Puroresu Show Reviews
Reviews of puroresu shows in my collectionMonday, February 23, 2009
NOAH Great Voyage in Yokohama 6/14/2008
Junji Izumuda & Taiji Ishimori VS Kento Miyahara & Takashi Okita
- Skip this unless you want to see how the KO students are coming along.
Kishin Kawabata, Kentaro Shiga & Masao Inoue VS Tamon Honda, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Mitsuo Momota
- Skip this too as we've seen it a million times before.
Akira Taue & Mohammed Yone VS Akitoshi Saito & Kazushi Miyamoto
- A tryout match for Miyamoto? He got to show off some good offense and Yone sold well for him, but in the end he did the job and hasn't been seen back in NOAH since if I'm not mistaken.
Naomichi Marufuji & Kotaro Suzuki VS Mitsuharu Misawa & Ippei Ota
Watching this, I wonder if Ota did anything to piss off anyone in NOAH since he was picked on by almost everyone, including his partner Misawa! We had retired wrestler Satoru Asako as the referee in this one, and he did an OK job. I don't get why he didn't complain when Marufuji used his as a tag partner by ramming him into Ota in the corner. Good match with a bit of comedy to it. One great spot was Kotaro catching Ota in mid-air off the top in a vertical suplex position before flipping him an dropping him in a tombstone piledriver! Suzuki finished off Ota with the Blue Destiny. Ota managed to get his airplane spin spot in, but I still can't see him as a serious contender in NOAH, but maybe more along the lines of a Makoto Hashi-like jobber for life run.
Match Rating: **
Atsushi Aoki Shining Magic 10-Match Trial Series - Match 5: Atsushi Aoki VS Yoshinari Ogawa
- As you can expect, this was a very technical mat based match, with Aoki constantly attacking Ogawa's arm and trying for submissions every chance he got. Felt a bit dull to me though.
Match Rating: *1/2
Jun Akiyama, Takeshi Rikioh & Yoshibobu Kanemaru VS Yoshihiro Takayama, Takuma Sano & Genba Hirayanagi
- The fun thing about this match was watching Genba being a total pain in Akiyama's back with him constantly taking cheap shots at the former GHC champion every chance he got. He even got in a low blow on both Akiyama and Rikioh at one point! Of course Genba lost the match for his team, and took a low blow from Akiyama after the match, but that didn't stop him from getting on the microphone to provoke Akiyama again! Akiyama ran out from the locker room and Genba ran off in the other the direction, which was rather hilarious.
Kenta Kobashi & KENTA VS Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima
- As good as this match was, I don't think it was as good as the tag match from 2005 with Go Shiozaki in KENTA's place. While Kobashi and Sasaki had some good exchanges here, the story of the match focused heavilly on KENTA and Nakajima by the end. Nakajima most probably could have beaten KENTA here if not for the time limit, but it just stirs up the hatred between the two even more when KENTA becomes a spoil sport after the match and attacks Nakajima leading to a big pull-apart brawl!
Match Rating: ***1/2
GHC Heavyweight Championship: Takeshi Morishima [C] VS Takashi Sugiura
- I'm not sure if the point of this match was to show that Sugiura could hang with the heavyweights in the main event scene. He can obviously hang with the heavyweights, but looked like they put him over Morishima a little too much, just short of actually winning the title. The ending of the match sort of soured me a bit, as Sugiura controlled a lot of it and seemed to have the match in the bag, hitting the Olympic Slam on big Morishima twice to get a near fall. He had previously pinned Morishima that same way during the Global Tag League. Unfortunately, Morishima than pops up and all effects of the beating he took througout the match are out the door as he proceeds to destroy Sugiura enroute to retaining his title. Rather than have Morishima just get up like nothing happened, it would have made more sense for Sugiura to miss a big move, or Mori to counter something before getting his breath back for the comeback. Credit to Morishima for reaching down in his bag of tricks and pulling out a moonsault before ending the match with the backdrop driver. And the spot where Sugiura tried to German suplex big Morishima but buckling and Morishima's weight collapsing on top of him was a spot I've always wanted to see in wrestling. Pulling out something different now and then shows growth, but I still can't forgive that little booking blunder of Morishima's comeback.
Match Rating: ***3/4
- Skip this unless you want to see how the KO students are coming along.
Kishin Kawabata, Kentaro Shiga & Masao Inoue VS Tamon Honda, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Mitsuo Momota
- Skip this too as we've seen it a million times before.
Akira Taue & Mohammed Yone VS Akitoshi Saito & Kazushi Miyamoto
- A tryout match for Miyamoto? He got to show off some good offense and Yone sold well for him, but in the end he did the job and hasn't been seen back in NOAH since if I'm not mistaken.
Naomichi Marufuji & Kotaro Suzuki VS Mitsuharu Misawa & Ippei Ota
Watching this, I wonder if Ota did anything to piss off anyone in NOAH since he was picked on by almost everyone, including his partner Misawa! We had retired wrestler Satoru Asako as the referee in this one, and he did an OK job. I don't get why he didn't complain when Marufuji used his as a tag partner by ramming him into Ota in the corner. Good match with a bit of comedy to it. One great spot was Kotaro catching Ota in mid-air off the top in a vertical suplex position before flipping him an dropping him in a tombstone piledriver! Suzuki finished off Ota with the Blue Destiny. Ota managed to get his airplane spin spot in, but I still can't see him as a serious contender in NOAH, but maybe more along the lines of a Makoto Hashi-like jobber for life run.
Match Rating: **
Atsushi Aoki Shining Magic 10-Match Trial Series - Match 5: Atsushi Aoki VS Yoshinari Ogawa
- As you can expect, this was a very technical mat based match, with Aoki constantly attacking Ogawa's arm and trying for submissions every chance he got. Felt a bit dull to me though.
Match Rating: *1/2
Jun Akiyama, Takeshi Rikioh & Yoshibobu Kanemaru VS Yoshihiro Takayama, Takuma Sano & Genba Hirayanagi
- The fun thing about this match was watching Genba being a total pain in Akiyama's back with him constantly taking cheap shots at the former GHC champion every chance he got. He even got in a low blow on both Akiyama and Rikioh at one point! Of course Genba lost the match for his team, and took a low blow from Akiyama after the match, but that didn't stop him from getting on the microphone to provoke Akiyama again! Akiyama ran out from the locker room and Genba ran off in the other the direction, which was rather hilarious.
Kenta Kobashi & KENTA VS Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima
- As good as this match was, I don't think it was as good as the tag match from 2005 with Go Shiozaki in KENTA's place. While Kobashi and Sasaki had some good exchanges here, the story of the match focused heavilly on KENTA and Nakajima by the end. Nakajima most probably could have beaten KENTA here if not for the time limit, but it just stirs up the hatred between the two even more when KENTA becomes a spoil sport after the match and attacks Nakajima leading to a big pull-apart brawl!
Match Rating: ***1/2
GHC Heavyweight Championship: Takeshi Morishima [C] VS Takashi Sugiura
- I'm not sure if the point of this match was to show that Sugiura could hang with the heavyweights in the main event scene. He can obviously hang with the heavyweights, but looked like they put him over Morishima a little too much, just short of actually winning the title. The ending of the match sort of soured me a bit, as Sugiura controlled a lot of it and seemed to have the match in the bag, hitting the Olympic Slam on big Morishima twice to get a near fall. He had previously pinned Morishima that same way during the Global Tag League. Unfortunately, Morishima than pops up and all effects of the beating he took througout the match are out the door as he proceeds to destroy Sugiura enroute to retaining his title. Rather than have Morishima just get up like nothing happened, it would have made more sense for Sugiura to miss a big move, or Mori to counter something before getting his breath back for the comeback. Credit to Morishima for reaching down in his bag of tricks and pulling out a moonsault before ending the match with the backdrop driver. And the spot where Sugiura tried to German suplex big Morishima but buckling and Morishima's weight collapsing on top of him was a spot I've always wanted to see in wrestling. Pulling out something different now and then shows growth, but I still can't forgive that little booking blunder of Morishima's comeback.
Match Rating: ***3/4
Labels: Kensuke Office, NOAH
Archives
January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 January 2008 May 2008 December 2008 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 July 2009 August 2009 October 2009
