KING OF SPORTS: VOLUME 7

Dick Togo . . . is one of the few highlights of a junior trios match that should have easily surpassed everything else on this tape.

Minoru Suzuki . . . drags a barely watchable match out of Nakanishi.

Kensuke Sasaki . . . “earns” the distinction of being the only person to ever defeat Kazuyuki Fujita for a title in an actual match.

HIROYOSHI TENZAN/YUJI NAGATA/MANABU NAKANISHI vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI/KATSUYORI SHIBATA/SHINSUKE NAKAMURA

For the little bit of this that was actually worked like a regular match, it wasn’t too bad. The intensity and stiffness were appropriate for this whole ‘generational rivalry’ that New Japan was pushing at the time, and there were some nifty sequences like Nagata’s reversal of Tanahashi’s German suplex and taking him right down into the Nagata Lock II, and Nakanishi powering his way out of Nakamura’s Triangle choke and Tanahashi hitting an enzuigiri so Nakamura could keep the hold on. Of course, there were also a few times that the inexperience of the young team shows itself, namely Tanahashi’s figure four that Tenzan needed to walk him through applying, and Nakamura’s Shining Triangle was also rather ugly.

However, both Nakanishi and Shibata’s inability to get along with their partners pretty much kills any sort of flow of rhythm that this was building up. Tanahashi is holding his own with Nagata and Shibata interjects himself to attack Tanahashi, and it’s the same deal with Nakanishi and his partners. It looked more like something you’d expect to see in a TNA or late era WCW ring rather than New Japan. And it’s not even like there’s any sort of payoff. Tenzan and Nagata put Shibata through the ringer enroute to Tenzan pinning him after the TTD. While this is going on, Nakanishi is just on the floor watching and Nakamura and Tanahashi are trying to help, but Nagata easily holds them both off while Tenzan finishes off Shibata.

JYUSHIN LYGER/DICK TOGO/KATSUSHI TAKEMURA vs. ULTIMO DRAGON/TIGER MASK/TAIJI ISHIMORI

Outside of the finish, with Dragon taking the pin instead of Ishimori, there isn’t much surprise to how this plays out. It’s more about attitude than work, although there are still some fine moments to this; Togo does one of the most graceful slingshot sentons you’ll ever see, and Lyger’s reaction and sell job for Ishimori’s Superstar elbow is a thing of beauty. But it’s also Lyger and Togo with a young boy to rough up, so even with the actual wrestling being secondary, there’s still plenty of fun to be had. Lyger fouling Ishimori and then acting like Ishimori kicked him low is probably the highlight in that regard. Things level off after Ishimori manages to tag out, which was also probably a bit too soon, and everyone is more concerned with getting in whatever stuff they have instead of telling a story or making anything seem important. Dragon’s near fall on Lyger with La Magistral is a nice reminder of his quick win over Lyger in the J*Crown tournament, and Dragon only stays down after all three of the heels hit their finishers on him (M9, senton bomb, brainbuster). With some more time to work with and a theme or story to flesh out, this could have easily stole the show.

MINORU SUZUKI vs. MANABU NAKANISHI

This has got to be the funniest non-comedy match ever. Nakanishi isn’t in the same galaxy as Suzuki as a worker, so instead of having a regular match and killing the crowd, Suzuki clowns around and makes a bunch of goofy faces. Nakanishi gets to show off his power and do his usual stuff like the lariat, spear and Argentine Backbreaker, but whenever Suzuki gets even the smallest opening, he makes Nakanishi look like a buffoon. Look no further than the finish to see this: Suzuki hits his piledriver for a near fall, but between the energy he used to do it and Nakanishi’s size, he can’t get him up for another one. Nakanishi knocks him down with a throat thrust and when he bends over to press the advantage, Suzuki hooks his arms and legs and rolls him over into what’s essentially a grounded sunset flip and pins him. Suzuki probably took things too far a few times; there really wasn’t a need for him to try to give Nakanishi his own Argentine Backbreaker, and he’s a little too quick to recover from the spear, but it’s hard to fault him too much for trying to keep the crowd entertained, because lord knows that Nakanishi and his same old-same old routine wasn’t going to do it.

GEDO/JADO © vs. KOJI KANEMOTO/MINORU TANAKA (IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles)

Even knowing the angle that this leads up to (Tanaka’s turn to join up with Gedo and Jado), this still seems rather uninspired. The only one who really stands out is Kanemoto, and he doesn’t work this vastly differently than he does any other time, but his stiffness takes on the guise of his hatred for Jado and Gedo. It also doesn’t help that he whiffs badly on a few of his kicks, and he puts Gedo in his ankle lock finisher all of three minutes into the match and it draws no reaction and doesn’t lead to anything.

Tanaka appears to injure his leg on a roundhouse kick leaving Koji on his own for a bit, but Jado and Gedo’s control segment is just as pedestrian as everything else in the match. Aside from Jado’s crossface finisher, there’s nothing that suggests that Kanemoto is in any sort of dire trouble. Tanaka appears to recover enough to tag in, and then he levels Koji with a kick and plants him with a nasty German suplex so that Jado and Gedo can commence to finishing him off.

GENICHIRO TENRYU vs. KATSUYORI SHIBATA

Sadly, the hate and grumpiness that a match like this, featuring a young punk and a grizzled vet, never materializes. It’s great that they’re willing to stiff the crud out of each other, but neither of them sells anything a second longer than necessary. Even Shibata’s sleeper and PK combo doesn’t really affect Tenryu all that much. His reaction to the kick is to roll to the floor rather than give Shibata a near fall. That’s the match in a nutshell; they slap, kick and jab each other a bunch and get absolutely nowhere in the process. The dq finish with the bottle could have worked if either Tenryu lost his cool and snapped or if Shibata had such an advantage that it was the only way for Tenryu to fight back, but neither of those happens. Tenryu gets the bottle and Shibata pretty much dares him to use it and Tenryu obliges him. Whatever.

Lumberjack Death Match: YUJI NAGATA/HIROYOSHI TENZAN vs. MASAHIRO CHONO/DON FRYE

Until Tenzan gets taken out of the match after a Scott Norton powerbomb on the floor and Nakanishi carries him to the back, this looked like it was going to be fun. It was certainly heated, and Tenzan looked like his only goal was to rip off Chono and Fye’s heads. But once Tenzan is gone, the match pretty much dies. The only story to things was Nagata’s gusher, which Chono does courtesy of his knee brace, and it gives him and Frye an easy avenue to control things and be a couple of dicks about it. But that only goes so far because neither he nor Fye have a ton to offer as far as offense goes. There’s only so many times one can watch Frye measure Nagata for a punch straight to the forehead. All the bullshit with lumberjacks brawling amongst themselves on the floor or running into the match to go after the wrestlers is just eye candy to try to distract everyone from the fact that there isn’t a whole lot going on.

Nagata was fine when he was following Tenzan’s lead early on, but once he’s left to his own devices, he fits right in with the heels. His selling when the cut was getting worked over was pretty good, but he decides to make his comeback after taking a Yakuza kick and rebounding off the ropes to return fire on Chono, and he does it with the goofiest facial expression and movements possible. Chono and Nagata also work at least three perfectly good finishing sequences for near falls before they decide to actually finish things, and Tenzan’s attempts to return to the match only to be held back by Lyger and co. is pretty much a waste, seeing as he never makes it back to the ring. The long and short of it is that the only things that really separate this from the Tenryu/Shibata match are the length and that it ends with a pinfall.

No, Tadao Yasuda and Bob Sapp weren’t the low point of the IWGP Title. This right here is rock bottom, chaps. Fujita and Sasaki stiff each other a few times, and Sasaki hits the lariat and NLB for a near fall. Fujita hooks on a sleeper and leans back with it, and the ref makes a three count. That’s right; the only time Fujita lost a title via pinfall was when the pin was made by Fujita himself.

Conclusion: Yeesh, this is just mediocre all around. The best match was easily the junior trios, and even that wound up feeling underwhelming.