Zero1: May 10th and May 29th

So I carried on working through the Zero1 shows that I had in my latest batch from PUNQ. The first show was fine, but didn't contain anything monumental. I enjoyed the Taguchi vs. Hidaka match. I don't really see the point of Taguchi - he doesn't seem to be either a good junior or a good heavyweight, and I've yet to be entertained by him. That said, he sold the legwork here really well. The finish left me a little flat, and only in part becomes my Hidaka markdom wanted to see him pick up the win - it also seemed a bit like there was a few more minutes of near falls in it.

Zero1 has recently began a partnership with BattlARTS, which will lead and has led to a number of cross-promotional matches. The Ishikawa/Sawa vs. Fujita/Sato match was the first one to happen - actually a few months before the official agreement was announced. There's some really fun work in this - in particular, Sato striking with both Sawa and Ishikawa, further reinforcing a growing belief I have that he's a really versatile guy. Sawa is exciting to watch, and Ishikawa is all grizzled and "here's a real forearm for your face".

The remainder of the show was just there. Ohtani and Nakanishi played to both men's strengths, mainly being built around the powerhouse Nakanishi beating down Ohtani. The main event was more of the Kanemoto vs. Tanaka feud, which has been one of the most important parts of this New Japan vs. Zero1 feud, watered down a bit in the tag match. All in all, there's nothing on here that is essential, unless you're a NJ vs. Z1 feud completist, but it's pretty fun.

The last match on the disc is from the May 17 Katsuta show, which featured Ohtani versus hardcore legend Mitsuhara Matsunaga in a (deep breath) Steel Cage Glass Rain Iron Ball Hell Death Match. Basically, there's a panel of glass above the ring, which after 10 minutes a demolition ball falls onto, shattering the pane and showering the ring with shards of glass. Anyway, the match isn't very good, consisting of moving between a variety of 90s deathmatch staples (nail board, fireball, scissors) with no real transition. The glass shower was an impressive visual, but oddly didn't look particularly horrific. Matsunaga barely flinched when it hit him, which is just the worst sort of selling - no-selling something that probably really hurt.

The May 29th show had two big tag matches, both of which were very good. The 45 minutes of the show was dedicated to clipped versions of a couple of unimportant matches - qualifiers for the Fire Festival, and a juniors tag match. Then it's time for the big junior tag,Sawa/Hidaka vs. Mochizuki/Minoru, four guys who started out in BattlARTS and I watch the promotional video and ... is this a Japanese power metal version of A Whole New World from Aladdin? Seriously? Who did this? I tried a Google search for all those words. It returned one hit - to a definition of the word "Seriously?".

Anyway, I really liked the match. This was a continuation of the Hidaka/Mochizuki feud over the Z1 junior title, and was slightly more shoot style than pro-wrestling, referencing the four men's BattlARTS roots. The first bit and heat section on Hidaka are pretty entertaining - Minoru playing to the crowd helps - but the match really kicks into another gear with the hot tag to Sawa - the octopus stretch spot was really nice - and then the final stretch with Hidaka and Mochizuki, who played off their January title match with Hidaka avoiding Mochizuki's knee strike and rolling up for the win. What I also really liked was some of the matwork sequences - the Mochi's jujigatame roll-through into the Hidaka's Shawn Capture was particular nice.

The main event really emphasises what I said in an earlier post about how natural this New Japan vs. Zero1 feud has been - it's a tag between Ohtani and Tanaka (Team EMBLEM!) and Nakanishi and Yuji Nagata. Ohtani and Tanaka have had matches with Nakanishi of late. Nagata, one of New Japan's top guys, returns from injury and joins the feud, shifting Z1's ace Tanaka's focus onto "Mr. IWGP", building toward their big showdown (tomorrow, as it happens).

This goes to a 30 minute time limit draw, and is clipped by about five minutes. This is exactly the sort of heated, energetic main event matches that an interpromotional feud should produce. Ohtani pulls out some of my favourite selling of the year in the early part of this match, wincing as he claps with the crowd after the facewash, and flinching as he raises his arm too high to grab the ropes. Nakanishi, a quite frankly appalling worker, is fine in this sort of match in short spells. They do a ten minute long finish stretch, which I enjoy because the near falls are usually broken up. Nagata looks like he has the measure of Tanaka at the end before he runs out of time, so I don’t dislike the lack of a finish because it comes across as a plot point building to a future match, rather than a cop-out. I'd watch this again.

A good show on the basis of these two matches, which nicely set up quite a few more in the coming months.