Puroresu Show Reviews

Pro Wrestling NOAH’s annual “East VS West” show where the roster is divided in half, with those hailing from the East of Japan taking on those from the West in a series of matches. The actual show itself was split into two halves, so I’ll do the same for my review here.

Ricky Marvin VS Kotaro Suzuki VS KENTA VS Naomichi Marufuji
This was a fun opener, even if it did have a few botched spots here and there. But what do expect when you have four guys going at it at full speed at the same time? In addition to the fast paced action and big spot sequences, they even threw in some comedy and at one point all four men brawled to the back area! This wasn’t perfect, but still fun, which was really the theme of the night.
Match Rating: ***

Tamon Honda VS Mitsuo Momota
This was a very good mat-based match from the two veterans. I really enjoy watching Momota in serious matches like this one and he made it enjoyable. This was an old-school match which suited both guys here and they kept it short too.
Match Rating: **

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi VS Jun Izumuda
Battle of the headbutts! The sole purpose of this match was to see who had the hardest head as they constantly butted each other to oblivion. I would have liked it better if they didn’t make Kikuchi such an underdog here compared to Izu who’s head seemed more concrete than usual.
Match Rating: **

Takuma Sano VS Trevor Rhodes
My first look at Trevor Rhodes, and he’s sort of a young Stan Hansen wannabe. This match unfortunately didn’t give him the chance to show any outstanding offence to judge his ability on other than he’s a big, powerful guy.
I have no idea why this match was using the rounds system like it was supposed to be a shoot or something. The first round was all mat work. Things picked up in the second round before culminating in the third. They could have just done the whole thing in one round and save the hassle. Overall, I would rate this as the most boring match of the night cause it took too long.
Match Rating: *1/2

Yoshinari Ogawa VS Akira Taue VS Mitsuharu Misawa
Old Taue is working with a bad leg here, so his offense and movements were limited, yet he still carried most of the match! Taue had to fend off the tandem offense of the reigning GHC tag team champions, and manage to hold his own even with a bad leg. It was also funny watching Misawa pull some sneaky comedy spots like trying to pin both Taue & Ogawa when they were locked in a figure-four. Would be interesting to see how they would have played it out in a serious scenario.
Match Rating: ***

Hopefully I can get Pt.2 up tomorrow, so check back!

Labels: NOAH