NAVIGATION WITH BREEZE 2002

Jun Akiyama . . . does pretty much everything humanly possible to make midcard nobodies look like they’d have a hope in hell of hanging with him.

KENTA . . . shows more than a glimpse of the potential that would make him amongst the best wrestlers in the world in only a couple of years’ time.

Akira Taue . . . slaps around the GHC Champion like it’s still 1995 and shows that he’s still capable of kicking anyone’s ass on a nightly basis.

TAKESHI MORISHIMA/TAKESHI RIKIO © vs. JUN AKIYAMA/AKITOSHI SAITO (GHC Tag Team Titles)

The most telling aspect of this match happens in the first few minutes. After Saito and Morishima take turns throwing forearms and getting nowhere, Akiyama hits a DDT to Morishima and gets a louder reaction than anything the other three would do for the rest of the match. A little later, Rikio is able to give his team control when he reverses a vertical suplex on the ramp and then gives Akiyama a DDT of his own, and it plays to crickets. So, it’s obvious, in the fans’ eyes, who actually has credibility here. And honestly, pretty much everything of worth in this match is from Akiyama. His anger and attitude when he’s in with either of the champs is easily the best thing about the match, and his selling makes Morishima and Rikio’s offense look worlds better than it actually is (this is especially true of the submissions as well as Rikio’s shoulder tackles in the corner). Where they go wrong is that they take it too far. The KO tease after the Double Impact basically kills any sense of logic to what they do. Why would Rikio be content to let the ref make a full ten count when he can just roll Akiyama over and pin him? Akiyama finally gets to his feet and Morishima tries to whip him into the ropes and he can’t go along with it, and then it dawns on Morishima to cover him. Akiyama’s sudden Exploder to finally tag out pushes things a bit, but it’s really not bad. It’s plausible to think that Morishima overcommitted himself to the running lariat and Akiyama knew what was coming and was able to counter into the Exploder and let Morishima’s momentum do most of the work for him.

Outside of Akiyama’s attitude and selling, there’s not much here to see. The other three don’t do much of note other than stiff kicks, slaps, lariats, etc. There’s a brief spell of Akiyama and Saito working Rikio’s arm, but it’s dropped pretty quickly, and the same thing happens when Morishima and Rikio are singling out Akiyama’s midsection. There’s nothing else as far as any sort of theme or story to the match. Even Morishima’s finishing lariat comes right after he and Saito had just done a spot where they hit each other with a lariat and came to a stalemate. This is far from perfect, and it’s not even that good, but Morishima and Rikio’s run against Akiyama alone is enough to make this better than any of their previous title matches.

YOSHINOBU KANEMARU vs. KENTA (Tournament Final for the vacant GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title)

Barely two years into his career, and KENTA is already outperforming more established workers. Actually, Kanemaru is pretty decent here. He’s damn near perfect when he’s sharking in on KENTA’s back, and he leaves the big spot overkill behind. Sure, he finishes KENTA with the rolling brainbusters after KENTA survives a regular one, but it was because they were too close to the ropes rather than KENTA doing the forceful kick out. And when he hits the final sequence, Kanemaru makes sure to be in the center of the ring. But it’s KENTA who is the standout here. He doesn’t bring the sort of offense he’d become known for later on, but he busts out a few surprising things, like the diving rana off the top rope complete with hooking the legs. Once Kanemaru hits the bodyslam off the ramp and singles out his back, KENTA sells like a god. He even keeps it in mind when he gets the chance to rattle off something of his own, like the surprise German suplex that takes just as much out of him as it did Kanemaru. The only thing missing here was the moment when it seemed like KENTA was about to pull off the upset, which is more of a failing on Kanemaru’s part than KENTA’s. He’s the former champion and he’s the default top guy in the NOAH junior division with Marufuji on the shelf. It’s his job to make the other guys look good. KENTA’s last bit of offense comes from a falcon arrow for a near fall but it doesn’t feel like a big move from him, and Kanemaru certainly doesn’t put it over as such. Despite the outcome, it’s KENTA who leaves the lasting impression. He’s clearly got the skills and attitude down; it’s just the experience that he’s lacking. It’d take him another year or two, and a team up with the NOAH junior ace, but he found the path he needed.

JUN AKIYAMA/YOSHINOBU KANEMARU vs. TAKAO OMORI/YOSHIHIRO TAKAYAMA

After three good years and basically saving Omori’s career from the same level of obscurity that Jun Izumida faded into, Team No Fear comes to an end. Between this and the tag titles match, Akiyama sure has his bumping boots on for this tour. He doesn’t get in anything on Takayama and Omori and he lets them literally beat him from one end of ringside to another, including taking all of the No Fear signature spots. Omori shows the same sort of anger he did in his GHC Contender match with Taue. He hits the Axe Bomber on Akiyama which one would have thought would been the end of things. And then, he hits Takayama with one for seemingly no reason. Kanemaru also takes an Axe Bomber for good measure, and Omori walks out.

YOSHIHIRO TAKAYAMA/TAKASHI SUGIURA vs. TAKAO OMORI/MOHAMMED YONE

It’s plain to see that this isn’t a bad match. The Takayama/Omori exchanges are as hate-filled as one would expect, and their respective tag team partners have no problem matching their intensity. Where this goes wrong is that there isn’t a satisfying conclusion. Once Takayama makes his comeback after getting worked over by Omori and Yone, this turns into an extended squash of Omori. The match itself is certainly fun to watch. Omori and Yone work over Takayama with a lot of high impact spots and stiff strikes, including a positively wicked spin kick in the corner from Yone. When Takayama makes his comeback, they work over Omori’s arm. Both control segments work in their own way. Takayama doesn’t have much to do other than act like he’s dying, but he makes it work. It looks like Omori and Yone are only one or two more big shots away from being able to simply cut off Sugiura and finish him off. Omori is no KENTA, but he’s perfectly serviceable at putting over the onslaught that his arm is taking.

Omori’s arm getting worked over does have something of a payoff, even if it’s not very good. Omori hits a desperation Axe Bomber, which only momentarily stuns Takayama and doesn’t even take him off his feet, and while Omori is sitting down and trying to recover, Takayama gets his bearings back and hits a running kick. But there’s nothing to suggest that the arm being taken out will do much to factor into that potential loss, which is a byproduct of NOAH not putting much emphasis on submission finishes. Omori just takes his lumps and eats the pin. Yone intervenes when it looks dire, but it’s never anything more than a stall tactic. Omori doesn’t get any sort of comeback or do anything to make the finishing stretch seem competitive. He gets in a surprise rolling cradle as a counter to Takayama’s German. Once Sugirura is able to keep Yone from getting involved, Takayama hits the German for the win and sends his former partner packing while the future is more or less laid at his feet.

As surprising as it might sound to say about an Ogawa main event, this is actually a really fun match, even with the same sort of fluke cradle finish that won him the title. Ogawa may not come out of the match filled to the brim with ace credibility, but a match like this is much more preferable than what NOAH would do later on when it was practically mandatory for title matches to go upwards of thirty minutes. The bulk of the match features Taue working over Ogawa and not looking that far removed from his glory years in All Japan, just watch the segment when Taue is throwing forearms in Ogawa’s face and then yanking him back to his feet. Taue’s intensity and disgust at that moment looks like he should still be teaming with Kawada. Taue doesn’t throw his whole arsenal at him, he’s smart enough to keep his big killers like the Ore Ga Taue and Nodowa off the apron in the bag for a match he’s not winning; and Ogawa’s willingness to take jumping Dynamic kicks to the face and sell like he’s all but dead more than give the impression that Old Man Taue isn’t quite finished yet.

The only thing that really drags here is Ogawa’s early run of offense, because it’s too early for his usual underdog spots, and he doesn’t have anything that he can credibly just throw at Taue. So, he counters an early Nodowa attempt into a DDT on the apron and tries to wear him down with a couple of longish sleepers and does basic stuff like a series of elbow drops when Taue gets the ropes to break the sleeper. But again, once Taue takes over, this picks up a good three notches. The only other thing that seems odd, although they made it work, was the backdrop sequence. Ogawa hits a series of backdrops and Taue goes from not selling at all to gradually selling each one a little bit more and finally giving Ogawa a decent near fall. They play off Ogawa’s title win with Ogawa countering the Ore Ga Taue into a cradle for a near fall, but it doesn’t play nearly as well here since nobody gave Ogawa a prayer of beating Akiyama in April, and Taue hasn’t been presented as a persistent title threat (although to be fair, neither has anyone else). The actual finish is unique, if nothing else, but again, it doesn’t come off well for a match like this. Ogawa counters a Nodowa into a small package, Taue rolls over into his own, and Ogawa rolls back over and gets the pin. It plays more for laughs than it does anything else, and that shouldn’t be the case in a main event for a major title. However, whether or not this is the sort of match that NOAH should be headlining with, at the end of the day, it’s still good match (even if ‘good’ is pretty much the ceiling for what to expect). Taue made the most of this opportunity to show that he can still be a viable threat, and Ogawa gets a successful title defense against someone that the reigning champ (for better or worse…) theoretically should be able to turn back. ***

Conclusion: The two singles titles matches are the best things here to see, even if neither is especially great.