Dome match, imo the incredible Nakanishi/Nishimura vs. TenChono tag match for the belts, the aforementioned (at least planned) two Kojima matches, and there was an AJPW sixty minute tag around 2004 or '05 with Kensuke and Hase taking on Kojima and Kawada. It's been ages since I've watched them but I don't remember disliking any of them and I felt like the novelty wasn't worn out. The 30 minute Kawada/Fuchi vs. Nagata/Iizuka match from early days of the AJPW/NJPW working agreement was by far the best.

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15 minutes ago, Ryan said:

The Nakamura/Kojima draw wasn't great or anything, but it was far from bad.

Yeah, I kinda like it.   Tenzan was a "top 5 favorite" guy for me through most of the 2000's, so the booking of his title reigns is a bit of a sore spot.  I still believe he could have, should have been the ace they were looking for. But the company was run by an eccentric madman (different one from the eccentric madman we usually complain about) who wanted a shooter-type as champion.

Also, screw the haters.  I love the Tenzan/Kojima almost-draw.  I won't argue it's an all-time classic, but it's something I dig out whenever I want to watch a match I enjoy.  Probably top 5 for me in terms of enjoyment (AJ champ Kojima was also a top 5 guy for me at the time).

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The hour-long Chono/Nagata match is another one, but I never saw it. I think there's some others. Chono/Misawa likely was a draw because neither side wanted to lose face at the time due to NOAH still being huge.

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I forgot all about these. They're all one-hour draws, not no-contests. Only saw the NOAH one, which was excessive, but a fun match if you like the two. There's some Inoki ones from back in the day as well, Brody, Fujinami, etc.

NJPW Hyper Battle - Day 4
9. März 2003 @ Rainbow Hall in Nagoya, Aichi (Japan)
Manabu Nakanishi vs. Yuji Nagata (c) ended without a winner [IWGP Heavyweight Title Match]

NJPW Best of the Super Juniors IX - Day 13
5. Juni 2002 @ Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium in Osaka, Osaka (Japan)
Masahiro Chono and Hiroyoshi Tenzan (c) vs. Manabu Nakanishi and Osamu Nishimura ended without a winner [IWGP Tag Team Titles Match]

AJPW Puroresu Love in Ryogoku Vol. 5
31. August 2008 @ Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Tokyo (Japan)
Suwama (c) vs. Taiyo Kea ended without a winner [AJPW Unified Triple Crown Heavyweight Title Match]

NOAH Autumn Navigation - Day 12
25. Oktober 2008 @ Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Tokyo (Japan)
KENTA (c) vs. Naomichi Marufuji (c) ended without a winner [AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title Match & GHC Junior Heavyweight Title Match]

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I know a lot of purists shit on the TenChono 2002 tag draw but I fucking love it. Nishimura has to wrestle about 20+ minutes by himself after Nakanishi goes down with a bad wheel IIRC. The drama and emotion in that match fucking ruled. I stopped watching wrestling in the late 2000s, so I missed out on those bottom two. You'd have to pay me decent money to watch Taiyo Kea work for 60 minutes. 

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Speaking of Stuart, anyone know what became of him?  I guess Puroresufan is gone altogether?  The last time I visited, Stuart had quit updating the site but the pages were still there and the forums were still somewhat active.  Seems like everything is gone.

Stu's site really kept me plugged into puro during the 2000's.

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Stu moved back to the UK long ago I believe, grew up and just got on and busy with real life I would wager. No time to do anything anymore and waning interest. Kind of sad because of the fact the last few years is their most recent high point after he covered them during the horrible down era so closely.

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The Suwama/Kea draw was during Suwama's first TC reign, and it either showed apprehension in the new Ace they had been building up or their roster was lacking in credible heavyweights if they couldn't have Taiyo freaking Kea lose a TC match. If I remember correctly I think there were even reports of people  walking out before the match ended.

I wonder if the KENTA/Marufuji match would have been more accepted if it happened now instead of 2008. I saw the match and while I remember almost nothing of it I strongly remember being upset that they had Danielson drop the Jr. title to KENTA,  after only holding it for a month, so that they could set up the double title match.

 

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Stu and I borderline HATED each other in 2004-05, when I would post on his forums about how shitty New Japan's booking was, most of which Salads' post above already highlighted. I'd talk about how the booking and the match results sounded like horse shit, and he'd tell me that I should find something else to follow. I don't know if it was one of his quotes, or he cribbed from somewhere, but he always liked to say that wrestling needed more 'great match' and less 'sell the pinky'

 

I talked to him over his board's PM about a year or so ago, just asking if he could verify a TV date for a NJ show I wanted to pick up (Yasuda vs. Tenzan for the IWGP), and we traded a couple of laughs about my penchant for watching shit that will just make me angry.

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Shitty Shibata seems to perfectly exemplify Inoki-ism - portrayed as a tough guy in puro solely because he works stiff like that automatically makes him a double-hard bastard, yet he absolutely fucking sucks in a legit MMA setting. In fact, is he the last person left stubbornly carrying the torch of early 00s Inoki-ism? 

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Regarding Stu's site, was that really Scott Norton's wife posting on the message boards years ago (as "CuzICan". irrc)?

I've always wondered if that was legit or a troll imposter.  Kinda thought it really was Mrs. Norton, but a troll wouldn't be a surprise either.  Good times.  She was rather entertaining.

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