NAVIGATION OVER THE DATE LINE

September 7, 2002

Trevor Rhodes . . . somehow winds up being the best worker in his match, which includes Jun Akiyama.

Vader . . . beats the crud out of Kenta Kobashi like it’s still 1999!

Yoshinari Ogawa . . . finally looks like someone worthy of holding the top title, rather than just a goon with gold.

RUSHER KIMURA/MITSUO MOMOTA vs. HARUKA EIGEN/MASASHI AOYAGI

This can pretty much be summed up in five words; bad comedy and flying saliva. The Aoyagi/Momota sections actually aren’t that bad, since Aoyagi can lay in his kicks and Momota is decent with his selling. But aside from Eigen’s giant swing, there’s nothing to see from him or Rusher. Once the comedy runs its course, Aoyagi and Momota look to wrap it up.

YOSHINOBU KANEMARU/TSUYOSHI KIKUCHI/MAKOTO HASHI vs. KENTA/TAKASHI SUGIURA/KOTARO SUZUKI

The hate and stiffness seen here are enough to make this a fun match, but ‘fun’ is about all that it winds up being. The main thing that holds this back is the lack of meaningful story. The control segment on Suzuki wasn’t anything deeper than ‘veterans beat up rookie’ and aside from Kikuchi’s crab hold that Sugiura runs in to break up, he never looks like he’s in genuine peril. Not long after Kikuchi lets go of the crab hold, Suzuki flips out of a backdrop suplex and hits a spin kick and then tags out. It also doesn’t help that Kanemaru and Sugiura were both rather sloppy at times, and Hashi has his own moment when he bumps too early for a springboard dropkick from Suzuki.

The one saving grace to this is KENTA’s attitude. He’s only the top guy for his team by default, but the way that he carries himself shows that he takes it seriously. This is especially true in his exchanges with Kanemaru, who has the GHC Jr. Title around his waist courtesy of beating KENTA. KENTA certainly remembers and he amps up the intensity and stiffness even more with Kanemaru than he had with the other two opponents. The go-go-go nature of things doesn’t allow for much selling, but KENTA’s reaction to Hashi’s flurry of headbutts is probably the best selling of the match, and it was the perfect excuse to tag Suzuki back in and start working toward the finish. There’s room for improvement for sure, but this is a fun look at how much potential the NOAH juniors had during this time despite not having any NJPW guys to play off.

AKIRA TAUE/KISHIN KAWABATA vs. TAMON HONDA/MASAO INOUE

Well, if nothing else, this match fulfills the quota for headbutts, eye rakes and fouls. Headbutts and eye rakes are pretty much all that Kawabata, Honda and Inoue do for the first half of this. Taue breaks up the monotony with a big boot, but Honda tries a German and Taue grabs the ropes and Inoue breaks his grip with another eye rake. Watching this play out made me wonder what Taue and Kawada would have done to Honda and Inoue in a match like this, only for me to remember that Kawada is too much of a gentleman and he would have probably sold his ass off. Taue gets a somewhat hot tag and gets a nice little run of offense and then he and Honda start goofing around with fouls. When even Taue is clowning around, you know the match is pretty much screwed. Inoue and Kawabata had pretty much nothing to offer; outside of the standing kata-gatame to set up the finish Honda didn’t do any of the things that would help him turn the corner as a worker the following year, and there’s not nearly enough good stuff from Taue to salvage it.

JUN AKIYAMA/AKITOSHI SAITO vs. BISON SMITH/TREVOR RHODES

For some reason Trevor Rhodes was the most interesting worker in this match. When Akiyama and Saito are on offense, he’s a classic southern heel with his overdone (in a good way) bumping and stooging. When he’s fighting back and throwing chops at Saito, he looks just like the valiant babyface trying to overcome the odds. It’s a strange dichotomy that doesn’t sound like it should work, but it does. Akiyama seemed to be in the mood to make Bison look good, which he does by taking a few bumps and letting him work a few longish holds, but Akiyama doesn’t do much to make the holds seem effective, he just lays there like a slug and lets Saito make the save. And when he kicks out of the pin after the Iron Claw slam and then hits an Exploder when Bison charges at him, it seems like a waste of time and effort. Neither Bison nor Saito brings too much to the table here, Bison shows his power a bit, and Saito throws some wicked strikes, but they’re pretty much there just to give their partners time to rest. Even with offense that looks like a wannabe Stan Hansen, Rhodes seemed to be far ahead of everyone else.

KENTA KOBASHI/KENTARO SHIGA/DAISUKE IKEDA/MOHAMMED YONE vs. VADER/SCORPIO/RICHARD SLINGER/IZU

It’s a little bit sad to see this, knowing just how close it was to the end of Vader’s time as the top foreigner in NOAH, and really as a top guy period. Yes, he’d slowed down quite a bit by this time, but age, weight gain and the WWF will do that to you. The two Kobashi/Vader segments are the best things here by quite a bit. Their first exchange starts the match and sees them each able to take the other’s best shots, but Kobashi can only do that for so long. He slumps in the corner and is literally at Vader’s mercy. In fact, it appears that the only thing that keeps this going for longer than five minutes is Vader’s generosity and/or lack of cardio. Kobashi is flat on his back and not moving, and instead of finishing him off right then, Vader tags out so that this can be a real match. Their second segment is quite a bit later, and Kobashi gets something back as far as him being the winner of the strike exchange this time, but it’s a hollow victory for him. When he’s got Vader reeling, Kobashi tries a vertical suplex which he’s unable to get him up for, and it’s Kobashi who gets planted. The move itself isn’t any real danger to Kobashi, but it allows Vader to tag back out before Kobashi can do any more damage.

The non-Vader and Kobashi parts of this are watchable for the most part. The other six all get to show what they can do, for better or worse in some cases, but it’s obvious that they’re only doing it to eat up time rather than trying to take the match anywhere. The little bit of shoulder work on Shiga is decent, and there’s a cute moment when Scorpio tries to give both Ikeda and Yone a Thesz press and eats a flapjack which leads to both getting a chance to work Scorpio over. So, there’s decent parts to this, but not much reason to really care. The only time they tease that the match might end is when Yone tries his Muscle Buster, which is quickly broken up, and the one time that Vader is in the ring against someone other than Kobashi, it’s obvious that they’re about to end it, which is what happens. Overall, it’s a watchable heavyweight tag match, that doesn’t accomplish anything other than creating some anticipation for an upcoming Kobashi/Vader match that never happened, although one would guess that Vader would have been an easy choice for an early GHC defense from Kobashi if he’d stuck around a little bit longer.

TAKESHI MORISHIMA/TAKESHI RIKIO © vs. MITSUHARU MISAWA/TAKUMA SANO (GHC Tag Team Titles)

Looking at the NOAH heavyweight roster at this time and seeing guys who were past their primes like Kawabata, Sano, Saito and Aoyagi and scrubs like Inoue and Izumida, it’s easy to see why Morishima and Rikio were being touted as the future of the company. And, as this match shows, it’s also easy to see why it would be in the very distant future. Outside of the last few minutes when Morishima puts Sano through the ringer to end the match, neither of them shows much of anything outside of slaps and lariats, and even that’s not always good. Watch Rikio unload on Sano and whiff almost as often as he makes contact, and he doesn’t even always make good contact. Morishima’s finishing run is also based on him deciding not to sell anything else and doing his stuff at all costs. It didn’t matter that Sano had been stretching him out in a grounded chickenwing and that his finally getting the ropes had gotten a nice crowd reaction, Morishima just ignores whatever kicks and elbows comes his way and throws his lariats.

While Misawa and Sano look better than the champs, by virtue of having real offense, they’re not especially good either. There’s a longish stretch of working over Rikio’s leg, which makes sense with a big guy, but it’s only designed to be filler. There aren’t any genuine submission teases and once it's dropped, they don’t try to work back to it at all, even something during the home stretch like Sano hitting a low kick to slow him down. Of course, it doesn’t help that Rikio didn’t see fit to sell anything once he was free. Hell, he even goes so far as to lift Misawa on his shoulders for a Double Impact, which only doesn’t happen because Sano cuts off Morishima, rather than Rikio’s leg preventing him from getting Misawa up. The control segment on Morishima is a little better with Misawa and Sano working a more fast-paced style and using high impact spots like Misawa’s senton and frog splash as well as a couple of Sano’s diving stomps. There’s also a weird moment when Sano gives Morishima a release German for no real reason, other than to seemingly give the message that the smallest guy in the match is capable of pitching the largest with relative ease. But again, when Morishima decides that it’s time for the comeback, he just stops selling and starts swinging at everything in his path.

At best, this is better than both of their title defenses from April against Vader/Scorpio and Nakanishi/Yoshie, but it’s far behind the Akiyama/Saito match from May, which was pretty much a one-man show from Akiyama. After seven months with the titles, one would think that Rikio and Morishima would be able to do better than ‘slightly watchable’ as far as their work goes. For all the effort that NOAH put into making Rikio and Morishima seem like a big deal (the longest reigning tag champions and the first champions with successful title defenses) they clearly haven’t progressed as far as their accolades would suggest. And yes, it’s true that they’ve not had great opponents and that their opponents haven’t always done much to make them look good, but at the end of the day Morishima and Rikio should be able to make themselves look good for more than the last few minutes of a match, and that seems to be beyond their abilities at this time.

YOSHINARI OGAWA © vs. YOSHIHIRO TAKAYAMA (GHC Heavyweight Title)

As far as work goes, this might be the best GHC Title match of 2002, and who’d have guessed that distinction would go to an Ogawa match. Of course, Ogawa’s run wasn’t intended to be much more than a placeholder of sorts, and between Takayama’s surge as a worker and his success in New Japan he was the right guy at the right time for a title switch.

What some might find even more surprising is that this isn’t the same sort of ‘Ogawa formula’ match like Ogawa had with Rikio. Until almost the very end, when he starts trotting out the flash cradles, including the same one that got the pin on Akiyama, this doesn’t feel like an Ogawa match at all. Takayama’s first run of offense goes how one would probably expect this pairing to go; with Takayama using his size and showing that he can literally throw Ogawa all over ringside with a few nasty suplexes, as well as clobbering him with knees and kicks. Ogawa isn’t exactly known for his selling, but he’s perfectly fine during this portion of the match. Even with the title around his waist, Ogawa’s definitely not on the level of Misawa and Akiyama, and his selling and facials get across the message that he knows that he’s in deep trouble now. Then, Takayama misses a charge in the corner and gives Ogawa the opening to go after his shoulder and the match picks up quite a bit.

Ogawa targeting Takayama’s arm and shoulder is smart on several levels. It allows Ogawa to control Takayama with credible offense, considering the size disparity between them. Takayama’s legs are almost as big as Ogawa, so why expend the time and energy there, when the shoulder is a much weaker joint? It also calls into question Takayama’s ability to hit his German suplex as well as its potential effectiveness. And sharking on a weakened body part perfectly plays into the heelish underdog role that Ogawa has always been known for. It’s great to see Ogawa coming up with creative stuff, seemingly at will, to keep the match going, and Takayama puts on a great sell job in his own right considering that’s never really been part of his job description. This is also a case where they can make Takayama’s size work in their favor; watch Ogawa cinching up on an armbar or hammerlock and see how fast and easily Takayama uses his legs to get the ropes. They stray from the arm story a couple of times, usually with less-than-thrilling results. The really bad part is when they started brawling outside the ring and Ogawa tried a vertical suplex, which didn’t work out too well, but it ended with Takayama trying to charge and hitting the post, and Ogawa being able to pick up where he left off.

The only downside to the match is that the arm stuff gets left behind when it’s time for the finish run, and there’s no reason that it needed to. Ogawa gives Takayama an opening to hit his big knee to the midsection, which leaves Ogawa stunned. Takayama grabs him and hits the Everest German for a near fall. Not because he had a weak arm and couldn’t hold him in place. Takayama just hits the suplex and Ogawa kicks out. Ogawa then goes into his usual bag of tricks for near falls, but Takayama is able to block the small package and hit another big knee, and one more German suplex gives him the title. This last stretch was only a couple of minutes long, and it’s arguable that Takayama’s bad arm could have left him vulnerable to the various roll-ups and cradles that Ogawa tried. But it’d have been nice to see that from Takayama. Then again, it’s also plausible that the first knee from Takayama stunned Ogawa to the point of making him forgo his gameplan and fall back on his usual schtick, which is what led to his undoing.

But even having something of a questionable finishing stretch doesn’t tear down what they’d managed to build up. Ogawa finally got out of his comfort zone and the result was some great selling, boatloads of smart work from both men, and Ogawa looking like he belonged in the main event. ***1/2

Conclusion: The main event is definitely worth tracking down, the rest of the card not so much. There’s some fun to be had from the junior trios and Vader/Kobashi, but the undercard as a whole is rather forgettable.