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.
Showing posts with label zero1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zero1. Show all posts
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Zero1: 26th June 2008
This is the last Z1 show I have for the time being. It's been a really good run of shows since April - at the moment they are a promotion well worth following. As well as the New Japan feud, there's been plenty of other stuff to enjoy. The next batch will contain the annual Fire Festival, so I can look forward to that - there are normally loads of good matches during that tournament.
This is a really good show. I'll skip looking at everything to focus on the three matches I really liked, and which made the whole show worth having a look at.
Following on from last month's tag match, Minoru and Sawa have a singles match. It is essentially a competitive squash - for a large proportion of the match, Minoru is in control against his lower-ranked yet energetic opponent. The strikes in this match are really intense, with both men landing some vicious-looking kicks (Minoru to Sawa when perched on the buckle, Sawa to Minoru on his spinning enziguri). The 450 was a surprise - I liked Minoru pulling out a superfinisher when Sawa kicked out of everything else. Had it gone a little longer, or been a little less one sided, this might have been close to my top matches.
The Tanaka/Sai vs. GBH tag was a good brawl - Tanaka was in full 90s hardcore mode here, running across the ring with a chair shot, trading stiff blows with the larger Makabe and Honma. Sai was also fun in this - he often inspires little more than apathy from me (maybe two pathies?). His running knee strike to Honma mid way through made me react audibly (something like "Woooahaha"), much to the annoyance of my previously sleeping girlfriend.
The main event is the Z1 junior title match between Dragon Gate's Mochizuki and Z1's Ikuto Hidaka. I wrote all my thoughts about this match on the DVDVR board, but I'll repeat them now. I thought, from a technical standpoint, this was outstanding. I will concede that a match like this will never have the same emotional impact of an interpromotional feud brawl, or a top heavyweight title match. But, when you don't have those factors in your favour, it's all about the performance.
The match starts off with both men trading shoot kicks. Hidaka's first flurry of kicks (on his left leg) takes Mochi into the corner. Mochi then targets Hidaka's left leg. After that point, Hidaka doesn't kick once with the left, switching solely to the right for all his strikes for the next thirteen minutes. This, to me, is the most amazing part of the match. Often with the juniors, who require their legs for most of their stuff, any leg work gets forgotten. Sometimes it kind of fades over time. Not a bit of that here. Hidaka manages to achieve something that most find very difficult - great selling of the legwork, but with slowing the match down at all.
He keeps on selling the weakened leg throughout, shaking it loose, and wincing whenever he does anything knocks it. (And if this intentional I would be in awe, but the springboard off the ropes and the Misty Flip lacked height and spring). Mochi, for his part, is pretty single minded in going for the leg, kicking it and using a figure four submission and Kanemoto's ankle lock (in a nice nod to Hidaka's recent match)
The legwork is a Mochizuki's defensive strategy against Hidaka's kicks. His offensive strategy (and Hidaka's also) mainly targets the head, looking for the knockout blow. When it comes to the finishing straight, however, there's been so few pinfalls, and so much focus on the legwork throughout the match that the kickout (even on the brainbuster) seem completely credible. They play off the January match and the May tag match with the two corner Ikkakugeri spots. Hidaka counters an attempted second brainbuster with his new brainbuster-to-knees move, before they both race to land the final winning shot.
I know. I'm a nerd. I even went back and rewatched this, just to ensure I wasn't wrong. I wasn't. And I think that if they are going to do these little things, then someone should appreciate it. The only real obvious knock against it was the 19-count spot at the beginning - maybe Hidaka timed it wrong, because he went from lying on the floor, motionless, to jumping back into the ring within two seconds. It didn't matter much. This is the best straight juniors match I've seen in 2008.
This is a really good show. I'll skip looking at everything to focus on the three matches I really liked, and which made the whole show worth having a look at.
Following on from last month's tag match, Minoru and Sawa have a singles match. It is essentially a competitive squash - for a large proportion of the match, Minoru is in control against his lower-ranked yet energetic opponent. The strikes in this match are really intense, with both men landing some vicious-looking kicks (Minoru to Sawa when perched on the buckle, Sawa to Minoru on his spinning enziguri). The 450 was a surprise - I liked Minoru pulling out a superfinisher when Sawa kicked out of everything else. Had it gone a little longer, or been a little less one sided, this might have been close to my top matches.
The Tanaka/Sai vs. GBH tag was a good brawl - Tanaka was in full 90s hardcore mode here, running across the ring with a chair shot, trading stiff blows with the larger Makabe and Honma. Sai was also fun in this - he often inspires little more than apathy from me (maybe two pathies?). His running knee strike to Honma mid way through made me react audibly (something like "Woooahaha"), much to the annoyance of my previously sleeping girlfriend.
The main event is the Z1 junior title match between Dragon Gate's Mochizuki and Z1's Ikuto Hidaka. I wrote all my thoughts about this match on the DVDVR board, but I'll repeat them now. I thought, from a technical standpoint, this was outstanding. I will concede that a match like this will never have the same emotional impact of an interpromotional feud brawl, or a top heavyweight title match. But, when you don't have those factors in your favour, it's all about the performance.
The match starts off with both men trading shoot kicks. Hidaka's first flurry of kicks (on his left leg) takes Mochi into the corner. Mochi then targets Hidaka's left leg. After that point, Hidaka doesn't kick once with the left, switching solely to the right for all his strikes for the next thirteen minutes. This, to me, is the most amazing part of the match. Often with the juniors, who require their legs for most of their stuff, any leg work gets forgotten. Sometimes it kind of fades over time. Not a bit of that here. Hidaka manages to achieve something that most find very difficult - great selling of the legwork, but with slowing the match down at all.
He keeps on selling the weakened leg throughout, shaking it loose, and wincing whenever he does anything knocks it. (And if this intentional I would be in awe, but the springboard off the ropes and the Misty Flip lacked height and spring). Mochi, for his part, is pretty single minded in going for the leg, kicking it and using a figure four submission and Kanemoto's ankle lock (in a nice nod to Hidaka's recent match)
The legwork is a Mochizuki's defensive strategy against Hidaka's kicks. His offensive strategy (and Hidaka's also) mainly targets the head, looking for the knockout blow. When it comes to the finishing straight, however, there's been so few pinfalls, and so much focus on the legwork throughout the match that the kickout (even on the brainbuster) seem completely credible. They play off the January match and the May tag match with the two corner Ikkakugeri spots. Hidaka counters an attempted second brainbuster with his new brainbuster-to-knees move, before they both race to land the final winning shot.
I know. I'm a nerd. I even went back and rewatched this, just to ensure I wasn't wrong. I wasn't. And I think that if they are going to do these little things, then someone should appreciate it. The only real obvious knock against it was the 19-count spot at the beginning - maybe Hidaka timed it wrong, because he went from lying on the floor, motionless, to jumping back into the ring within two seconds. It didn't matter much. This is the best straight juniors match I've seen in 2008.
Sunday, 12 October 2008
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.
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.
Monday, 6 October 2008
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.
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.
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