Big Japan April 28th: Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Masato Tanaka

Somehow, on the last post, I entirely neglected to talk about this match. This is incredible, because it is a match that gives me the most to talk about. And yet, so far I have said nothing (this paragraph doesn't count).

Let me begin by saying this: this is not a good piece of professional wrestling. I am able to understand how people may enjoy it - its fast, action packed and the crowd are on fire (literally) (not actually literally). However, by any measure that I would evaluate matches (for instance, goodness of match) this is not good.

Here's a match that has been done again and again in the past two years - I count five times since March 2006. It may be one of the biggest matches in the Japanese independents - BJW's non-deathmatch star against the all-conquering champion and ace of Zero1. Both men are hard hitters. Both men can take a lot of hard hits. But both men can be guilty of the worst excesses of puroresu, and when against each other, they bring out these traits in each other in SPADES.

There are two major criticisms: firstly, Tanaka spends a decent amount of time working over Sekimoto's arm, only for any form of arm selling to be dropped the moment Sekimoto decides he's going back on the defence. Forgetting to continue selling worked over body parts is bad enough, but going out of your way to used injured limbs as offensive weapons as if they were fine is unforgivable.

Secondly, the last twelve minutes of this match is all finishers (in the puro sense where none of these moves actually finish anything). In their 2007 Fire Festival draw, at a certain point they decide to just cycle through their big moves pretty much continously for many minutes until time runs out - in my mind, this is the laziest form of wrestling, where neither guy can think of a single original or coherent way to put together their finishers. This isn't quite as bad - their feels like a build from minor trademark moves towards the bigger finishers. But I counted four Sliding D's (Tanaka's top finisher) and at least four German suplexes (Sekimoto's finisher), including one on the apron and one over the ropes. It's hard to say what purpose they served except lengthening the match and adding a near fall. The purpose is certainly not to add to the story being told (which was written on imaginary paper in invisible ink by a man with no arms).

I like both guys in other situations. They have been in good tag matches this year, and I like Tanaka against other guys, especially some of the bigger NJ guys during that feud. But they just shouldn't be booked against each other: if not for my sake, then for the sake of those who really like this match-up and extract a lot of enjoyment from it.