FLYIN’ SOLO #12

Well, my completionist nature demanded that I finish looking at the Pro Wrestling NOAH title picture in 2002. However, footage of some of these shows is hard to come by, and the full lineups weren’t exactly inspiring. So, let’s just group them all together, take flight and finish this off!

YOSHINOBU KANEMARU © vs. TSUYOSHI KIKUCHI (GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title – NOAH 10/19/02)

This is pretty much the Kikuchi show. It’s probably an overall better match for being so, but it’s telling that the junior ace of the company (even if it’s only by default with Marufuji on the shelf) and the champion in his second reign still doesn’t have it in him to connect with the crowd in any meaningful way. When Kanemaru is in control, Kikuchi’s selling carries the offense and makes it look better than it actually is; even a basic corner lariat followed by a roll to the center of the ring looks devastating. It’s not that Kanemaru doesn’t do much; he rolls out quite a bit of offense throughout the match. However, very little of it means anything outside of Kikuchi’s selling, and one never gets the impression that he’s laying any sort of groundwork to build to anything.

When Kikuchi is in control, he almost looks like the second coming of 1992 Jumbo with his surliness, elbowing Kanemaru down and then standing on his face. Kikuchi’s cradle into stretch muffler is the craftiest thing here, and after wearing him down a bit, he switches to a single leg crab to keep working on Kanemaru’s knee. After Kanemaru finally makes the ropes, he starts his comeback with a dropkick, and his knee is no worse for wear. It’s the same story during the home stretch. It didn’t matter that Kikuchi had been bumping him around, including his Spider suplex and a series of rolling Germans. Kanemaru escapes the Fireball bomb and hits a brainbuster. Following a brief delayed sell, he recovers and repeatedly drops Kikuchi on his head until an avalanche brainbuster keeps him down for good. All things considered, NOAH probably would have been better off switching the title here. It would have been interesting to see what surly vet Kikuchi could have done with KENTA, Sugiura and Suzuki as they were coming along.

JUN AKIYAMA/AKITOSHI SAITO © vs. KENTA KOBASHI/KENTARO SHIGA (GHC Tag Team Titles – NOAH 10/19/02)

Although it goes a little too long for the story they were telling, this is still a boatload of fun. It’s a shame that Shiga’s body was about to give out on him; judging by his performance here, his ascent up the card was a massive missed opportunity. The story they tell isn’t anything especially deep or innovative, it’s more or less a typical southern style tag match, but it’s very well done because everyone involved plays their role to virtual perfection.

Shiga puts in what very well may be the performance of his career. He’s spot on with his early intensity when he’s taking the fight to Akiyama and Saito. He understands that while he initially takes them by surprise with his willingness to throw fists and elbows, he’s not going to win the match that way. So, he switches gears and tries to outwrestle them, such as taking Akiyama by surprise with the DDT off the ramp and showing his own creativity with two tornado DDTs from the apron that drop Akiyama’s midsection across the guardrail and gives him something to target. And, when Akiyama and Saito are in control, his selling makes everything look all but hopeless for him. Akiyama takes over the match when he counters Shiga’s cradle into a crossface, and it’s possibly the tightest crossface/LaBell lock/omoplata that’s ever been seen in a pro-style setting. Akiyama and Saito excel as ruthless heels. They double team Shiga behind the referee's back, and in front of his face. Akiyama busts Shiga’s nose and then drops a couple of knees right on his face. Kobashi simply lets things play out; he only interjects himself when it’s necessary, namely to break up Akiyama’s crossface. He’s content to let Shiga weather the storm and do it on his own. It takes some time, and a few tries, but Shiga eventually escapes a vertical suplex and surprises Akiyama with a running lariat and makes the tag. Kobashi’s entry to the match completely changes the dynamic of things, as now it’s Akiyama who seemingly can’t get anything going. Even when it seems like he’s finally making progress, such as reversing the whip into the corner, Kobashi easily fends him off by catching the jumping knee and throwing him back to the mat.

Kobashi gives Shiga some time to recover, and once he tags himself back in, he’s easily just as fired up as he was in the opening moments of the match. He busts out some great offense for near falls, including catching one of Saito’s kicks and taking the big man over with a Capture suplex, he counters Akiyama’s Exploder into a cradle for a reminder of how Jun lost the GHC Title, and seems to be a heartbeat away from the upset of the decade when he traps Akiyama in a katahajime and Saito has to make the save. Akiyama is forced to dig deeper into his move set than anyone would have expected to put him away, between the front choke, the Exploder and finally his STERNNESS Dust fisherman’s buster. It’s one of those rare cases (especially for this promotion) where the end result or the successful defense of the titles isn’t the main takeaway from the match. Instead, it’s how much Shiga stepped up and made his opportunity to hang with the top guys count.

There are also a fair number of things that weren’t especially necessary for the match and only ensured that they’d be able to stretch it out to pass the thirty minute mark. Mainly the final stretch of Kobashi getting worked over by Akiyama and Saito, although Shiga saving Kobashi from the front choke was a nice way to return the favor after Kobashi saved him from the crossface. But nobody believed that Kobashi would be in danger of losing the match for his team. NOAH logic dictates that the low man on the team drops the fall, with very few exceptions, usually to build up to something bigger down the line and that wasn’t happening here. Kobashi’s Burning Hammer tease to Akiyama is also pretty much a waste, since he didn’t hit it and Akiyama needed to be saved by Saito. If they jettisoned those extraneous bits and stayed focused on the story at hand, this would be a surprisingly tight and focused match that clocks in at roughly 26 minutes, rather than being a bit bloated to hit 31. But it’s a remarkable effort from everyone involved and it’s easily the best match since the titles were introduced. ***1/4

YOSHINOBU KANEMARU © vs. KENTA (GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title – NOAH 12/1/02)

First, we saw the best tag titles match up to that point, and now it’s the best junior title match. He does have a few good moments, but there’s very little of that to credit to Kanemaru. KENTA puts on an offensive clinic early on, jumpstarting the match to pelt Kanemaru with stiff shots and a rail ride on the floor, and busting out some creative and smart offense, including a butterfly suplex into an armbar and countering Kanemaru’s first jumping DDT into a Busaiku knee. Even when KENTA slows down the pace, he adds little touches to try to make things matter; a good example of that is the headlock sequence. He makes sure to really grind the hold in, and it looks impressive when he manages to keep the hold applied after Kanemaru tries to shoot him into the ropes. KENTA tries to bleed Kanemaru dry with a couple of sleepers and then use them to set up some nasty kicks, including a springboard dropkick to the back while Kanemaru is seated. One doesn’t normally think about great selling when Kanemaru’s name comes up, but he does a good enough job that it seems like KENTA may only be one or two big shots away from taking the title.

Even Kanemaru’s comeback is worked rather smartly. Instead of just handing the match over to him, KENTA makes him earn it. Kanemaru tries to escape a headlock with a backdrop suplex and KENTA flips out and throws a couple of slaps at him. It’s not until KENTA tries something big with a dropkick that gets sidestepped that Kanemaru takes over. Kanemaru’s initial offensive run is nice; he returns the favor for the stiffness and then sends KENTA into the guardrail for his signature leg drop. Kanemaru wears down KENTA’s back with some stomps and a crab hold in the ropes, and it pays off when KENTA tries to make a comeback with another dropkick and that one gets sidestepped as well, resulting in a rough back bump that KENTA puts over nicely.

Unfortunately, as the match winds down it turns into a standard fare Kanemaru match, and even more unfortunate is that KENTA goes along with it. Kanemaru attempts his rolling brainbuster and after the first one KENTA escapes to hit another slap flurry and his running knee before finally selling the brainbuster. KENTA’s follow up is to position Kanemaru on the top rope for a superplex that is predictably countered into a DDT off the top. Then it’s time for Kanemaru to start rolling out his finishers: brainbuster, jumping DDT, moonsault etc. until a brainbuster finally ends it. It’s insane to think that KENTA was only about two years into his career and was already outworking the GHC Jr. Champion by pretty much every metric, but that’s what happens here. It’s a great look at exactly how much KENTA was capable of bringing to the table when he’s able to drag this much out of Kanemaru. ***1/4

JUN AKIYAMA/AKITOSHI SAITO © vs. VADER/SCORPIO (GHC Tag Team Titles – NOAH 12/1/02)

The best way to sum up this match is that it eats up twenty minutes. There’s nothing as far as any sort of story goes. Vader and Akiyama play off their recent title matches (the 10/01 GHC tag tournament final and the 12/01 GHC match) and neither means a thing. Vader hits Akiyama with the same chokeslam that made him and Scorp the first tag champs. But, instead of trying for a pin, he tags Scorp who does a top rope splash for a heatless near fall. Akiyama does the same Exploder-to-armbar that tapped out Vader the year before, and Scorpio saves before the crowd can even react. It’s not just the past finishes either; nothing that happens seems to matter in the grand scheme of things. Vader’s size seems negligible. It looks impressive that he easily picks up Saito for a powerbomb but then Akiyama takes him over in an Exploder just as easily and Scorpio hits a single dropkick that sends Saito to the floor so that he and Akiyama can work the finish.

Scorpio is the only one who shows up with good work. His flying spots are some of the best of the match, but he’s treated like a junior heavyweight rather than a genuine threat to Akiyama and Saito. His arm work on Akiyama carries the middle portion of the match; it’s impressive to see him doggedly holding on to a juji-gatame while Saito is stomping away at him, but it doesn’t have any impact on the match beyond being filler. He gets quite a few near falls on Akiyama as the match winds down. The spots themselves get a reaction. However, the actual near fall plays to crickets unless Vader does something first to set it up, like the splash he does right before Scorpio’s moonsault. And the kicker is that after getting put through the ringer like that, Akiyama’s win comes far too easily. He simply cuts off Scorpio as he’s climbing back up to the top rope and hits an Exploder to get the pin. Scorpio getting dispatched in that manner makes the work he put in earlier seem like a waste. It’s night and day compared to what Akiyama did with Shiga in October. And while the crowd may have thought it was more likely for Shiga to pull off the upset (if for no other reason than Scorpio being a foreigner), the point of working the match is to create doubt.

This has a few smart moments to appreciate, but it never comes together all that well. Gedo and Jado generate a fair amount of heat, but they don’t accomplish much else. And their heat isn’t anywhere near what Lyger was doing earlier in the year. It doesn’t help that their first control segment is on Kanemaru, whose best attribute is high spots, rather than Kikuchi. They double team him in the corner and his first instinct is to try to fight them both off, rather than take the beating and let the crowd get behind him. And as soon as the match goes outside, he reverses a vertical suplex on Gedo to take over the match instead of letting things play out.

The later control segment on Kikuchi, and his comeback, is the best stretch of the whole match; despite being almost criminally short. Kikuchi clearly understands the assignment when it comes to selling, especially when Jado traps him in the crossface and he looks almost completely drained. Kikuchi makes his comeback by winning a strike exchange with Gedo, and every shot he takes staggers him back a good bit. However, he can give as good as he takes. His elbows rock Gedo just as much, eventually allowing him to knock Gedo off his feet and stumble into the corner for his tag. After Kanemaru’s tag, the match pretty much falls apart. Gedo’s bump for the jumping DDT is overdone in a good way. When Kikuchi makes the save after Gedo’s Superfly splash, it’s smart of Gedo to try the move again when Jado has Kikuchi tied up, even if it’s unsuccessful. But those bits are the exception rather than the rule. There’s no sense of an overarching story or theme, and the layout fails to build toward a meaningful climax. Even Kikuchi gets in on the goofiness, taking a foul from Gedo and ignoring it ten seconds later to plant him with the Fireball Bomb which leads to Kanemaru’s brainbuster that ends the match. The match only goes a little under eighteen minutes, so they could have gotten a little more time to work with, but that’s hardly the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about what could have made this better.

At its best points, this smokes a decent number of Misawa’s title defenses from his final reign with the GHC in 2006-08, but this is still a long way off from what both men did in their respective matches with Takayama in September. Ogawa’s early filler is some of the best work of the match, not to mention some of the best work I’ve seen from him period. It seems odd to see a NOAH main event where headlocks, head scissors and cravats are used as genuine offense, but it comes off surprisingly well. Misawa does a passable job of selling the idea of the holds wearing down his neck, and Ogawa’s ability to continuously work back to them when Misawa works his way free both shows his craftiness and that he’s capable of controlling Misawa. Ogawa’s eyepoke in order to do the hip toss, after Misawa initially blocks it, works nicely. It’s also funny to see Ogawa give a clean break in the corner and then give Misawa a condescending slap before Misawa blasts him with an elbow in retaliation. In addition to his persistence with the holds, Ogawa also flashes some surprisingly smart moments that demonstrate how well he knows Misawa. Just after Misawa knocks him off the apron with an elbow and follows him out with an elbow suicida, Misawa charges for another elbow and Ogawa trips him up, resulting in Misawa taking a nasty bump into the guardrail. A bit later he sidesteps Misawa’s somersault senton off the apron and uses that opening to work back to the neck.

Ogawa’s second time trying to target Misawa’s neck is where things fall apart, and neither of them was apparently willing/able to try to salvage things. Ogawa’s idea is to unleash a literal marathon of backdrop suplexes on Misawa; at least a dozen and possibly more. And it gets to the point that each subsequent suplex earns less and less of a reaction, and the same can be said of Misawa’s kick outs. It also doesn’t help that Misawa does very little to get over the idea that the backdrops do much to hurt him. After one such near fall, Ogawa throws him into the corner and charges into an elbow and Misawa follows up with his rolling elbow. Misawa isn’t down for any length of time until he escapes a backdrop attempt and counters into a Tiger driver, at which point he slumps down before the ref can count the pin. Ogawa’s suplexes and Misawa’s kick outs don’t garner much response, but Ogawa’s near falls from flash cradles certainly do. Even with the recent history on his side, it’s crazy to think that anyone would feel like Ogawa’s best chance at winning was from a surprise roll up rather than dumping someone on their head and neck umpteen times.

Why not follow that bunch of absurdity with an equally absurd finishing stretch? Misawa took everything that Ogawa threw at him, so how does he respond when it’s clear that Ogawa has nothing left? Does he get angry and crank up the intensity to remind his longtime partner that he’s still the man? No, instead he trots out his lowest level finishers like the Tiger driver and running elbow. The actual spots don’t get much of a crowd reaction, although Ogawa’s kick outs do, especially when it’s apparent that he’s fading fast. Misawa’s last running elbow was only a millisecond away from ending the match, so, naturally, Misawa’s follow up is the Emerald Frozion to put Ogawa away. It’s as though Misawa wanted to give Ogawa rub by using the Frozion, but his idea of doing it was to bypass his other mid and higher level spots and go right to the big gun. Misawa wanting to make Ogawa look good is a laudable goal, but most of the entirety of the back half of the match tears down their progress. Had both men stayed the course and continued working as smart as they did early on, this would not only have been a far more interesting match, but it would have given Ogawa more credibility as a main eventer than he had when he had the GHC around his waist.