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PURO ISLAND: JAPANESE NEWS AND VIEWS

By Mike Cranwell on 11/26/2009 10:49 AM

Welcome everyone to PuroIsland, your vacation destination when the childish booking of the WWE becomes too much to handle. Here on PuroIsland, we will examine the goings-on in Japan, where Puroresu is treated like a real sport, and anyone who wants “booking for kids” at least has the option of watching Osaka Pro. My name is Mike Cranwell, and I’ll be your tour guide.

 

We’ll start on the Emerald Island known as Pro Wrestling NOAH (honestly, I’ll drop that gimmick really fast, I promise), NOAH has had the most challenging year of any company in Japan this year, well not including HUSTLE who are about finished, but they weren’t a major company like NOAH is.

 

NOAH’s greatest loss was the tragic death of their founder, Mitsuharu Misawa, who many people know died in the ring in June, the result of a severed spinal chord from years of taking the heaviest (suplex) bumps of anyone in history. In between that, NOAH lost its top Jr. wrestlers, Naomichi Marufuji in March, and KENTA in late-October to torn ACL’s. We will touch on Marufuji shortly, though KENTA will be out until anywhere from April-July 2010.

 

NOAH News

 

It’s 2009 NOAH, so I have very little in the way of good news to report. Already missing both KENTA and Kensuke Office’s Katsuhiko Nakajima (ankle injury suffered in RoH’s Mississauga, ON show vs El Generico), NOAH will be missing two heavyweights who have either held, or fought for the GHC Heavyweight Title this year.

 

Akitoshi Saito is out indefinitely with a suspected fractured orbital bone. New Japan’s Hiroshi Tanahashi was recently out around two months with a fractured orbital bone to give you a probable injury timeline.

 

Far worse than that, Jun Akiyama will be out anywhere from a handful of shows to indefinitely with several injuries. The most serious of these is herniated discs in his back, which caused him to collapse in the dressing room the night Misawa died (his match was before Misawa’s), and to forfeit the GHC Title the next night. He likely needs surgery to repair them, and with Puro companies in Japan watching wrestlers far more closely now in the wake of the Misawa tragedy, I hope and would expect Akiyama to be out for an extended period.

 

Due to the Akiyama injury, NOAH’s annual December tour opening show at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan has been changed. Here is the updated card:

 

NOAH, 06.12.2009 (G+)
TokyoNippon Budokan

1. Makoto Hashi vs. Shuhei Taniguchi
2. Akira Taue, Takuma Sano, Junji Izumida & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Yoshinari Ogawa, Kentaro Shiga, Kishin Kawabata & Genba Hirayanagi
3. Kenta Kobashi, Tamon Honda & Akihiko Ito vs. Bison Smith, Chris Hero & Eddie Edwards
4. GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title: Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki © vs. Taiji Ishimori & Ricky Marvin
5. Naomichi Marufuji Return Match & Atsushi Aoki Shining Magic 10 Match Series 10th: Naomichi Marufuji vs. Atsushi Aoki
6. GHC Tag Team Title: Kensuke Sasaki & Takeshi Morishima © vs. Takeshi Rikio & Mohammed Yone
7. GHC Heavyweight Title: Go Shiozaki © vs. Takashi Sugiura

 

Budokan shows are a huge deal for NOAH – it’s their MadisonSquareGarden. The Budokan holds just north of 16,000 people, and the paid attendance is NOAH’s gauge for how people are accepting their booking.

 

Putting Kobashi in a throwaway match with Chris Hero is a shame. Kobashi has always been and will continue to be NOAH’s biggest star/draw, and Hero is more over in NOAH than any other Gaijin, including NOAH’s Gaijin Ace Bison Smith. Believe me when I say that a completely random Kobashi/Hero tag team facing off against Tag Champs Sasaki and Morishima would have made far more sense here than the sinfully boring team of Rikio and Yone.

 

The original match was the Tag Champs vs Kobashi and Akiyama, the old “Burning” team back together. Kobashi in any title match will draw more paying fans, so to throw him in the third match on the card, a meaningless match, is a waste of your biggest draw, which frankly isn’t something NOAH can afford right now.

 

Marufuji makes his return on this card, facing off against promising Jr. Atsushi Aoki. Aoki has had a tremendous year and is on the verge of being worthy of the Jr. Ace position, so it will be very interesting to see how this is booked. Personally I’d rather see Aoki win, as Marufuji loses nothing being defeated in his return by one of the top-3 Jr.’s in the division this year.

 

The main event has an off-chance of being an MOTYC, with the superlative Takashi Sugiura challenging NOAH’s future, the current GHC Heavyweight Champion Go Shiozaki. Go was pushed into this role after Misawa’s death/Akiyama’s forfeiting of the GHC Title, and has carried it well so far. His matches are very good, and he is wrestling at a consistently high level for the first time in his five-year career. Sugiura has been NOAH’s best heavyweight all year, and has become a top-end singles wrestler to combine with being the greatest tag team wrestler in the World today. With all of that being said, if NOAH draws a legit 9,000 to the Budokan, they should be ecstatic.

 

Next, we’ll head to the Land of the Jr.’s, Dragon Gate. Anyone familiar with the US Indy scene knows of Dragon Gate, and with good reason.

 

DG really is the land of the Jr.’s with the news of Cyber Kong asking for, and being granted his release from the company recently. Kong, who suffered a bad neck injury not too long ago, was unhappy with how his neck was heeling, and for one reason or another asked to leave DG. I would expect in the coming weeks or months we will hear more about this, as the Why to this equation is very much open. Either he’s done with wrestling because of the injury, he will come back when he’s ready, or he’s used this to get out of his contract and we will see him in another company. He was a fun monster heel whose presence will definitely be missed in DG.

 

Despite his own recent injury problems, Open the Dream Gate Champion Naruki Doi successfully defended Dragon Gate’s biggest title on November 23rd vs burgeoning star BxB Hulk.  Full results courtesy of Jae over at DGUSA (the results one, not Gabe’s):

 

Dragon Gate 11/23/2009

Osaka Prefectural Gym Main Stadium

GATE OF DESTINY 2009 - 6500 Attendance
0. Super Shisa{W}, Shisa
BOY (4:27 Sharp Shisa) Hollywood Stalker Ichikawa, Kotoka{L}
1. Turboness, Anthony Turbo Mori{W} (
7:12 Turboness Assisted Pinfall) Kenichiro Arai{L}, Kzy
2. Super Shenlong 50 Match Series: Susumu Yokosuka (
2:19 Mugen) Super Shenlong
3. Masato Yoshino, Dragon Kid (
15:30 DQ) Ryo Saito, MAZADA
4. Open the Brave Gate 3 Way Match: Naoki Tanisaki vs. KAGETORA vs. Akira Tozawa
-KAGETORA (
6:04 Kagenui) Tozawa
-Tanisaki (
11:17 Implant) KAGETORA
*V3 for Tanisaki
5.
CIMA{W}, Gamma, Magnitude Kishiwada (13:28 Meteora) Yasushi Kanda{L}, Genki Horiguchi, Dr. Muscle
6. Open the Twin Gate: YAMATO, Shingo Takagi (24:22 Double KO) Masaaki Mochizuki, Don Fujii
*V3 for KAMIKAZE
7. Open the Dream Gate: Naruki Doi (27:02 Muscular Bomb) BxB Hulk
*V7 for Doi

Doi’s next title defense will come against one of the veteran members of the roster (probably Don Fuji, or possibly Masaaki Mochizuki).

 

The other big news out of DG is that they have postponed their annual King of Gate elimination tournament that usually goes on throughout the December tour. It will now be held in the spring.

 

Over in All Japan, ‘tis the season for the Real World Tag League tournament. Some people, maybe even All Japan, refer to it as the “World’s Strongest Tag League,” but I’ve always known it as the RWTL, so bully to them!

 

The teams participating in the RWTL:

 

- Keiji Muto & Masakatsu Funaki
- Satoshi Kojima & ZODIAC
- Suwama & Masayuki Kono
- Osamu Nishimura & Seiya Sanada
- Riki Choshu & Manabu Soya
- Akebono & Ryota Hama (All Asia Tag Team Champions)
- Taiyo Kea & Minoru Suzuki (World Tag Team Champions)
- Yoshihiro Takayama & NOSAWA Rongai
- TARU & Joe Doering

 

The tourney is currently ongoing, and though no formal standings have been posted, as far as I can tell the standings are as follows:

 

Kojima/ZODIAC: 6 pts (3 Wins-1Loss)

Mutoh/Funaki: 4 pts (2-0)

Choshu/Soya: 4 pts (2-1)

Suwama/Kono: 4 pts (2-2)

Nishimura/Sanada: 2 pts (1-1)

Takayama/Rongai: 2 pts (1-2)

Suzuki/Kea: 2 pts (1-2)

TARU/Doering: 2 pts (1-2)

Akebono/Hama: 0 pts (0-2)

 

All Japan also recently went to Taiwan, where The Great Muta made a rare appearance (Mutoh primarily wrestles as himself, and by the way, he is somehow still awesome on knees that make Rey Mysterio’s look healthy). The Taiwan Cup was held (basically a drawing gimmick of a tournament) during the first day in Taiwan, which saw Suwama, who will either be the company’s future at heavyweight, or…not, winning the Cup. Suwama defeated Muga-stylist Osamu Nishimura in the finals, after predictably defeating everybody’s favourite obese teddy bear Ryoto Hama in the first round, and Manabu Soya in the semi’s.

 

And finally, we come to the top company in Japan, New Japan Pro Wrestling. New Japan has a big show coming up on December 5. The full card for that show, thanks to Stuart over at Strong Style Symphony:

NJPW, 12/5/09 (WPW)
Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium

1. Tiger Mask, Jushin Thunder Liger & AKIRA vs. Koji Kanemoto, Taichi & Nobuo Yoshihashi
2. Ryusuke Taguchi, Prince Devitt & Kazuchika Okada vs. Jado, Gedo & Tomohiro Ishii
3. Super Strong Machine & Mitsuhide Hirasawa vs. Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson
4. Masahiro Chono & Tomoaki Honma vs. Manabu Nakanishi & Takao Omori
5. Special Singles Match: Wataru Inoue vs. Toru Yano
6. Chain Death Match: Togi Makabe vs. Takashi Iizuka
7. Special Singles Match: Hirooki Goto vs. Masato Tanaka

8. Special Singles Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. TAJIRI

9. IWGP Heavyweight Title: Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Yuji Nagata

 

NJ has booked themselves into a corner here. On January 4th, their annual WrestleKingdom show at the Tokyo Dome, aka Japan’s WrestleMania takes place. Having had Nakamura soundly defeat former IWGP Champion Tanahashi last month, unless NJ has something up their sleeves, Nagata either has to win this match, or the belt has to be held up somehow, otherwise New Japan has nothing special to draw more than 25,000 people to the Dome.

 

Last year it took Misawa in the semi-main event and Mutoh as IWGP Champion in the main even just to draw an announced 40,000 people (which I believe was legit, though Japanese companies paper shows and inflate attendance figures just as companies in North America do).

 

There has been some talk of an inter-promotional feud with New Japan founder Antonio Inoki’s current company, Inoki Genome Federation. Nakamura has publicly said that he wants the 1st Generation IWGP Heavyweight Title (as in the original belt) back, but it is in the possession of Inoki.

 

The functional problem with a feud between these two companies headlining the Dome is that there’s no one in the IGF who could draw at the Dome. Naoya Ogawa, whose level of rage-based charisma makes John Cena look like he’s on downers, used to be a draw in Japan, but not so much anymore. If the companies had taken three months to build to Nakamura vs Ogawa they may have been about to draw up to 35,000, but not in this little amount of time, if they’re even going in that direction. Bob Sapp, Josh Barnett, and anyone else in the company would be a farce as a draw in NJ’s main event.

 

In the meantime, Nakamura vs Nagata is a legitimate MOTYC if they really let loose, as both are (in my mind) two of the Top-10 heavyweights in the World today. Nagata is loved in New Japan, and his nickname is Mr. IWGP. Nakamura is their unquestioned Ace at this time, and seeing as Nagata is the only legitimate challenger they have in the company to that title at this time, I can see them doing something where a rematch at the Dome is necessary. Otherwise New Japan are either going to pull a huge rabbit out of their hat, or they are in danger of blowing their biggest show of the year.

 

That’s all we have today on PuroIsland. My apologies if this was a little dry, believe me when I say that that will change. Be sure to come back soon, as our next tour will feature analysis of the NOAH and New Japan World Title matches, as well as probably less talk of islands and tours. Well, faux tours at least, we’ll always talk about Japanese companies and their tours. I’d better stop while I’m ahead. See you next time!

 

Mike Cranwell has been an avid Puroresu watcher for six years, and also writes for The Wrestling Daily. His archive, including an exclusive sit-down interview with Katsuhiko Nakajima, can be found here.