Big Japan: 21st November 2008 (part two)

So, the other matches from this show don't lend themselves to much detailed reviewing. Case in point, another Men's Club eight-man tag. They actually have a slight storyline going on at this time, with the (sort-of) feud between MENS's Teioh and Oishi. The basis of the feud is a lot of words in Japanese and the UWA Middleweight title, of which I understand only the latter. Men's Club matches are visually impressive and brainless, wrestled at a ridiculous pace and specifically designed not to be taken seriously. So throwing words like "long-term selling" or "building drama" are a waste of time. Unlike Dragon Gate, which building an entire promotion on this style, this is more like an entertaining sideshow, and I have no objection to that. Taking that onboard, this match itself was pretty forgettable, and a lot of the spots were recycled.

I enjoyed the hardcore tag match with new guys Hoshino and Takeda and opponents Ito and Shuji Ishikawa. Takeda is transforming from a quasi-shoot style guy into a deathmatch worker, which is interesting to watch - there is a slight feeling that he's learning how to add hardcore elements to his existing offence (for example, a number of suplexes onto chairs). I like Hoshino for being insane enough to use his body as a weapon, despite how much damage it would do him - the high point of this match is his top rope senton to the outside on Ishikawa. He's not the strongest guy or the fastest guy so he resorts to these sorts of spots to gain an advantage. Fun brawl, mainly on the rookies side.

It would have been nice to see something story develop with the Sekimoto/Mammoth tag title run, rather than a series of fairly meaningless title defences. This episode they defend against two lower card veteran in Taniguchi and Benkei. This went pretty much as expected - after a couple of early exchanges, Sekimoto and Mammoth dominate, Taniguchi makes a (not very) hot tag, the challengers make a bit of a comeback before the champions prove too strong. Formulaic stuff, but not offensive.

I watched the December 14th show, but decided it wasn't interesting enough to write-up. I'll do the big year-end show next time.