After that whole info dump of a chapter zero I'm not gonna make you wait any longer, but before going into this I want to clarify that for a ratings system, I'll be using the grading style (A+ to F-). Anytime I rank things, I usually have a better time doing it with a tier list, and the grading system is the closest I can get to that without doing actual tier lists for each event, so that's what I'll stick with for this project. Without further ado, onto the show!
Rei vs. Shibaten
Rei is the future Tsutomu Oosugi and Shibaten is the future Banana Senga, so this is an entirely Speed of Sounds opener. We seemingly only get the finish of the match but it was probably the best part so I'm not complaining. There's a good comedy portion with Rei and Shibaten doing a quick sumo match, and Shibaten hit a good dropkick. The finish of Rei reversing a quebradora into a crucifix was pretty cool, albeit a little sloppy. This seems like it was a fine opener, but the footage shown was too short and the match itself was too "nothing" to rate highly. C
MEN's Teioh vs. Rui Hiugaji vs. Shinobu
Teioh is the definite highlight of this match, with him trying to just read his One Piece volume in peace. The parts where he was locking up with his opponents while still reading gave me some real Orange Cassidy vibes. He eventually gets Shinobu to read part of it, and they both share a laugh. Hiugaji makes himself public enemy number one by taking and throwing the manga, and Shinobu and Teioh beat the shit outta him for payback. The finish was really good too, with Shinobu attempting a shooting star press on Hiugaji while he was across the ring that had no way of landing (Teioh held onto Hiugaji and goaded Shinobu into trying it, being the Lucy to Shinobu's Charlie Brown). Teioh immediately put both men into a double spinning toe hold, making Hiugaji tap. A really solid comedy match. C+
Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Kesen Numajiro
Numajiro and Shinzaki do some solid grappling to start it off before obliterating each other with some nasty forearms and shoot headbutts. Shinzaki was as great as he always is, showing off that insane agility which doesn't make sense at all for a man of his bulk. Numajiro provided a solid worker for him to do cool shit to, as besides the shoot headbutts and some good hip attacks he didn’t really do anything else of note. His general wrestling was extremely solid so that made up for it. There's a pretty good ending sequence with Numajiro attempting a hip attack, only to be caught into a backdrop before Shinzaki put on a cross-arm strangle for the win. This was a perfectly fine match with a couple really cool moments, and helped remind me that Shinzaki must possess the fountain of youth. B-
Kowloon (Ken45, Maguro Ooma & Takeshi Minamino) vs. Kagetora, Rasse & Shinjitsu Nohashi
This is that good shit. Seeing Nohashi in his “Shinzaki jr.” gimmick is real weird knowing what he’d become pretty soon. Everyone in the match did really good, but Nohashi showed himself off the best. He was doing Shinzaki spots with a lot more speed and general juniors pizazz, and his shoot headbutt battle against Minamino was great, really outdoing the ones done by Numajiro right before it. This seemingly proves my theory that Nohashi has always been good at slamming his thick skull into other people's not as thick skulls (watch his FUTEN match against Makoto Hashi for proof of that). KAGETORA was just amazing with everything he did as well, he really showed off his fluidity as a wrestler and also hit a sweet ass heel kick. Rasse was really quick and did some cool lucha shit, but was, for the most part, the definition of "the third guy in the team". Ken45 wasn’t as good as Nohashi or KAGETORA but he was definitely close, putting in the best performance from the Kowloon side of the match. Ooma (the future Manjimaru) throws a real good yakuza kick, a real good lariat, and a real good german suplex, so you know he's my type of wrestler. Although Minamino was definitely the least interesting guy in Kowloon, he also provided a great base for the face team to hit some cool moves on, and his own offense, while sparse, was definitely not bad at all. The finish had Ooma hit a half nelson suplex and a brainbuster on Rasse, but Rasse kicks out, so he picks him up and hit him with his beautiful Manjiotoshi (fire thunder driver) for the win. Genuinely such a fun Michinoku trios match, a style of match we will see a lot of in this series. I was into the match the whole time, and all six guys did a good job of furthering the Seigigun/Kowloon rivalry. B+
Survival Tobita, The Great Sasuke & Ultraman Robin vs. The Sato Brothers & Alien Mefilas
This was a prototype version of the great space war match. The ring had a tiny town in it similar to Kaiji Big Battel. Watching Shinzaki in his best suit spend a solid minute trying to get a toy ufo to work was some funny shit. Sasuke is dressed as the dark knight and Robin is dragged out by the Sato Brothers on a fucking cross. This is already amazing. This match is pretty much Kei and Shu against Sasuke and Tobita, as Kei and Shu’s partner Alien Mefilas (who I can find no information about), along with Minamino of Kowloon, are sitting outside guarding Robin's crucified body. I can't begin to give a spot-by-spot rundown of this match, so instead, here's the moments I found the most notable:
- The Sato Brothers start their offense by pelting Sasuke and Tobita with water balloons.
- Tobita put a plunger on one of the Sato's head. The face the Sato makes is priceless.
- Sasuke attempts to drive a bicycle into Minamino, who counters with a motorcycle. You can probably guess who won.
- The Sato Brothers wrap Tobita and Sasuke up with an outside mat and a ladder, keeping them stuck to the ring post long enough to crash the motorcycle into them.
- Because it has to happen, they put a barrel on Sasuke while he’s on the top rope, resulting in Sasuke stumbling off and hitting the apron on the way down. How he's not dead is beyond me.
- Sasuke and Tobita are able to free Robin, who embraces them and comes in like a house of fire. Except that fire is a small flame in a downpour. I'm saying Robin isn't that good.
- The Sato Brothers and Mefilas put on “galaxy armor” which just looks like part of a ripoff Jushin Liger costume. Mefilas immediately loses his armor to Sasuke.
- Sasuke slams the Sato Brothers on the barrel and tries to Swanton their heads, and anyone with half a brain could see the Kei and Shu dodge from a mile away. Sasuke goes back first onto the bottom of the barrel because I guess being a great juniors wrestler doesn't require a working spine.
- Sasuke puts an open ladder on the barrel and surrounds the structure with chairs. He climbs up the ladder about halfway before it falls over on top of him.
At this point, the match had pretty much used up all its good spots, and luckily it ended soon after with Robin hitting a shitty crossbody on one of the Sato brothers. It seems a lot happened in the promo afterwards but I can’t speak Japanese so I have no clue. Sasuke rides out of the ring and subsequently the arena on the motorcycle, because it's Sasuke and he'll do what he fucking wants to. This started out as a really fun weapon's brawl, all four men did great and had some insane moments. However, By the time Robin was freed, it had felt like the match had run its course. It could gain a jolt of energy through the introduction of another great competitor, but calling Ultraman Robin great is disrespectful to anyone that could even be considered great. I'm not sure if you realize this, but I strongly dislike Ultraman Robin. Mefilas was also pretty bad, but he was such a non-entity in this match that he's not worth talking about. The galaxy armor moment was kinda funny and the part where Sasuke tried to set something crazy up and it fell on him made me laugh pretty hard, but that's about it for the last half of the match. Even the barrel moment from that point felt meh, mainly because a better barrel spot had happened earlier in the same match. If Robin never came down from that cross this match would've been great, but the first half was definitely enough to call it pretty good. B
Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Title
Fujita "Jr." Hayato vs. Yoshitsune(c)
Hayato comes out swinging his towel with the crowd, absolutely vibing to his theme and coming off as the coolest man on the planet. Yoshitsune comes out stoic, but a cool flip into the ring is enough to rectify the noticeable difference in charisma between the two of them. After some light grappling to start the match, Hayato snapmares and kicks Yoshitsune. Yoshitsune responds with his own snapmare and kick. Hayato gets up pissed off and snapmares him again, but before he can show Yoshitsune what a real kick is, Yoshitsune hits his deja vu from a grounded position, and we're off to the races. This sequence establishes one of the two stories of this match: Hayato is a great striker and grappler, while Yoshitsune is one of the fastest, most agile wrestlers on the planet. Hayato works on Yoshitsune with tight holds, big suplexes, and mean kicks, but Yoshitsune uses his flips and lightning-fast offense to escape and take the advantage wherever he can. The other story in this match is Yoshitsune's brutal work on Hayato's midsection. At this point in his career, Hayato had become known for his insane endurance, so Yoshitsune's midsection targeting is to cut that off entirely. Moves like a corner superman spear, a tilt-a-whirl gutbuster, and a nasty cartwheel double stomp would put down a normal person, but Hayato's endurance isn't just from physical conditioning. Hayato has a clear never-say-die mentality, and uses every chance he has to fight back. At one point these stories are showcased perfectly, as Hayato is able to take the advantage, hitting an edgecution-like gourdbuster and transitioning into the KID, only for Yoshitsune to flip out of it, hit a cartwheel dropkick, and immediately follow it up with a running shooting star press. Hayato is able to kick out, but at this point the work on his midsection has done a number on him, and instead of immediately rising up, he gets about halfway before crumpling back down. Later, Hayato again is able to get the advantage and hits a nasty head kick, but upon rebounding off the ropes is caught by Yoshitsune with a beautiful standing spanish fly. I felt like I needed to note this specific moment since shit like this got Blackball Billy called "innovative" in 2015, and Yoshitsune was busting it out 7 years earlier. Suck on that you insufferable prick.
However, with all of that talking about the well-done stories and solid body-targeting, the ending of this match might be the best part of it entirely. For the last section of the match review, I feel like I should just copy-paste my notes from when I was watching. Whatever retrospective bullshit I could say won't be able to compare to my raw emotion from that finishing stretch:
"Fight on the top rope. Yoshitsune gets knocked off two times but keeps coming back up, third time he comes back and HITS HAYATO WITH A DEATH ROLL KICK, THEN A SPRINGBOARD SUPER KICK, THEN THE ROPE RUN DROPKICK, THEN A FUCKING SPANISH FLY GUTCRUSHER?! HAYATO KICKS OUT! YOSHITSUNE HITS A 619 TO THE GUT AND THE SHOOTING STAR PRESS, AGAIN HAYATO BARELY KICKS OUT! THE CROWD IS GOING NUTS FOR HAYATO. YOSHITSUNE GOES FOR ONE MORE DEATH ROLL KICK BUT HAYATO DUCKS AND HITS HIM WITH A HEAD KICK, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS UP WITH A PK, THEN A RELEASE REGAL PLEX, AND FINALLY A DISGUSTING HELM. YOSHITSUNE KICKS OUT! HAYATO PULLS HIM UP TO THE TOP ROPE AND HITS A TOP ROPE REGAL PLEX. YOSHITSUNE KICKS OUT AT 1! THRUST KICK TO HAYATO, GOES FOR THE SPRINGBOARD RANA BUT HAYATO CATCHES HIM, HOLDS HIM UPSIDE DOWN, HEADKICKS HIM! GRABS HIM AND LIFTS HIS HEAD UP FOR ANOTHER! YOSHITSUNE KICKS OUT BUT HAYATO ISN'T DONE. OFF THE ROPES, HERES THE HELM. HAYATO FUCKING DID IT."
This match played to both men’s strengths perfectly. Yoshitsune attacked Hayato’s midsection with hate and Hayato is such a great seller that you can almost feel the pain yourself. Above all else, that last section was genuinely one of the best kickout-heavy sequences I've ever seen. I'm pretty negative towards move-spamming and fighting spirit spots since they've lost all meaning nowadays, but Hayato used Kawada-esque selling to make it work. It never looked like he was getting a "burst of adrenaline that numbed the pain". Hayato was definitely in pain, he was just forcing himself through it and refusing to stay down. I'll admit that Yoshitsune didn't give me those same thoughts, as he fell into the no-selling category hard, but that's the only negative I have towards the ending, and that's a nitpick at best. An absolutely tremendous main event, and what a way to coronate Michinoku Pro's new ace. A
Hayato’s mentor Shinzaki is here to present the belt to him and he sounds like he’s about to cry. You can tell that even though Hayato is leading the villainous Kowloon, Shinzaki can’t stop himself from feeling proud of his student. Honestly, if I was in Shinzaki's shoes, I probably wouldn't have been able to hold back the tears like he did, so props to him for being such a pro.
Overall Thoughts
Well, starting this series off, I'm not sure if I could've gotten a better first show. The first couple matches were fine, with each one having one or two moments I remember from them, and they also honestly breezed by so it never felt like they were overstaying their welcome. However, those last 3 matches were awesome (or at least, they were without Ultraman Robin around). This was a really important night for Hayato, giving him his first reign as Tohoku Jr champ, as well as cementing his spot in the promotion, taking Yoshitsune's mantle and becoming the ace of Michinoku Pro.
At least, for now.
OVERALL GRADE: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment