I don’t claim to be an archeologist or a scientist. I am a journalist, and the subject that I’m investigating is pro wrestling. For years, mainstream wrestling journalists and historians had claimed only a few wrestling matches were truly great, yet now they claim nearly every one is. My aim is to piece together what happened.
My suspicion is that pro wrestlers are a species with amnesia, a species that has forgotten something incredibly important from its own past. What is that thing? Selling the leg? Telling a story? Noise? Brevity? A lost civilization of the Ice Age??
New Japan’s 16-show “Battle Autumn” tour ended at Osaka Gym on the 5th of November, with a 9-match card featuring the semi-finals of the NJPW WORLD TV Title Tournament’s plus loosely affiliated New Japan stars FTR and Will Ospreay. Join us as we dig in.
1. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title: Francesco Akira & TJP [c] vs. BUSHI & Titan
Akira and TJP are talented wrestlers, but nothing was working for them as a tag team until they began wearing matching gear — take notes, tag teams. Everyone was moving and flying around the ring from the bell while they brought plenty of the good stuff: casual double teams, well-timed transitions, and to be frank just some dope-ass shit. Titan’s Asai moonsault and tornado DDT off the middle rope were outstanding too, but I feel like that United Empire matching gear really kept everything together. ***1/2
2. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toru Yano, David Finlay & Alex Zayne vs. Mark Davis, Kyle Fletcher, Aaron Henare & Gideon Grey
This was, somehow, the first trip to Japan for Aussie Open’s Davis and Fletcher. They showed off some character (mostly in their selling) and offense (mostly with an assisted stalling suplex and their finish), though before anything got “going” there was a Yano hot tag then Yano loss. **1/2
3. Hikuleo vs. Yujiro Takahashi
On paper this was a weak replacement for Hikuleo challenging Karl Anderson (DNP: WWE) for the NEVER Openweight Championship, but in reality a chokeslam ended it in 30 seconds. Still weak, just not as… unfortunate. N/A
4. NJPW World TV Title Tournament – Semi Final: Ren Narita vs. SANADA
Ren Narita has been on a roll since his return as the Son of Shibata — I mean Strong Style — and while I wish he had an answer for getting tied up in the Paradise Lock they kept the roll going with quality grappling and committed intensity. Once they started throwing the necessary bombs and counters what stood out was how much Ren looked like an equal against SANADA, who hasn’t broken through to New Japan’s main event but has credibly competed against all of New Japan’s main eventers. When he caught SANADA with his new Kannuki suplex hold finish it was both a surprise and felt like exactly where the match was supposed to end up. Keep it going… ***3/4
5. NJPW World TV Title Tournament – Semi Final: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. EVIL
Starting with the pre-match ZSJ decoy this was mostly hijinks, though ZSJ with a chair wrapped around his head shoving Togo into the commentary table (and EVIL) was a solid visual and I liked the effort it seemed to put into going against The EVIL Agenda. ***
6. Incredibles Tag Match: Taiji Ishimori & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Master Wato & El Desperado
These four are headed for a Tokyo Dome 4-way match for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title; here they became contractually obligated tag team partners in pairings that were announced before the bell. Everyone’s a pro and had some fun with it: Despy and Wato both did a beatdown and got sassy with each other, then later on Hiromu followed up a hot tag by going after and trying to pin his own partner. Like many fine New Japan matches though the runtime overwhelmed them, with too much filler to really recommend. Oh, Wato hit a nice tope too. ***1/4
7. Kazuchika Okada & Tama Tonga vs. Jay White & KENTA
KENTA hit Tama Tonga with an absolutely ridiculous old-fashioned Kenter SLAP towards the end but otherwise this Special Tag Match was not that special – how about that? You bums! **3/4
8. IWGP Tag Team Title: FTR [c] vs. Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb
FTR have been having a hell of a run but New Japan has traditionally been colder on tag teams than Vince McMahon. Even TenKoji had to put in extra work for relevance, but FTR did put in the work and that’s appreciated — Cash pulled out a rana on Cobb early to show Japan what’s up, Dax and O-Khan hit the ropes and traded chops, and what followed was good – good physicality, beatdown, cut-offs, near falls, finishing sequence. It just lacked that something extra, whatever that is — an actual reaction or just a happier vibe around the New Japan Tag Titles — to take it much further. Dax countered the Tour of the Islands with a chop block too — lots of cool stuff like that here. ***1/2
9. IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title: Will Ospreay [c] vs. Tetsuya Naito
Returning to earlier, the consensus on greatness in wrestling has varied over time. My suspicion is that pro wrestling has lost something important and I think that that incredibly important forgotten thing is a lost, advanced civilization of pro wrestling — one where decisions made in the ring had more of a purpose, where match’s runtimes were more sensible, and where star ratings could be more accurate.
This brings us to tonight’s main event for the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Championship, a title with an inconsistent value being wrestled over by Tetsuya Naito and Will Ospreay, two wrestlers with the same.
The match was good (sometimes), entertaining (occasionally), spectacular (mostly towards the end)… it was also too long, and had too many stretches of the crowd just clapping along as they confidently… deliberately… slowly worked over each other’s neck. All the in-between felt less like something done for pacing purposes and just something done because they had to. Somewhere among the nothing was greatness, but there was too much nothing. ***1/2
Shota “Shooter” Umino, whose return along with Ren Narita’s has quickly made New Japan sort of exciting, showed up after the match to challenge Ospreay for the title.
Happy Thoughts: I guess it depends on if you’re an FTR or Will Ospreay completist. Otherwise, Battle Autumn was a decent show missing or forgetting too many things to make it worth checking out. 2.75 / 5.0
