Puroresu Show Reviews

Genba Hirayanagi VS KAGETORA
Clipped down quite a bit and we see the continued heel growth of Genba, matching up against the more experienced KAGETORA. Genba tries to steal the win, but the Shoryu-Genba and a straight up low blow both fail to get the job done. Genba has also added a nice version of a T-bone suplex to his arsenal. KAGETORA back with a big brainbuster followed by the John Woo and his Ikkitousen (fireman’s carry into an Emerald Frosion) finisher for the win.
Match Rating: *

Kikutaro & Akira Taue VS Namazu Man & Kuishinbo Kamen
A great injustice was done to this match since they clipped it down a lot! The first meeting of Kikutaro and Kuishinbo since their Osaka Pro days together, and the two clowns haven’t missed a step of their chemistry together! Didn’t get to see much of the newly beefed up Catfish Man, but Taue was fun and adapted to well to the comedy spots. Taue chokeslams his own partner and Catfish man pins him for the win.
Really would have preferred if they didn’t cut out so much.
Match Rating: *

Naomichi Marufuji, Taiji Ishimori & Ippei Ota VS Ultimo Dragon, Amigo Suzuki & Takeshi Minaminao
Part of the hype of this match was Marufuji and Ultimo having similar finishers, the Shiranui and the Asai DDT respectively, and the two had some good exchanges in there together which they could build for a future singles encounter between the two. The other story of the match was Taiji Ishimori going up against his mentor and he some solid exchanges with Minaminao as well before putting away Amigo with the Superstar Elbow. A match like this should lead to something down the line for the participants involved, but as per NOAH's booking style, NOTHING came of it.
Match Rating: *1/2

4 X 4 Survival Tag: Kenta Kobashi, KENTA, Akihiko Ito & Atsushi Aoki VS Kensuke Sasaki, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Takashi Okita & Kento Miyahara
Match #1: Takashi Okita & Kento Miyahara VS KENTA & Atsushi Aoki
- A hot start to the series with the NOAH team using some rather heelish tactics on the KO rookies. Okita has potential to be a good powerhouse grappler like Sugiura, but he'll be stuck in the junior heavyweight division since he lacks height! KENTA was taller than him! Miyahara had his arm brutalized by Aoki throughout the match, and that lead to him finally being eliminated by a keylock cross-armbreaker by the future NOAH Jr. star.
Match #2: Takashi Okita & Kensuke Sasaki VS KENTA & Atsushi Aoki
- Match two and KO send in it's biggest gun in Kensuke! KENTA gets right in his face and is actually able to stand toe-to-toe with the former IWGP/Triple Crown champion! Aoki even seems to get in some good shots on the big man, including hitting his Assault Point finisher for a near fall before Kensuke regains control slamming down with a powerbomb to counter an armbreaker, and making the rookie submit to the Boston Crab!
Match #3: Takashi Okita & Kensuke Sasaki VS KENTA & Akihiko Ito
- Ito got in a good amount of offense on Sasaki, including hitting a big Death Valley Driver and a frog splash for a near fall, but then Sasaki took his head off with a big lariat and pinned him!
Match #4: Takashi Okita & Kensuke Sasaki VS KENTA & Kenta Kobashi
- Okita now gets a chance to shine against a veteran as he takes it to Kobashi and even manages to hit a big Jackhammer for a 1 count! Kobashi quickly battles back with a superplex and a barrage of chops before putting Okita's lights out with a sleeper-hold! Very convincing sell of the sleeper by Okita!
Match #5: Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima VS KENTA & Kenta Kobashi
- This is where the awesomeness of the match goes into serious overdrive! All four men put in one heck of an effort to pull out one Hell of a back and forth battle where you know the first team to give in inch to the other could lose it all! This confrontation was also leagues better than the tag match at the Budokan that ended in a draw, and the shocking ending of Nakajima scoring the win over KENTA adds fuel to the fire of what would be one of the best feuds of the year!
- Nominated by many as a Match of the Year contender, I would whole-heartedly agree, and the final round could easily have been a MOTY in itself!
Match Rating: ****1/2

Labels: El Dorado, Kensuke Office, NOAH, SEM

Taiji Ishimori VS Atsushi Aoki
Aoki was acting all tough getting into Ishimori’s face off the bat, but the rookie kid who favored armbar submissions found himself being schooled on the mat by Ishimori who worked his leg with several impressive leglocks and holds. It was impressive the way Aoki just barely managed to keep his balance while catching Ishimori out of the Superstar Elbow and giving him a German suplex-hold for a near fall. Aoki also tried for the rolling Northern Lights suplex, but Ishimori spiked him with a DDT to counter before hitting a 619 and an impressive modified piledriver to pick up the win.
I gotta find out what Ishimori calls that piledriver he uses where he crosses his opponents arms on their back before spiking them with the piledriver.
Match Rating: *1/2

KENTA VS Ippei Ota
You could almost see KENTA enjoying stiffing and stretching Ota all over the ring in this one, but at least give him credit for selling the after effects of a 32-rotation airplane spin! Ota was barely able to put two moves together before KENTA was able to rebound every time. After putting up a spirited fight, KENTA was able to put away Ota with a tiger suplex-hold
Match Rating: *

Takeshi Morishima VS Mammoth Sasaki
Damn, I knew Sasaki was big, but I didn’t think he could actually match size with Morishima! He didn’t have any problems matching power either! They could have had this match at the Budokan if Sasaki was a bigger name in the industry. Morishima actually tried to wrestle Sasaki with mat work, but Sasaki only needs one big lariat to rebound! Sasaki even managed to chokeslam big Morishima! The referee actually got bumped in this one, which gave Sasaki the chance to hit the Mammoth Homerun chair attack, but there was no referee to make the count! He even muscled up big Morishima for a brainbuster, but again no referee! Morishima makes the comeback and hits a hip attack smashing a chair into Sasaki’s face, and follows with a big backdrop suplex before locking on a cobra-clutch backbreaker stretch for the abrupt referee stop.
I’m really not a big fan of Referee Stop finishes and felt it killed the momentum of the match here. I would have preferred if Morishima did a second backdrop or ended it with a big lariat.
Match Rating: ***

Mohammed Yone VS Go Shiozaki
Go put on the best fight out of all the rookies tonight, probably due to him having months more experience than them. He took it straight to Yone and didn’t back down for a minute. I don’t know why, but Yone on the other hand looked a little lost in there more than once. He seemed hesitant and like he was off his timing at some points, something I’ve noticed from him for a while now. This was still a great back and forth contest though, with Yone picking the win after slamming Go with the muscle buster.
Match Rating: **1/2

Naomichi Marufuji & Mushiking Terry VS SUWA & Mushiking Joker
Interestingly enough, before the show started they had a one of those mushiking beetle arcade game contests in the middle of the ring, with the eight participating kids getting VIP seats on the stage to watch the match as well as being part of Terry’s entrance. SUWA and Marufuji were the mystery partners in the match, and it was sort of odd to see SUWA coming out carrying a ladder and wearing a tool belt!
This was a great junior style tag match with a ton of near falls and some really fun spots, like Marufuji countering the John Woo with one of his own, and he managed to connect with SUWA’s feet at the right time for both men to push off each other! I probably would have preferred if Joker & SUWA didn’t heel the kids so much, but Joker & Terry worked each other to the point of near exhaustion before Terry finally scored the win with a high-speed crucifix-hold. They sort of teased a feud between Marufuji & SUWA also, since they brawled a lot during the closing moments of the match and even brawled to the backstage area after the match!
Match Rating: **1/2

The SEM DVD bonus for this episode was Ricky Marvin giving the rookies a Spanish language lesson, and Ippei Ota got scolded by Abismo Negro when he tried to communicate with him in Spanish while Marvin and the others ran for it!
And finally we had Tsutomu Hirayanagi walking through the woods when he suddenly looks up and sees Mushiking Terry up in the trees, and gets an impromptu training session!

Labels: NOAH, SEM

Show starts off with a pre-recorded interview with Naomichi Marufuji where he’s asked about the 4 new bloods of the company. We than go to the first match.

Ippei Ota VS SUWA
A change of name for Ota, but no change or advancement in his abilities. After seeing what SUWA did to Hirayanagi at the first SEM show, you’d think the rookies would be a little wary about stepping into the ring him. Well, SUWA didn’t break Ota’s jaw or made him bleed, but SUWA did give him a heck of a beating, even smacking him across the back a few times with a folding chair. Ota managed to get in his airplane spin and swinging bulldog, as well as putting up a spirited fight, but SUWA was just to much for him putting him away with a big diving elbow drop after a big backdrop and lariat.
Match Rating: 1/2*

Akihiko Ito VS Mohammed Yone
I think of all the rookies so far, Ito is the only one without any defining features to stand out. He put up a spirited fight like the others, but other than a jumping frankensteiner off the second turnbuckle and a German suplex, really didn’t show anything special. Yone didn’t do a whole lot either since he stuck to mostly throwing rather weak looking kicks and such before finishing off Ito with the Muscle Buster.
Match Rating: 1/2*

Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Charly Manson VS El Angel & Taiji Ishimori
Interesting to note that the ring announcer announced the minutes passed in both Japanese and Spanish for this one.
God, I thought the AAA luchadores were rather terrible here. Seems like they were moving really slowly just to not botch anything, but at the same time it made their offense looked really rehearsed and unrealistic. And note to Charly Manson: If you can’t do a good kip-up or backflip, you better just not do them at all! Manson might have a good running vertebreaker type move, but his version of the Canadian Destroyer is really sloppy and bad. But he did win the match with a rather interesting reverse figure-four move. I don’t think I saw anything good in Angel either, other than him probably being the first person I’ve ever seen do a handspring back-headbutt type move.
Luchadores may have been the ancestors to high-flying speedy action, but Kanemaru & Ishimori dominated it here in that department and really kept the pace up when the AAA guys were keeping it down. I’m not really looking forward to the AAA guys working the regular NOAH shows if the regular guys are gonna take a back seat to them after watching Angel and Manson here.
Match Rating: *

KENTA & Go Shiozaki VS Takeshi Morishima & Takashi Sugiura
It was great to see Shiozaki back in action, and all four men put on a solid tag match here which included another strong showing from Shiozaki in his continued development, as well some great exchanges between KENTA and Morishima! I hate to say despite Sugiura being one of my favs and having a solid showing here as well, seemed to be more of a second fiddle compared to watching Shiozaki and KENTA’s exchanges with Morishima.
I loved seeing Shiozaki get in some good offense on big Morishima, like a fisherman’s suplex as well as a German suplex. Heck, KENTA even managed to superplex Morishima’s massive frame off the top rope! Morishima was able to battle back and pick up the win after giving Shiozaki four hard lariats.
Match Rating: **

Bonus Match: TAKA Michinoku & Ricky Marvin VS Naomichi Marufuji & Atsushi Aoki
A solid bonus match to close out the show, this one was right up there with the junior tag matches you’d see on the main NOAH show cards. Aoki gave a good showing and again I see the potential in him, and he and Marufuji even came up with a cool tandem move where Marufuji hit Marvin with a tiger driver and then flipped Marvin over to Aoki who hit a beautiful German suplex for a near fall.
TAKA had some good exchanges with Marufuji too, and a singles match between them down the line would be a lot of fun. I especially loved the short superkick exchange they had, with TAKA winning out with his Super-K II kick. Seeing him with Marufuji in the Just Facelock on the corner apron was a good visual too as Marvin hit Aoki with a reverse spinning neckbreaker (roll the dice) before finishing off the youngster with Mike Modest’s California Roll finisher.
Match Rating: **1/2

We of course close out the show with a look at the fun goodies in the free DVD given out to fans who attended the event live at the Differ Ariake.
First we see Hirayanagi doing a weird dance followed by him sneaking around the dojo kitchen in the dark. He opens a container that’s filled with dirt, but when he shakes up the dirt a bit we see these HUGE sago-worms in it! The dojo students actually have to eat those?!? There were the size of Hirayanagi’s palm!!!
And closing it out is a fun look at Kikuchi and Izumuda on the road, and the funny antics they get up to while sightseeing. These two ring veterans sure enjoy their vanilla ice cream cones, as they seem to munch them down every chance they get, but the one thing I didn’t need to see was a bare shot of Izumuda’s ass as he stepped into a hot spring!

Labels: NOAH, SEM

The second SEM show, and it starts off straight in the ring at the Differ Ariake.

Yoshinori Ota VS Yoshinobu Kanemaru
I’m all for putting over the new blood, but I thought Kanemaru was having way too much trouble with Ota in this one. So far, Ota’s defining moves are the old-school airplane spin and a swinging bulldog, but not a whole lot else. There’s always room for improvement though. Ota was able to fight off Kanemaru’s multiple brainbuster attempts, but fell to his moonsault in the end.
Match Rating: 1/2*

Akihiko Ito VS Takashi Sugiura
Sugiura’s new theme song so doesn’t match him. I preferred the Pearl Jam song he used before.
This match was a lot more fun than the opener since they didn’t do a lot of the mat work. Ito actually has a lot of similarities to Sugiura. Ito definitely has an amaresu background as he was able to hit a good side-suplex, and even did that cool butterfly suplex floatover into an armbar move of his. The most surprising thing he did however was when he picked Sugiura up in a Gory Special for a submission attempt! The only thing he definitely needs to work on are his elbow strikes, as they look really weak and lame here.
Sugiura definitely looked good playing the grumpy senior in this one, and scored the win with a dragon suplex-pin. I think Sugiura teaming with Ito would make for a fun tandem.
Match Rating: *1/2

Naomichi Marufuji & Atsushi Aoki VS SUWA & Taiji Ishimori
Three veterans in the match and the biggest slip up came from Marufuji when he completely missed a thrust kick on SUWA after avoiding the John Woo! Other than that one slip up, this was an ok match with some heated exchanges between Marufuji and Ishimori. The match was especially good when Ishimori kicked it into gear with his high speed offense. There wasn’t a whole lot to see from Aoki here, but the ending of the match was really interesting as SUWA gave Ishimori a blind tag when he hit the Superstar Elbow, and then tossed him out when he attempted the cover and pinned Aoki himself after hitting the FFF! Ishimori confronted SUWA after the match, which led to a short altercation with Ishimori taking out SUWA with a handspring back elbow and a hurricanrana off the second rope. They could build a nice feud off these ex-Toryumon graduates.
Match Rating: *

Shuhei Taniguchi VS Takeshi Rikioh
Another strong showing by Taniguchi as he goes toe-to-toe with the former GHC heavyweight champion in a rather competitive contest. It still surprises me that Taniguchi was able to dead-lift Rikioh off the mat into a German suplex-pin for a near fall! The look on Rikioh’s face as Taniguchi lifted him off the mat was rather priceless too. It even added more to Taniguchi’s stock when he was able to kick out of a chokeslam and Rikioh’s slap/lariat combo before finally being put down by the Muso.
Next to Go Shiozaki, Taniguchi’s star is definitely shining brightest amongst the new blood of NOAH’s roster.
Match Rating: **

Bonus Match: Scorpio & Ricky Marvin VS KENTA & Kikutaro
Now this match was just a ton of fun as Kikutaro received a big pop when he came out, and that was even before the spotlight was shown on him! There were a lot of fun Kikutaro moments in this match, from his breakdance contest with Scorpio, his fun exchanges with KENTA, and the one thing I thought I’d never see KENTA get involved in: a 4-way groin grab with everyone in the match including the referee! Kikutaro’s matches in AJPW are usually too short for him to do much, so it was great to see him take center stage here and go all out with his comedic antics! Kikutaro was even able to kick out of a fair amount of offense, like an huge diving splash and diving guillotine from Scorpio before finally being put away by Scorpio’s trademark 450’ splash.
It wasn’t all fun and games though, as there were some awesome high-speed exchanges between KENTA and Marvin, and Scorpio was fun to watch as well as he can still fly with the best of them.
Nothing to complain about with this one, I just thought it would have been more fun if they let it go to the 20-minute time limit.
Match Rating: ***

Post match, Kikutaro grabs the microphone and thanks the fans for coming out. He than says something that causes both KENTA and the ring announcer to take the mic from him, and KENTA has Kikutaro escorted out of the arena!
KENTA may have been all serious during the match, but he was finally able to let out a smile and a few laughs backstage during the interviews when Kikutaro said the two of them would be gunning for Morishima & Yone’s heavyweight tag titles!

The show ends with a quick look at a few of the fun contents in the free DVD given to the fans in attendance, which includes Taue looking all pimp backstage, Marufuji’s tour of New York, and Kentaro Shiga in the beginning stages of his turn into a Yakuza bad ass!

Overall: Another good showing by the rookies, but the main event was definitely a good bonus match for the fans and easily stole the show! They definitely need more Kikutaro in SEM!

Labels: NOAH, SEM

We kick off with a look outside the Differ Ariake where the event is being held, and the line of fans waiting to enter the event. We are then shown that all the fans who attend the event are given a free DVD containing information on the SEM wrestlers. After a quick shot of the purple and pink SEM ring, we get a short interview with NOAH president Mitsuharu Misawa discussing the concept of SEM before we go to our first match.

Tsutomo Hirayanagi VS SUWA
Misawa (as well as other NOAH seniors like Kobashi & Ogawa) was watching this match from the rafters, and I’m sure the last thing he wanted to see was Hirayanagi bleeding allover the new SEM ring mat! Hirayanagi was bleeding a gusher from his mouth after taking a hard right hand from SUWA, and it definitely looked like he may have lost a tooth judging from all the blood pouring out from his mouth. I haven’t seen anyone bleed from the mouth that bad since Wanderlei Silva KO’d Quinton Jackson in PRIDE with a knee to the mouth.
Hirayanagi definitely had some balls though, giving SUWA the finger during the ring introductions. Maybe that was the reason SUWA stiffed him till he bleed? Anyway, the match was the basic grumpy veteran beating the snot out of the young lion format match. Hirayanagi didn’t get much offense in, but from the looks of it this kid definitely needs to bulk up a bit as his missile dropkick hardly had any visible effect on SUWA, and he had difficulty just trying to turn SUWA over in a Boston crab. SUWA downs the youngster with a powerbomb-pin, but this was definitely a learning experience for the youngster as he can expect to be stiffed a lot while working NOAH shows.
Match Rating: 1/2*

We see Hirayanagi being led to an ambulance outside the arena and being sent to the hospital to get his mouth checked. I wonder why they had a fire truck on standby outside the Differ Ariake too?

Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yoshinori Ota VS Kentaro Shiga & Akihiro Ito
Funny start to this one as the referee found a wooden mallet hidden in Shiga’s pants when checking him! Shiga immediately used the mallet to bonk Ota on the head as Ito took Kanemaru to the outside, and Shiga whacked Ota on the head several more times with it! But Ota was able to fight back and disarm the yakuza wannabe and tossed the mallet out of the ring instead of using it himself when he had the chance. Kanemaru on the other hand wasn’t shy about using the foreign object as he hid it in the back of his trunks after receiving the tag and bonked Shiga on the outside while Ota distracted the referee! Kanemaru than tossed the mallet to Shiga and faked getting hit in the head himself so the referee ended up scolding Shiga for using it! Great stuff!
The crowd was in to this one since it was given good time and the youngsters got to show their stuff, including Ota hitting a nice half-hatch suplex-pin on Shiga, and Ito with a beautiful double-arm suplex-bridge pin attempt. The closing moments were really hot too as Ito survived a split-legged moonsault from Kanemaru and almost scored an upset on the veteran with a small-package, but was finally put away by Kanemaru’s brainbuster.
Match Rating: *1/2

Shuhei Taniguchi VS Mohammed Yone
Taniguchi is definitely getting the Shiozaki treatment as far as rookie pushes are concerned, as he put on a solid showing. Taniguchi actually beat Yone at a face kick battle, and score a near fall with a sweet German suplex-pin and a double-arm suplex. The look on Yone’s face when Taniguchi kicked out of his lariat was rather priceless too.
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but Yone has been looking rather bland lately. Seeing him in the grumpy role somehow doesn’t suit him as he’s better at being the fired up youngster. Most of his offense in this match consisted of kicks too, which sort of wore thin after a bit. There was one cool spot where Yone caught Taniguchi in mid air off the second rope with a spinning heel kick though, before finishing him off with the muscle buster for the win. Would have liked if this was given more time.
Taniguchi definitely made this match worth watching, and I seriously hope they either team him with Shiozaki soon, or become his generation rival as Taniguchi has future greatness etched all over him like Go does.
Match Rating: **

Ricky Marvin & Atsushi Aoki VS Naomichi Marufuji & Dakota
Marufuji definitely did not like being shown up earlier in the match by Aoki, and beat him down mercilessly after Dakota took control of the match for their team! Like Taniguchi, Aoki definitely has the makings to be a great junior heavyweight, feud or rivalry with Marufuji based of this match could be the thing needed to help in Aoki’s progression. Aoki showed a good series of arm-submission locks, including a flying cross-armbreaker before being put out by a sick sounding thrust kick by Marufuji.
Marvin seemed to be holding back in this one as we didn’t see him unleash his all out aerial assault and fast paced offense like we’re used to. Dakota didn’t seem to get much time either, and I still wonder if NOAH will ever bring him back to tour since he’s rather fun to watch in the ring.
Match Rating: *

Bonus Match: Takeshi Rikioh & KENTA VS Takeshi Morishima & Takashi Sugiura
I wonder how long they let the about 500 fans in attendance wait before announcing the bonus match of the show?
Now this match was a ton of fun to watch. I’m not really sure why, but KENTA had a serious beef with Morishima and attacked him before the match even started, as well as taking every opportunity he got to cheap shot the big man, even if it left him open to be attacked by Sugiura from behind! Rather surprising that KENTA was able to take Morishima’s barrage of Vader-hammer style punches, and was even able to get Morishima’s massive frame up for a fisherman’s buster! The back and forth war between the two ended in a time limit draw with both men literally on their knees throwing strikes with whatever they had left in the tank. Apparently the feud between these two would carry on throughout future SEM shows to come, and I’m not complaining if it all results in fun matches like this one.
As far as trying to get over on a guy bigger than his size goes, Sugiura looked much more convincing than KENTA with his exchanges with former GHC champion Rikioh, using his mat skills to take down the big man on multiple occasions, and despite a having a taped up back, Sugiura was actually able to dead-lift Rikioh up into a Greco-Roman slam off the mat!
There wasn’t anything noteworthy between KENTA and Sugiura in the match, but Rikioh and Morishima had some good exchanges, especially the slap/hammer exchange that Rikioh won with his slap/lariat combo.
A great match marred only by the short 20-minute time limit.
Match Rating: ***

We end the show with a look at what was on the DVD given to the fans.
First we had Tsutomu Hirayanagi sneaking around Misawa’s office in the middle of the night! He tried on Misawa’s ring coat, than rummaged through the boss’s table before stealing something and play-acted as a big shot in the boss’s chair!
Than we had Shuhei Taniguchi’s 3-Minute Cooking Lesson where he prepared a beef stew in just three minutes!
And that was followed by Atsushi Aoki’s 3-Minute Eating where Aoki tried to finish a bowl of rice and Taniguchi’s just made beef dish! Unfortunately, Aoki failed to take into account how hot the meal would be since it was fresh off the cooker and he failed in his task. Kudos to whoever the cameraman was who pulled away his glass of water so he couldn’t cool down his mouth in the middle of the challenge!
And the final bit of footage we are shown is NOAH boss Mitsuharu Misawa staring us right in the eye as a thank you message is read out by an announcer, and ends with Misawa losing his cool and laughing cause even he couldn’t keep a straight face for too long.

Overall, definitely a successful fun little project by Misawa to help in the training and exposure of the future stars of the company. Simple fun from top to bottom.

Labels: NOAH, SEM