Zero1: April 29th 2008

So, let's start with the show I had on late into last night - Z1's April Korakuen Hall show. I got it from PUNQ. There is only man to get any and all puro DVDs in Europe, much like it was in Roman times.

I enjoyed this show more overall that the sum of its individual parts. I find this happens sometimes with shows where there is no standout match, but everything was OK, and the card is arranged well. It wasn't close to reaching the heights of the the March 2nd show, which I still think is the best Japanese show of the year (Hidaka/Tanaka vs. Kanemoto/Taguchi, Sato vs. Nakemura and the the BJW tag title switch).

For the purpose of a two hour TV show, the 9 match card was basically cut down to 4 matches, ignoring the clipped version of the KAMIKAZE match, which was only 5 minutes before clipping and the martial arts match, which I could and couldn't care less about. The show gets going with the Great Sasuke/Minoru Fujita vs. Dick Togo/Ikuta Hidaka tag. This was a lot of fun - Fujita's inevitable double cross, while obvious, was the right payoff for this particular story line. I've had a bit of trouble getting into Sasuke in 2008 - I forgot sometimes its not 1994 anymore. However, his matches in Z1 and this feud with Fujita has been entertaining by shifting from crazy highflying to consistent (and openly light-hearted) storytelling. I can appreciate that in 2008. The match itself is fine - lots of action down the straight until the finish. Togo's always impressive, and he and Hidaka are satisfyingly fluid together.

The Ohtani/Omori vs. Chono/Yasuda tag was nothing special, but short enough that I don't object. I like how this New Japan vs. Z1 feud has many facets and evolves in a natural way. It started with Omori vs. Nakanishi, with a couple of other guys getting involved from the start (Kanemoto, most notably). This leads to tag matches which introduce new participants who split off and give seperate and new matchups. Tanaka gets involved, setting up a series of title matches as outsiders challenge for Z1's top belt (which will culminate in Nagata vs. Tanaka next weekend) In the meantime, something like this Ohtani vs. Chono feud starts, within the context of the main rivalry, but built upon seperate issues. This is now a feud that has stretched out 10 months, in two different promotions, but it still finds ways of remaining fresh. This is pleasing.

Anyway, Ohtani is someone else you have to appreciate in the context of it now being 2008. At the expense of the workrate, he relies more on crowd interaction, facial expressions and an increasing surliness. This ended up being fine.

I have mixed feelings about the Sai vs. Mashimo match. It was a 29 minute match edited down to 14 minutes. Sometimes this makes a match better. Sometimes, however, it cuts out the meat of the match to save time, so you never get the full story. I guess the only people who know were the ones in Korakuen that day, and they are now all dead (Note: they are not now all dead). Anyway, Sai sells Mashimo's legwork in the slightly unconventional way of basing his entire offence on using that leg as much as possible, so I curse him and decide this match is not as good as it could be. I'm a mark for Mashimo, though. His headkicks look really great. He's also someone who can can do a half hour match with a very simple moveset really well.

The main event was a 30 minute broadway draw, which you could tell from the opening mat work - normally Sekimoto and Tanaka will charge into each other and throw bombs from the first bell. It built well, and when the finishing stretched kicked in around the 20 minutes mark, I enjoyed it much more than if the same thing had happened in a Sekimoto vs. Tanaka singles match, which normally become a loop of the same few moves until time runs out. I'm increasingly becoming a fan of Sato - he wrestles juniors well despite being a much bigger guy, and also looks good trading power moves and suplexes with heavyweights. Maybe its frustration at how the Z1 main event scene has been a little static for 2-3 years now, but I think its time to finally pull the trigger on him as a top guy in the promotion.

This leads into an impromptu 7 vs. 7 match, to decided who wins the Sword vs. Axe feud for April (apparently each side had an equal number of wins. What were the chances?). This is short (8 minutes) and sweet (everyone took turns breaking parts of Namiguchi's face) and the sort of disposable, chaotic mess that is hard not to like.

Then the disc stopped. Sleep occured.