The Navigation Log 5.06.07: The Northern Navigation Preview
Posted by Matt Short on 05.06.2007
NOAH's Northern Navigation is coming and it's going to be a full blown foreign invasion. Misawa defends his GHC Heavyweight title against a big scary white guy, while RO&D makes their first bids for NOAH gold. Also a quick look at some of the lighter moments in NOAH and I'll talk a bit about ROH's jump to PPV in the Back Home section.
The Japanese Death Cold rages on, no matter how many nicotine drinks I take. But it sure as hell beats a trip to the doctors here. Admittedly, I'm not nearly as bad as I was last week. But if I don't have something to complain about I wouldn't really feel complete in my Internet writing duties.
I originally had nothing to write about, but then NOAH threw a bunch of news out all at once. Thus, I had to tack on all this at the last minute to my ramblings about referees and foreigners.
A Challenger Appears!
The Spring Navigation is over, but the anticipation for NOAH's Northern Navigation is just starting. The tour begins May 17th, but before that the GHC Jr. Heavyweight tag titles are going to be defended May 12th against Dragon Gate's Muscle Outlaws. Ricky Marvin and Kotaro Suzuki will face Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino for the belts. Marvin was part of the great NOAH vs. Dragon Gate six-man at the 4/28 Budokan show, and Suzuki and Marvin have wrestled Dragon Gate shows together in the past. So between the Dragon Gate stables challenging for belts and the RO&D showing up, NOAH's champions have a lot on their plates right now.
Mitsuhara Misawa's next opponent has been chosen. And he's slightly more credible than Sano was. On June 3rd, Misawa puts the belt on the line in Hokkaido against NOAH's top gaijin Bison Smith. Smith's last GHC Heavyweight title match was in 2003 against Kenta Kobashi and this will mark the first time since 2004 that a gaijin will challenge for the title. The last man to do so was the late Mike Awesome.
Bison is a good choice here. He's a big guy and plays well into the heavy style that's popular in Japan. He works the big nasty foreigner role well and if I may say, has a pretty cool name for his finisher The Bison-tenial (it's a Styles Clash). Of course that only leaves the question as to why Bison gets a title shot. He did pick up some big wins over the last Navigation. Is NOAH grasping at straws here for title contenders? Maybe, most people view Takeshi Morishima as the heir apparent to the GHC belt. But he won't be given the belt while he's ROH world champion. If ROH decides to have him drop that title while he's NOAH's champion, then the GHC title looses some credibility if he loses it to a smaller guy like Bryan Danielson or Rodrick Strong or whoever. Even if Nigel McGuiness, a NOAH regular were to win it off him in this scenario it doesn't work as Nigel is no where near the GHC belt.
While Bison might be a step up from Sano challenging Misawa, no one really expects him to win the belt. Why? He's a foreigner and foreigners don't win a company's big title. Not to say it has never happened, but it's a rare occurance that's usually saved for guys who are incredibly over. See the case of Mike Awesome in FMW.
Today (or rather yesterday?) Morishima has his next ROH world title defense. He's taking on KAZMA from RO&D at Differ Ariake. Despite my digging around I still have no idea who KAZMA actually is except his name sounds like a terrible J-Pop singer. Though with the newly arrived RO&D I'd expect that this will end up being an interesting defense for Morishima. NOAH crowds will get their first look at KAZMA and the rest of his stable probably won't be too far behind. Morishima will retain naturally, but hopefully they can make a good show of this.
Speaking of RO&D, they're making good on their promise to challenge for GHC belts. On June 8th in Yokohama Jun Akiyama and Takeshi Rikio will defend their GHC Heavyweight tag team belts against RO&D's D'Lo Brown and Buchanan. That is going to be another interesting title match that could go either way. But if they want RO&D to look credible against NOAH's stars, a title win here would be perfect.
Wait a minute. Back up a second. Since the end of the Spring Navigation we've seen the following:
-The appearance of one of the biggest gaijin heel stables in NOAH.
-Bison Smith, the top foreigner in NOAH receiving a shot at Misawa.
-A gaijin team facing the GHC Heavyweight tag team champions in the tours finale.
Maybe I'm going out on a limb here (yeah I really am) but this is an interesting set-up. I'd say there's a good chance that Bison will join RO&D and they'll help him win the title and the entire Hokkaido arena will give them the Heel Heat Eye of Shame. It's a possible scenario, though maybe not a great one. If they actually did this and put the belt on Bison like this it would definitely get attention for NOAH. And then whoever knocks off the evil gaijin to reclaim the belt is NOAH's new hero. It's a long shot, because I still don't think they'll give a foreigner the belt, but Bison's chances are up ever so slightly in my book.
Your Honorable Promotion Can Suck My Humble Balls
I managed to see the Dragon Gate vs. NOAH six man from the 4/28 Budokan show. It was a really good match to say the least as all the guys involved worked their asses off. But the really interesting part came after the match.
CIMA gets on the mic and goes into this incredibly formal promo. He introduced himself and the promotion Dragon Gate and thanks the crowd for watch. Then he directs some comments toward his opponents Ricky Marvin, Ippei Ota, and Marufuji. He's still rather polite and good natured, teases Ota a bit for getting pinned, and then burps into the mic. This was hilarious and what was equally funny was Team NOAH's reaction to it. Not so much the losing and then being politely mocked, but the burp. It's little things like this that are the reason that I love Puro. Whenever they throw comedy out there like this, you can't help but laugh at it.
Rope!
While I'm rambling, let me also show some love to the referees. Especially those involved with puro. These tiny little guys manage to go out there and create the appearance that they can reign in two huge guys who are standing there, no-selling the nastiest strikes and throws. They're also a good source of comedy in matches, like watching a ref physically stop a guy from throwing punches or just hearing him trying to convince a guy not throw his opponent off the apron. And these guys have to make themselves understood in two different languages too. Thus adding more comedy when they try reprimanding (in good English) and the wrestler pretends to not get it.
Of course when you want to get really into the use of language in ring, you could look at foreigners using Japanese. That always gets a great crowd reaction. The best one was Chris Hero calling out some of his moves in Japanese and each time the crowd pretty much going nuts at the idea of calling out "Hero's Welcome" in Japanese. It seems like the only guy who can get away with it is Ricky Marvin and that's only because he's been in NOAH for ages and people already know that he's got a good command of the language. It also made for a great back stage skit where he tried teaching Spanish to some of NOAH's junior heavyweights so they could speak with some luchadores. Naturally, hilarity ensues.
Back Home
The Great Khali is next in line for a chance at John Cena's WWE title, The Undertaker is injured and will have to cut short his title reign, and Rob Van Dam has a shot at Mr. McMahon's ECW title. Slow news week back at home? Not by a long shot.
Ring of Honor announced that they will make the jump to Pay Per View on July 1st with Respect is Earned. ROH has put itself on the map as the top independent wrestling company in America in the past, and now stands on the verge of getting even bigger than that. The announcement really has the wrestling world buzzing right now and the comparisons are already being made to the WWF/WCW/ECW days of the 90's. While it does bear some similarities, I think that this right now more of a TNA vs. ROH thing then a three way race.
TNA is most affected by ROH coming to PPV. This is pretty obvious from TNA's pulling of it's stars from ROH's shows. No matter what people want to believe TNA is just not on the level of WWE in terms of competition. They might have the star power, but they just don't put up the same numbers as WWE. WWE just proved that they can still put on great PPV's with Backlash being an awesome event compared to a somewhat lackluster Lockdown PPV from TNA. With ROH starting on PPV, TNA has something bigger to worry about than WWE.
TNA has its fan base and it has good money. There's no other way they'd be able to get stars like Sting or Kurt Angle if they didn't have the money to get them under contract. But the main complaint that has been throw against TNA in the past few months is that they have not been booking well. PPV's are full of gimmick matches and many feel that the older stars or WWE cast-offs are given too much preferential treatment over TNA's home grown talent. The company who's motto was "We Are Wrestling" just hasn't been providing the quality of wrestling that it used to.
Now here comes ROH. They don't have the same kind of money as TNA, but they go out and put on a better PPV than TNA. Then they do it again the next time around. Then it gets to be that a ROH PPV gets more buys than a TNA one. It's a possibility that could happen. That's why I view this as totally different from the situation in the 90's. Instead of seeing a battle at the top, we're seeing more of a fight at the bottom. TNA can't be worrying about competing with the WWE any more because they're going to have to contend with ROH now.
As for TNA pulling their stars from ROH, they have every right to do so. They have the contracts of these guys and really had no other choice. But that is no guarantee that former ROH stars are never going to go back. A lot of these guys joined TNA to get national exposure. Now ROH can provide a similar amount of national exposure with being on PPV. I would not at all be surprised to see Austin Aries return to ROH when his contract is up with TNA. And depending on how some other stars feeling like they're being treated, others might return to ROH as well.
I'm excited for this, I really am. Not only is this going to give a lot of people the chance to see ROH, but (especially for puro fans like me) the stars of NOAH and Dragon Gate are going to get a lot of extra exposure too.
Short Takes
-Sapporo beer has the best commercials ever.
-Khali vs. Cena might not be as bad as people are anticipating. But it was anti-climatic to see him walk out at the end of Raw.
-NOAH needs to release information better. I have to always get up earlier on Sundays to check to see if they added anything new. As was the case this week, it was a slew of title matches and I had to re-write everything since I basically had nothing to start with anyway.
-I love Pringles and Japan gets the most awesome flavors. Baked Cheese Potato for the win!
That's all for this week. Send me some feedback if you've got any. Positive or negative, it makes no difference to me. Until next time this is Matt Short and I'm outta here.
