Match A Day 06.25.09: Week 11 – All Japan: Past, Present, Future

Last Time on Match A Day:

My girlfriend Suzy revealed that she was pregnant, a former student of mine, Mia, had now grown up into a new love interest for me… and…

“Kimberly, like my current girlfriend Suzy, was a bit of a nag and loved to fight. And sadly, she has another thing in common with Suzy, as Kimberly is the first girl I had ever gotten pregnant…”

And now MAD Week 10 begins…

Match #71 – Sunday, June 14th
Real World Tag League Finals: Mitsuhara Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaka Kawada & Akira Taue
[All Japan, December 1997]

As we all know, on June 13th, Mitsuhara Misawa died. The guy literally died in the ring, wrestling! As sad as that is for fans of wrestling, you gotta think that’s an amazing way to go for the guy! Too early though, no doubt.

Back in 2006, I got my ass on a plane and flew from Seoul, South Korea to Tokyo, Japan to see a NOAH show at the Budokan Hall. When you make plans for a trip like that, you don’t know what kind of matches you’re going to see (just that the finals of the NTV Jr. Heavyweight Tag Title Tournament were going to be involved, which meant I luckily ended up seeing one of the most amazing matches of all-time, KENTA & Ishimori vs. Marufuji & Ibushi), but when I saw that the main event was announced as Misawa defending the GHC Title against Akira Taue, my heart stopped and I’m sure I was legally dead for a few seconds. It is rare to see a GHC Title match, and super rare to see one involving these two legends in 2006.

Even though this was not 1991, and there was no chance of seeing that deadly Tiger Driver…

… this turned out to be one of the crown jewels in my live pro-wrestling watching collection.

What was strange was the sense I got from the audience that night, as some very vocal Taue fans were absolutely losing it, while the rest of the audience continued their typical respectful applause, but this was at the time when many people wanted Misawa to pack it in because he was holding back the younger stars by hogging ‘his’ spotlight unfairly. I think Misawa was not a Triple H, who liked to respond to his critics by doing the opposite of what they want, instead he showed, as a booker as a wrestler, that he was willing to let the best wrestlers steal the show (NTV matches) with their intensity and innovation, but also show that the veterans could still put on a fast paced, hard hitting, classically epic and mature main event match.

Misawa and Taue were two of the legends who made All Japan in the 1990s the greatest era in professional wrestling history. In the match I watched for MAD this day, a very dapper, young Jun Akiyama joined Misawa to take on the seasoned team of Taue and Kawada. These kinds of tag matches were what All Japan was all about.

In the beginning of the match, Misawa let Akiyama take a drubbing before tagging in, but when he did, his flowing locks, tough slouch and perma-scowl cut the epic shape of a gladiator into the ring air.

-kind of like this, but ten years younger

The last ten minutes of the match were signature All Japan nineties madness: the crowd was rabid, the near falls were preposterous, the big moves hammer down on you like a rockslide, and the wrestlers were so exhausted that no normal human could watch the matches without sweating.

In the final moments, as Akiyama was out of it and being pummeled, Misawa stood in the corner frustrated and then just jumped in, beat the shit out of his opponents, and headed back to his corner screaming at Akiyama to get it together and make the tag. Akiyama failed to ever make it, as he succumbed to the patented Akira Taue chokeslam, and got pinned as Misawa stood prone on the outside, not coming in to make the save, almost in disgust at his tag partners ineffectiveness.

This match represents All Japan’s past, not only because these wrestlers are no longer with AJPW, but the legacy they created in the 90s with years and years of great matches that showcased psychology, audience intensity, innovation, and most of all, athletic feats of greatness. The All Japan of today has a lot of live up to, and in some cases I feel like they would rather not have this classic era as their legacy, so they wouldn’t have to be measured against this standard of excellence.

Match #72 – Monday, June 15th
81st Generation All Asia Tag Team Title Determination Tournament, Round 1: Kaz Hayashi & Keji Mutoh vs. Shuji Kondo & Ryota Hama
[All Japan, January 2009]

From the classics to the crappest! The fact that Misawa was no longer with AJPW and somehow ‘The Great Muta’ is in charge of the direction of the company is surreal. Even without the recent demise of Misawa, he left All Japan years ago to create Pro-Wrestling NOAH in response to poor booking direction ideas, and the risk paid off in my opinion, as NOAH went on to carry on the legacy that Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, et. al, established.

Calling this match ‘crap’ might be unfair, but a WCW jobber/cum All Japan main eventer, a no-name, mid-card light heavyweight, the old-man, corporate version of Muta and a super-fat sumo turned super-green rookie in Ryoto Hama, do not compare favorably to the legends who competed in the previous match.

Actually, I found the opening sequence between Mutoh and Hama to be surprisingly entertaining, especially since they were doing some catch-as catch-can mat wrestling, and considering the out-of-proportioned shape of Hama, you wouldn’t think it was possible at all. Hama shows more promise in their exchanges here than the combined total of all of Akebono’s professional wrestling matches.

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Nonsense of the Week: 200-pounder Kaz actually gives Hama a fireman’s carry throw, which was pretty much more business exposing than Roddy Piper slamming Big John Studd, but it was even more retarded when Mutoh had Kondo in a figure four and Kaz was holding Hama back against the ropes… you gotta be kidding!

Match #73 – Tuesday, June 16th
15-man Heavyweight Battle Royal: Manabu Soya, Seiya Sanada, Keiji Muto, Suwama,
Osamu Nishimura, Satoshi Kojima, Nobutaka Araya, Minoru Suzuki,
Taiyo Kea, Yoshihiro Takayama, TARU, Hate, Joe Doering, Zodiac &
Ryota Hama
[All Japan, January 2009]

The sole highlight of this clusterfuck of a Battle Royal thrown together to end night one of this New Year’s tournament show, was seeing Satoshi Kojima and Suwama match up early. Here are two guys capable of leading All Japan, and they show it as the have a few great exchanges while everyone else clears a path, symbolic, no? Extending the metaphor further, the quality ends early as both go down from some hard forearms and clothesline, and the rest of the wrestlers just pile on and have them eliminated through allowable pinfalls.

After this, the match deteriorated into meaningless pile on on top of pile on. The ending came following some weak attempts at comedy, as the seasoned Bob Backlund-esque Osamu was left with the tubby Hama and the doppy Araya, who almost won by accident, until Zodiac (that’s old Cena stabber Jesus) does the super lame, ‘surprise-I-was-waiting-outside-the-ring’ move, and came off the top rope to clothesline Araya to sad sack defeat.

Last Saturday, I mentioned that I ran into my first Korean girlfriend, Kimberly, on the street. At the time, it was a bit of a shock, since we hadn’t seen each other in about two years, or really talked in more than four. Although she was nice and pretty, things started to sour when she got pregnant. Much like the pregnancy with my current girlfriend Suzy, I had no idea how that had happened since we used a condom every time, and as far as I know it had never broken.

The truth is, I had to slightly talk Kimberly into an abortion. Kimberly certainly wasn’t jacked up about having my child, since she’s from a rich Korean family and I’m some poor white guy, so it wasn’t a hard sell, but she definitely always held a grudge against me for introducing the idea.

To see her again last Saturday was pleasant. Of course we didn’t talk about the past… nor the present or the future really. Just simple small talk, exchanged numbers and we were on our way. I was happy to see her, and it did get the wheels turning on how to handle my current situation…

Match #74 – Wednesday, June 17th
81st Generation All Asia Tag Team Title Determination Tournament, Semi Final: Satoshi Kojima & KAI vs. Masanobu Fuchi & Osamu Nishimura
[All Japan, January 2009]

Here’s a match that I’ve got to admit I was a bit distracted while watching, as I was simultaneously trying to ignore Suzy beckoning me on Skype and frustratingly waiting for a text message from the girl I really want to be hanging out with, the young Mia.

Aside from Kojima, there was little to excite me about this match anyways, from the inexperienced Kai to the much too experienced Fuchi, they repesented to me how just dull the veterans and newcomers are in this federation.

Wearing pure black trunks and boots, the old timers team relied on either fists or Euro uppercuts, and usually ended up just take beatings and selling slowly and poorly. Oddly, Fuchi got the surprise flash small package, although I shouldn’t have been surprised as quick, lame endings seemed a reoccurring theme in modern All Japan, as seen in matches throughout this tournament and also Kaz Hayashi’s Champion Carnival run that I looked at last week.

Match #75 – Thursday, June 18th
Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Jun Akiyama & Shuhei Taniguichi
[NOAH, January 2009]

This could very easily have been an All Japan match had things gone a bit differently. Following the death of Misawa, one has to wonder about the future of NOAH, maybe they can exist as a strong company in the short term but maybe stars like these guys want to move to All Japan now because of the long history of that company, whereas NOAH was mainly an extension of Misawa.

As much as I love NOAH, it would be a good thing for AJPW to have stuff like this. The exchanges between the young juniors Shuhei and Nakajima were ultra-intense and almost resulting in pure, punches to the face. Whereas the veterans were in the midst of a budding rivalry, and Sasaki ended the match with an Exploder on Taniguichi, the signature suplex of Akiyama, and pointed to him in a great moment of atheletic challenge that just wouldn’t resonate authentically between guys like Minoru Suzuki and Muta.

Genius of the Week: Sasaki doubled up on a Nakajima waist lock and threw both men over his head in a super-release German suplex.

Match #76 – Friday, June 19th
81st Generation All Asia Tag Team Title Determination Tournament, Final: Minoru Suzuki & NOSAWA vs. Masanobu Fuchi & Osamu Nishimura
[All Japan, January 2009]

After their shocking victory in the semi-finals, the saggy skinned team of Nishimura and Fuchi, come out to take on the Gurentai team. All Japan houses two heel factions, neither of which stand out to me much, nor seem to carry any weight for the future. Gurentai and the Voodoo Murderers are both anit-establishment, alterno/goth types, that make the AJPW scene feel a bit like the muddled, try-hard factions of AAA.

The match was plodding, as the older gentleman required a slower, more technical pace, and in a way that was okay, but since the wrestlers’ featured here are quite dull, it all made for a poor pay-off in the end. Suzuki and Fuchi are trading slaps and slow pinfalls attempts, while Nosawa and Nishimura just hold in a frozen Figure Four Leglock in the corner of the ring, and Suzuki is free to earn another victory via his delayed Cradle Piledriver… the second in two weeks for me, as he also won the Champion Carnival I reviewed last week in similar anticlimactic fashion.

Does All Japan consider Minoru Suzuki their next big star? Compared to Naruki Doi in Dragon Gate, these guys are world’s apart. First of all, Suzuki is not young. Secondly, he’s slow. Thirdly, aside from a trademark scowl, something the great Misawa also had, Suzuki shows no emotion and wrestles with little passion. When a non-native Japanese speaker watches Japanese pro-wrestling, you have to go off of feeling and non-verbal passion, and that’s’ something Misawa and Doi were/are able to communicate to the audience, while Suzuki may be a great jerky badass when he talks, when he wrestles I see nothing of the classic All Japan style in his intensity, moves or selling.

Match #77 – Friday, June 19th
11-Man Jr. Heavyweight Battle Royal: Kikutaro, Kaz Hayashi, Shuji Kondo, Hiroshi Yamato,
KAI, Ryuji Hijikata, Masanobu Fuchi, MAZADA, TAKEMURA,
NOSAWA Rongai & “brother” YASSHI
[All Japan, January 2009]

Did you read carefully? Two Fridays in a row. You may be asking yourself, “can Jake Chambers travel through time? Is he going to go back to the 13th and save Misawa?” Sadly, my super powers seem to be reserved for breaking through condoms, and the only way I can truly go backwards a day is by traveling across the international dateline, as I did this day, taking a flight back to my home outside of Toronto, Canada.

On the plane, I watched this Battle Royale, the final match of this two-day, All Japan Tag Tournament. Does this match hold any keys for predicting the future of AJPW? While the previous night featured that lame Heavyweight Battle Royale, this match showcased the light heavyweights, truly the premiere division in Japan right now, with Dragon Gate, DDT and NOAH, featuring lighter weighted wrestlers in stunning main events on a regular basis. Since All Japan cannot provide a healthy heavyweight alternative, how does their future look competing aesthetically with the Juniors?

Sadly, just like the previous Battle Royale, this match is just one lame pile-on pin cover after another, until Voodoo Murderer brother YASSHI and cartoonish Kituaro are the last left, leaving space for Kikutaru’s brand of slow motion comedy and a dumb joke ending that would be stupid to try and transcribe. In my opinion, All Japan is in bad shape, and much worse off than the oft-scrutinized NOAH.

Speaking of being in bad shape, I had Suzy take me to the airport this morning. She cried a lot, even though I was only going to be gone for two weeks, yet I have to admit I thought it was touching and sweet (even though I had to sneak away once to send a good bye text to Mia). She’s slapped me, nagged me, surprised me and depressed me lately, but thinking of those tears of sadness, rather than anger, as I made my way to customs, did make me a bit maudlin.

When I get back, it’s going to be tough talking her into an abortion…