ACCOMPLISH OUR SECOND NAVIGATION

July 26, 2002

Takeshi Rikio . . . aims to rise to the occasion when challenging for the GHC Title.

Yoshinobu Kanemaru . . . shows what he looks like as a worker without having a Lyger or Kikuchi to carry the load.

Satoru Asako . . . calls it a career by teaming up with his old partners from the 90’s one last time.

YOSHINARI OGAWA © vs. TAKESHI RIKIO (GHC Heavyweight Title)

This is one of those matches that are better in theory than in execution. It sounds great that someone like Rikio, who technically started in All Japan but made a name for himself in NOAH, is challenging for the title. Unfortunately, the only thing that really makes him seem like a viable threat to Ogawa is that he’s big enough to knock him for a loop. But it’s Yoshinari Ogawa, pretty much every heavyweight on the roster can do that. Rikio has some success as far as his tag title reign is concerned, but outside of the Akiyama/Saito match, neither he (nor Morishima for that matter) had been presented as though they’d pose any sort of threat to the top guys of the promotion.

The only real story to the match is Rikio’s knee being worked over, which happens relatively early in the match and gets dropped long before the finish. It starts when Ogawa trips Rikio from the floor and hangs him up in the ropes, and Ogawa is exactly the sort of jerk heel that one would expect, he even digs out Bret’s old ring post figure four spot. For his part, Rikio sells decently well for it, although there are a couple of odd moments, like when he stopped selling a legbar just to throw some forearm shots. The first time Ogawa moves away from it is when he wants to throw Rikio into the rail, and Rikio easily counters it and uses that to take control back. And a bit later Rikio drops his head for a back body drop too early and Ogawa hits a dropkick to the knee and takes control back for himself. But after that, the knee story just vanishes.

Outside of the knee, there isn’t a whole lot as far as meaningful work goes. Other than a couple of near falls, Rikio mostly uses mid-level offense to wear down Ogawa, including a series of body slams. Rikio does try both moves that he’d used to pin Ogawa in lead-in tag matches, a powerbomb and choke slam. Ogawa escapes the powerbomb and manages to survive the chokeslam. After that, there’s nothing else for Rikio to do to try to win, and Ogawa starts throwing out his usual spots, and after a bunch of backdrops Rikio finally stays down. After the somewhat flukey way that he got the win over Taue, it makes sense for Ogawa to win in a more decisive manner but considering the way that he’d worn down Rikio’s knee, the figure four cradle seemed like a more appropriate finish.

Overall, it’s a fine match but ‘fine’ is about it. Ogawa plugs Rikio into the same formula that he’d worked with Taue and goes about it. There’s not much at all that separates the two matches, and the couple of things that do aren’t in Rikio’s favor. Then again, between his small frame and the way that he likes to work, it’s probably unreasonable to expect much as far as variety goes from Ogawa as champion. The formula isn’t going to work with someone that the fans already buy as a title contender like Vader, Misawa, or Kobashi. At the end of the day, Ogawa gets another defense under his belt and Rikio gets a tiny bit of rub for having challenged for the title. So, nobody is any worse off than they were before.

YOSHINOBU KANEMARU © vs. TAKASHI SUGIURA (GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title)

Aside from Sugiura’s control segment working over the midsection, and a couple of creative counters from him, this is forgettable. Kanemaru doesn’t seem to know where he wants to take the match, a scrum on the outside leads to Sugiura’s ribs being hurt and once Kanemaru gets him into the ring, he does a slingshot senton. Instead of continuing to focus on the body, he grabs a headlock and then switches to head scissors before hitting a DDT. So, he’s working the neck now? Of course, it doesn’t matter, because Sugiura just wins a forearm exchange and takes control. And just in case anyone thought that Kanemaru’s few attacks on the body were meant to go somewhere, Sugiura makes sure to catch him on a dive just to hammer home that he’s fine.

Then again “it doesn’t matter” pretty much sums up most of what they do here. Sugiura’s body work isn’t much more than filler (although it’s more watchable than what Kanemaru did with his control segment), and the home stretch is both men tossing out bombs without any regard for what had happened previously or any attempt to build toward something. Sugiura hits an Olympic slam after Kanemaru had previously escaped and he’s “too out of it” to cover. He tries another one and Kanemaru grabs the ropes to stop him and then counters a suplex into a DDT. The DDT opens the door for Kanemaru to fire off his own offense, and after four consecutive brainbusters, the final one coming off the top rope, Sugiura stays down. There’s nothing as far as any real build or structure, and the little bit of story they work in doesn’t have any sort of satisfying payoff. Unless one is a diehard fan of either of these guys, there’s just no reason at all to care about this.

MITSUHARU MISAWA/KENTA KOBASHI/SATORU ASAKO vs. AKIRA TAUE/MASAO INOUE/MAKOTO HASHI

This has its fun moments, but twenty-six minutes is entirely too long for a match where Misawa and Kobashi play bit parts and Asako, Inoue, and Hashi are the main contributors. But, Asako was retiring due to a neck injury, so he goes out by teaming with his old partners one last time. Inoue and Hashi work over Asako, targeting the neck, as expected, but it works more because of how Asako sells and the crowd reaction more than anything else. Inoue and Hashi don’t show much as far as personality goes, neither of them uses any spots that they don’t normally use, and until Taue tags in for a quick run, it never feels like Asako is in genuine danger of losing.

When Misawa or Kobashi is in, Taue’s team has pretty much no chance. You know everything you need to know when Hashi does one of his headbutt flurries to Misawa, who no-sells it and drops Hashi with a single elbow shot. Kobashi is more involved, but again, he’s mainly there to space things out, since it’s Asako’s match, but he does a respectable job of lighting up both Hashi and Inoue with his chops. Asako takes his beating like a man, holds his own against Taue as much as possible and when Misawa gives him an assist, it’s up to Hashi to pick up the slack for his team, which goes as well as you’d expect. Asako hits the SDA one last time and goes out on top.

Conclusion: It’s short for a NOAH commercial tape, with only three matches and some clips, but there’s nothing on it that’s especially must see.