More Wrasslin

1. Yuji Nagata Vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, 04/13, NJPW

2. Yuko Miyamoto Vs. Takashi Sasaki, 03/14, BJPW

3. Shinjiro Otani & Takao Omori Vs. Yoshihiro Takayama & Kohei Sato, 02/18, Z1MAX

--4. Mitsuharu Misawa Vs. Takuma Sano, 04/28, NOAH

5. Ryouji Sai Vs. Mammoth Sasaki, 02/18, Z1MAX

6. Meiko Satomura Vs. Mayumi Ozaki, 02/12, LLPW

7. Takeshi Rikio & Jun Akiyama Vs. Mohammed Yone & Takeshi Morishima, 04/01, NOAH

--8. CIMA, Susumu Yokosuka, & Dragon Kid Vs. Naomichi Marufuji, Ricky Marvin, & Ippei Ota, 04/28, NOAH


--9. Kengo Mashimo & Madoka Vs. Iifushi Kota & HARASHIMA, GPWA Differ Cup, 05/06

10. Daisuke Sekimoto Vs. Kengo Mashimo, 03/22, Wakamusha

11. Yoshihiro Takayama, Hirotaka Yokoi, & Kohei Sato Vs. Takao Omori, Shinjiro Otani, & Kazunari Murakami, 01/19, Z1MAX

12. SUWA, Yoshihiro Takayama, & Minoru Suzuki Vs. Takeshi Rikio, KENTA, & Naomichi Marufuji, 01/21, NOAH

13. Jun Akiyama Vs. Go Shiosaki, 01/21, NOAH

--14. Togi Makabe Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, 04/08, NJPW

15. Doug Williams Vs. Yoshinari Ogawa, 03/04, NOAH

16. Osamu Namiguchi Vs. Atsushi Aoki, 03/08, Z1MAX

17. Shinsuke Nakamura Vs. Toshiaki Kawada, 01/04, NJPW

--18. Mitsuharu Misawa Vs. Takashi Suguira, 03/05, NOAH

19. Keiji Muto Vs. Toru Owashi, 03/27, AJPW

20. Tiger Mask, Koji Kanemoto, Wataru Inoue, Kaz Hayashi, & TAKA Michinoku Vs.  Jushin Thunder Liger, Minoru, Milano Collection AT, Shuji Kondo, & "brother" YASSHI, 01/04, NJPW









--4. Mitsuharu Misawa Vs. Takuma Sano, 04/28, NOAH

On DVDBoards, I've already gone over why I liked it, so I'll just do the basics again.

-This match should've been ass, but wasn't.

-Misawa is outstruck, and that never happens.

-Sano throws out weird topes and dives and shit.

-Misawa is great as wrestling George Foreman, relying on the big shots and attrition.

-The finish is essentially "The Northern Lights Bomb ain't got shit on the Emerald Frosion", and that's true, because I really hate the NLB.

Really. Watch it. It's great.



--8. CIMA, Susumu Yokosuka, & Dragon Kid Vs. Naomichi Marufuji, Ricky Marvin, & Ippei Ota, 04/28, NOAH

CIMA Vs. Marufuji is a big deal, even if both of them are really terrible now. That changes surprisingly little in how much this match means to junior wrestling, and the people in Japan are stoked to see it. This match is built around CIMA in NOAH, and it's built surprisingly well. Marvin and Ota do most of the work, while CIMA and Yokosuka do set up work for their team. Marufuji and Dragon Kid are kept apart so they can just work at big offense. The sub story of the match is Ota, amazingly, being able to keep up with the DG crew. It's a tight little match, with a surprising lack of botches, and some memorable moments. And most of all, the whole DG crew, barring Yokosuka, makes it out of the match without throwing out the big stuff that's finishers for them, which means they'll mean that much more when they do happen. A really smart match that gets everyone over and builds to some interesting match ups. Only time will tell if NOAH's smart enough to let CIMA/Marufuji keep building to an autumn face off, or if it's going to fill time for the late-summer Budokan.



--9. Kengo Mashimo & Madoka Vs. Iifushi Kota & HARASHIMA, GPWA Differ Cup, 05/06

DDT Vs. K-Dojo. Mashimo is a giant jerk, Madoka is flippyfloppy, Kota is great, HARSHIMA is great. This match does good jobs of playing to everyone's strength, and skipping out on the useless bullshit that goes to a lot of other Japanese indy wrestling. Mashimo and HARASHIMA are the big guns on each team, being singles title holders for each of their promotions, where as Kota and Madoka are seen as the big up and comers for each fed. There's a really nice video package before the match, showing how both teams got to where they did. I'm worried about the match being silly because there's a lot of hold for hold stuff, but then HARASHIMA kicks Kengo in the leg that the Z1 Team fucked over, and I turn around instantly, as they have my attention. Basically, this is a good big-time indy junior match, where Kengo is allowed to be a giant scumball, Madoka is allowed his flips (and has some awesome stomping, by the way), HARASHIMA is allowed to be HARASHIMA, and Kota is allowed to be Kota. The leg selling gets a little weird for a small amount of time, and Kengo wantonly nosells a german suplex, but that' s it.  Post match, there's a handshake because they just beat the crap out of each other. HARASHIMA and Kota are still, somehow, worlds beyond the rest of the indy scene, but Madoka and Mashimo totally keep up.



--13. Togi Makabe Vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, 04/08, NJPW

Chain death match. Which means Makabe awesomeness. Indeed, this match is loaded to the brim with awesome Makabe-ness, and decent Nakamura-ness. This really is another Makabe show, with Makabe just going above and beyond the call of duty to be an awesome heel. GBH at ringside is also great, antagonizing him further, and the referee violence is pretty ace for Makabe, especially for the random acts of Tiger Hattori as a result. Nakamura's comeback is alright, but...I dunno. There's something missing in the way everything is laid out. It's totally on Nakamura, though, because Makabe's awesome all throughout.



--18. Mitsuharu Misawa Vs. Takashi Suguira, 03/05, NOAH

The realization of "Misawa as Pace Setting, Bruising Old Man." It kind of came by accident in it's invention match against Morishima this year, as you can only do so much when concussed like he was. But he apparently looked at that match and decided that's the direction he should go for everything, and he showed this idea off against Suguira, who's riding a big popularity wave. Suguira really tries to stand up to Misawa, but Misawa is content to just throw big elbow after big elbow, since no one in NOAH (except Kobashi and Sano) can really stand up to his elbow power. So he just throws more elbows than usual, in place of actual wrestling moves, and it works. It's a good match to set the backstory of Misawa's reign, and it's one of the better Japanese matches this year, but that doesn't say very much, apparently.