The boys were in a building for Power Struggle: nine matches, five championships and a four-hour runtime. Welcome back to your regularly scheduled layout of New Japan shows.
You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, I s’pose. Also wrestling can sometimes seem so simple that you might wonder why it has to be so stubbornly bad so often. There is good wrestling here, but it’s a good show just because it’s a throwback to the before times.
- [Testing] Here are 3 things I found interesting this week:
1. The Many Lives of H. Rap Brown (TIME)
2. Robert Sarver Is What You Get (Defector)
3. New NASA chief doesn’t think UFOs are an optical illusion (USA Today)
1. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI vs. Ryohei Oiwa & Kosei Fujita
Talk about your Bret vs. Owen, your Angle vs. Rey… Dum Dum Daniels says two grumpy heels battering two bold rookies is all an opener needs. Oiwa attacks before the bell, then comes a cut-off. A comeback. A crab hold. **
2. Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Tiger Mask IV vs. Tanga Loa, Jado & Gedo
Jado & Gedo as two power brokers still actively wrestling into their mid-50s is wild, though so is a 51-year-old Tiger Mask 4 refusing to step aside for a fifth and so is 45-year-old Tomoaki Honma just walking upright and completing sentences. He and Tanga Loa actually got a little thing going at the end, otherwise this was a few minutes of Jado & Gedo on Tiger Mask Violence and even in 2003 that felt overrated. *1/2
3. Yuji Nagata, Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato vs. SANADA, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI
Six skilled wrestlers have a fine and appropriately timed match, and there’s a whole 6-match card ahead! New Japan is healing. Highlights here included Hriomu/Taguchi exchanges and SANADA popping the crowd with a Mongolian chop. **
4. NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Title: Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI [c] vs. EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi & SHO
Here’s a reasonable six-man tag lineup on the undercard made even better with the stakes of six-man tag team titles. Compared to CHAOS’ recent run of main event title defenses it felt a little lacking in both time and position, but their non-title match was pretty good and so was this. The House of Torture might be shoddy, but EVIL and Yujiro took a step back (the shock) and young heel SHO got to stand out: he had a really fun back-and-forth with Goto as well as moments of both bringing it to and getting his ass kicked by Ishii. YOSHI and EVIL always manage some low key magic together too.
The record-breaking championship reign of the CHAOS boys ending by intrusion from Dick Togo, a gimmick wrench and kick to the nuts is pretty crap though. ***
Afterwards, YOH ran out and went at SHO like he was Owen Hart returning post-Montreal Screwjob as commentary shouted “YOOOHHHH!!!!” That was great.
5. Amateur Wrestling Rules – KOPW 2021: Toru Yano [c] vs. Great-O-Khan
Toru Yano and The Great O-Khan are in wrestling singlets, folks. I mean. Yano has delivered years of moderate entertainment, but the charm checked out a few years ago and it’s especially lame that Great By God O-Khan has had to lose matches to him in year 2021. Yuji Nagata led an adorable amateur wrestling exhibition to explain the rules before the match, which ultimately explained why this was even happening as Nagata vs. O-Khan seems to be the next direction. Here’s the question though: why this way? *
6. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Robbie Eagles [c] vs. El Desperado
Robbie got tossed into a heck of a position and he could still use some extra seasoning of charisma but otherwise the guy is talent, keeping up with all that is asked of the modern New Japan Jr. Title match. His challenger is El Desperado, the undeniably good wrestler who carries the Liger/Samurai tradition of New Japan masked guy that is somehow more emotive than 95% of the roster.
They got right to it and never really lost it, a welcome thing considering we went to intermission with the whole singlet nonsense. They establish credibility, target legs, wow the crowd, and eventually Robbie tries a 450 splash that Despy instinctively puts his knees up to counter which rocks both their worlds. As they try to end each other, the action is delightful and screams of agonizing knee pain appear real. Well done wrestling. ****
7. IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title: Hiroshi Tanahashi [c] vs. KENTA
This wasn’t much different from their match during Summer Struggle, but without a Katsuyori Shibata run-in. I’d also probably best describe that match as “satisfactory” and so was this. I think the issue might be the contrast of each guy’s approach to the 20+ minute match: chain wrestling and slow build from Tanahashi, chinlocks and stalling from KENTA. They fit the bill of third from top — and threw in a High Fly Flow through a table — but it did sometimes veer into territory of seeing what Tanahashi vs. KENTA would’ve been been if they both went to WWE in 2014 and returned to Japan in 2019 slower and in more pain. **3/4
8. Tokyo Dome IWGP World Heavyweight Title Right to Challenge Contract: Kazuchika Okada [c] vs. Tama Tonga
One unintended consequence of AEW actually delivering on TV weekly in the United States is that the already tough sell of a Tama Tonga semi-main event (and potential Tokyo Dome main event, somehow) becomes pretty impossible. Is that unfair? Probably! Tama Tonga is an OK wrestler who stepped up for both the G1 and this, but the Okada aura didn’t bring him to a much higher ceiling and I’m not convinced even Okada and crowds of a few years ago would’ve created much better. ***
9. IWGP World Heavyweight Title: Shingo Takagi [c] vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
I fancied Shingo and ZSJ’s match early in the G1 quite a bit, ZSJ taking Shingo’s sell-smash-pop style and adding attacks to the arm where he is just constantly asking terrible things of Shingo’s sockets. This was similar, with ZSJ bringing a fresh approach to a dependable New Japan main event. Even across 30 minutes his campaign of arm attacks remained interesting and downright savage. He traps Shingo so securely it feels like someone said hey maybe you can go after the leg tonight and Zack said Absolutely Not. Shingo alternates between selling the arm like a tortured artist and swinging at ZSJ’s stupid face, which sometimes works and leads to a brief rally before ZSJ’s next torture device.
ZSJ’s near fall from a Michinoku Driver felt closer than one from a Japanese leg roll clutch or any from a submission to the arm, which is a problem though the potential for a ZSJ win never really felt completely probable anyways. Regardless: plenty of wrestling greatness. ***3/4
Happy Thoughts: Tanahashi and Okada looked bored in their respective 25-minute headline matches, but Eagles/Desperado and Shingo/ZSJ rocked while the undercard was of reasonable length and quality: 14-minute 6-Man Titles match, 5-minute Match #2… the boys are back, mo’FUCKA. 3.5 / 5.0
