The Navigation Log 3.25.07

Posted by Matt Short on 03.25.2007

Yee gods, it's a new column! I'm Matt Short and I'm taking a look at Pro Wrestling NOAH. This company's been making a huge impact in American independant wrestling lately, so why not check them out in depth? Also some thoughts on major American happenings as well as a section that's a clever take on my name!

Welcome to the maiden voyage of The Navigation Log. I am Matt Short, fresh meat on the 411 writing staff and a gaijin stranded in Tokyo. I say that like it's a bad thing, but that's only because this country has made me dirt poor. Yet for all the bad here there's plenty of cool stuff. Museums, the food, TV special reports on panty thieves, and cheap concerts, they're all great. And hey why not take in a Pro Wrestling NOAH show?

I'd recently begun watching old NOAH clips way before to coming here back last September and I'd made up my mind to go see at least one show. Most wrestling fans will tell you that there's nothing like going to a live event and being a part of one of NOAH's navigation shows is no exception.

I wanted to do a column to take a look at this Japanese company since its stars keep cropping up over America. NOAH likes to pride itself in keeping strong connections with foreign promotions. Hence why you are likely to see NOAH's finest appear at Ring of Honor events or at Harley Race's World League Wrestling. These talent exchanges have worked extremely well for all companies involved. WLW has seen legends Mitsuhara Misawa and Kenta Kobashi, as well as Naomichi Marufuji compete in their ring. Takeshi Morishima even captured the WLW World Title at a Budokan show (sounds familiar). These days ROH is the major focus for NOAH in America. NOAH has sent its very best in names like Marufuji, KENTA, Morishima, and Kenta Kobashi who's legendary match with Samoa Joe is still talked about as on of the best matches ever. ROH has since also been sending its own stars to NOAH and in recent months we've seen Bryan Danielson, Chris Hero, and The Briscoes, who captured the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles in the first show of NOAH's First Navigation '07.

Now Morishima is the ROH champion and has been allowed to run rampant of both ROH guys and recently killed KENTA in a title defense at the Budokan. This has the makings of an interesting inter-promotional feud, so let's consider this column to be a "know your enemy" type thing. Aside from the wrestlers that frequent ROH, NOAH is full of great hard-hitting stars that many Americans fans might not have heard of. Each column I'll try to look at individual stars, point out interesting match-ups announced in the various tours, and things of that nature. Kind of in a THE MORE YOU KNOW *rainbow* type thing. But in this week I wanted to maybe give people an idea of what it's like to attend a live NOAH event. It's unlike anything I've ever been apart of in terms of wrestling.

LIVE! From the Budokan!
I have not attended a Budokan show. Admittedly I have only attended two NOAH shows, but give me a break. Tickets are cheap here compared to say a WWE live event, but with the cost of living here it seriously cuts in on the number of shows one can attend. Decent seats for a Budokan show are $100 US a pop. And for a stadium like the Bodkin it's good to be as close as you can get. When in Tokyo NOAH frequents two smaller halls, Differ Ariake and Korakuen Hall. Differ is NOAH's home turf while Korakuen is a fairly well known little arena next to the Budokan. There aren't bad seats in places like this, but it's not hard to get seats up next to the ring.

And The Crowd Shows Its Polite Approval!"
Puroresu (otherwise known as pro wrestling) is considered to be a legitimate sport in Japan. This is in stark contrast to America where the main stream loves trumpeting the old stand-by of "wrestling is fake." But here in Japan it is viewed as serious competition and the crowd acts accordingly. At the Differ Ariake show I attended, there were two contract signings before the show. Now if something like this happened on TNA or Raw this would take up about twenty minutes with promos, run-ins, people being stabbed with pens, and perhaps mentions of the size of people's genitals. Yet here it had the feeling of the contract signing for major title bouts. There were interviews, yet no mention of running wild over someone or playing games, just polite promises by each competitor to do his best. Then when these big matches come up, the crowd sits back and watches. They watch two guys fight and when the action heats up, so does the crowd. They cheer for amazing moves, great reversals, and boo any rule breaking even by a huge fan favorite. Compare this to any wrestling show you've seen on American TV. There are no chants, no crowd going nuts constantly, and no one holding a sign. I remember trying to cheer certain wrestlers and being given weird stares. Why try to encourage your man if he's winning already? That aside Japanese crowds are extremely appreciative of well performed matches. And if a match stinks up the joint, they do nothing. I've always felt that one of the most important things in wrestling is you should NEVER leave a crowd with no reaction.

Expel the Foreigners!
Remember how we're supposed to hate groups like La Resistance and Team Canada because they're *gasp* not American? Those evil freedom loving bastards. Luckily, we've always had bold patriots to help us take out these enemies of the Red, White, and Blue. Let's face facts, we want the good guys to win and the easiest way to get a crowd around a guy is to pit him against someone who hates America. Racist? Oh my yes, but it still sells because people want to see it. No matter how a storyline goes, in the end the evil foreigners are beaten. The same holds true in Japan. Yes, NOAH uses a great deal of outside talent, but people are there to watch their favorite Japanese wrestler. Thus, even the most talented gaijin stars are relegated to job duty most of the time. Not to give the impression that foreigners can't win. As we've seen The Briscoes won gold in their first match with NOAH, yet by the same token they lost them on their first defense. It's worth noting however that one half of the team that defeated The Briscoes is Ricky Marvin who is about as non-Japanese as you can get. It proves that when you win the crowd over in Japan like Marvin has you can be rewarded for it. The Briscoes vs. Marvin and Kotaro Suzuki match is great by the way and you should check it out.

ABUNAI! (DANGEROUS!)
Part of the realism of Japanese wrestling comes from the fact that these guys hit each other as hard as they possibly can. They get dumped on their heads frequently in matches to the point where sometimes it's hard to watch. Watch any clip of Kobashi performing his Burning Hammer and tell me you don't flinch. The striking is often how the smaller guys get over; KENTA's a good example there with his kicks. Misawa, Kobashi, and Morishima are also accomplished strikers. Add that to some the nasty suplexes these guys take advantage of and you might find yourself worrying about a broken neck. This rough style is how American stars like Vader, Mike Awesome, and Dr. Death Steve Williams all got over in Japan.

So there are a lot of differences that are fairly obvious between puro and Western wrestling. But aside from the crowd's responses it's not all that different when you get down to it. People want their home town stars to win. Fans appreciate strong workers who are willing to take the sickest bumps. I'm not going to pretend that every match at a NOAH event should be considered match of the year or anything. I've seen my share of lousy matches. But all in all what matters most here to the fans of NOAH is being able to perform in the ring. If you can't cut it, you'll have a hall full of people giving you the Eye of Shame. No noise, nothing. That to me sounds worse than getting booed out of a WWE of TNA ring. Because at least you've left people with a reaction (even if you wrestle like shit).

Hopefully, in the future this column will convey a lot of the depth that NOAH has as a company. Yes, we've seen KENTA, Marufuji, and Morishima. But that only scratches the surface of NOAH's talent pool. If I get the chance I'll try to look into Dragon Gate as well, what with them stealing shows left and right in ROH.

Back Home
As big a fan as I am of NOAH and the American indy feds, I still care about what's happening on TV. It's hard here to catch shows due to the time difference in programming and everything is on cable. Which we don't have at my home. That aside I try my best to keep up with what's going on in WWE and TNA. So I'll try to take some time out of each column to discuss whatever I want to be it major or indy. So this week let's talk about Wrestlemania, thus giving me a chance to bore you with stuff you've probably already read elsewhere.

I really like the build for Wrestlemania 23. It's been fun for the most part and it's gotten my interest up in matches I normally wouldn't care about. As much as the hype behind the Battle of the Billionaires and the World Title matches is taking up TV time, the Money in the Bank ladder match seems to have taken a backseat to it. If I could be so bold, I'd like to suggest that this is going to be one of the most important matches on the card. From the past two years MITB has been a way to push an upper mid-card guy into the main event scene. It sets up an extended storyline that can be gone back to at any time to shake things up. Whenever the winner has cashed in their prize it has lead to some of the more memorable moments in the past couple of years in the WWE. Think back to Edge pinning John Cena or RVD winning at One Night Stand. And in past years as I think back to the build for the ladder match there was plenty of intrigue. There were a lot of good possibilities as to who could win and it really felt like it was up in the air. I don't really get that impression this year. And as much as I'm sure that the match is going to try to offer something different, the booking of it kind of has me feeling a little worried.

Consider the participants: Edge, CM Punk, King Booker, Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Finlay, Kennedy, and Randy Orton. A good line up indeed. Upping the number of guys in the match from six to eight could work well. However, with the current line-up I look at it and figure that they changed it because they had nothing for some of these guys to do. The most obvious is Booker, who hasn't done much since he lost the World Title. I can't even think of how they would have put him on the card without this match. The other thing that worries me is the inclusion of Edge in the mix. Edge has already won MITB and has his undefeated streak at Wrestlemania. This match is about putting over a new main eventer, but here we have Edge who has already won the WWE title twice and he's being pushed as one of the favorites to win. In fact the biggest story here has been the dissention between Orton and Edge over Edge's ducking out of matches. Meanwhile, the rest of the participants are for the most part overlooked. Aside from maybe Kennedy I don't see anyone else as possible winners. They all do have their own reasons for being there: Finlay is supposed to keep everything together; the Hardys are there for cool ladder spots, Punk is in there because ECW needed a representative and I don't think they trust Sabu enough for this, and then you've got Kennedy, Orton, and Edge as your main contenders.

They're the only ones I see with a chance here. That's just been the impression I've gotten from the booking thus far. Kennedy wins and he becomes another guy they're looking to put at the top. If Orton wins it'll be at Edge's expense and I can easily see him turning face and chasing the title. The same goes for Edge but I doubt he'll turn face and could probably be used to push Orton face (and I hate the idea of Edge being a two time winner). The two guys who are long shots are Matt Hardy and CM Punk. A win for Hardy sets up an easy story-line of how it's finally HIS chance to prove himself and the heel berates him how he's not cut out for the main event. Think back to Booker vs. Triple H. And if Punk wins, then all the Punk fanboys can cream themselves. In all honesty, Punk is a huge long shot to win and I'm thinking that this will be more of a test for him to see how the crowd reacts to him in a huge match like MITB. Whatever happens, they'll be able to make a decent story from it. But right now I'm picking either Kennedy or Orton to win this.

Short Takes (Quick blurbs of stuff I want to say)

-Brock Lesnar is fighting Hong Man Choi. Hong is a scary looking guy, but they put him on cute shows here. As much I'd love to see him kill Lesnar (and he can), a win for Brock puts him to the fast track of escorting kids around the world to look for diamonds. Just look at Bob Sapp.

-I like MITB, but I'd rather see London & Kendrick defend their belts or the IC title on the line.

-King of Europe baby. It's gonna be great.

-Finally saw Destination X. It was an okay show, but nothing special one way or the other. The World Title match was easily match of the night. I wonder what gimmick the rematch will get though…

-I wish I was back home because Chikara's doing a show at my college. Dammit.

That's it for now. I want to thank Larry Csonka for giving me the chance to write here on 411. I might not be around here for a long time, but I'm glad to have gotten the opportunity at least.

Questions? Comments? I suck? Fire off an email! Caps lock e-rage is welcome because it's hilarious to me. Till next time, love and peace.