The Navigation Log 6.03.07: What's Up With the Main Event?
Posted by Matt Short on 06.03.2007
A very rambling look at Pro Wrestling NOAH's current main event scene and who could legitimately challenge for the title while still drawing. Plus, I ask that you consider comedy for a second. Meanwhile, "HUGE" news from Dragon Gate and Naomichi Marufuji in the match of his life!
We had the biggest rain storm I've ever seen today. The station flooded and I almost got chucked off the escalator when it stopped after a power surge. I can only say to this, fuck the rainy season and fuck umbrellas being completely useless. But I will not let this dampen my spirits. Nor will the rain prevent me from bringing Puro to 411. Unless we have another blackout and I can't post this. In which case I'm sorry.
Before getting down to business, there's some huge, epic, massive, and important news out of Dragon Gate. Stalker Ichikawa Z has been declared (by himself) as Dragon Gate's first ever Open the Owarai Gate Champion (Open the Comedy Gate). Following this announcement he changed his name to "Hollywood" Stalker Ishikawa. While some may scoff at the notion that comedy has its own gate to be opened, there is no better representative for the belt than Stalker Ichikawa. But he's got a huge task ahead of him as his first defense is going to be against Don Fuji, who Ichikawa lost to at PWG's DDT4 Weekend. Even tougher, prior to all the title match these two will meet in an Extreme Comedy Death Match. If these live up to expectations we might be looking at some strong MOTY candidates here.
A couple weeks ago at a DDT show Marufuji made a surprise appearance to team with Danshoku Dino against KUDO and Muscle Sakai. Pictures of it don't do the match justice, but someone uploaded it. And it might be one of the greatest comedy matches I've ever seen. Really close to the 8 team over the top battle royal from last year's Ted Petty Invitational. All in all I'm always glad when guys are willing to bring the funny in a match.
The Northern Navigation is over by the time you read this. But unfortunately, there are no results here right now. The time difference means I had to put this out before the show went on. Full results next week, but hopefully I'll be able to discuss a NEW GHC Heavyweight champion. Hahaha man that's wishful thinking.
The full card for the 6/8 NOAH show in Yokohama simply called NAVIGATION is out now:
-1st Match: Tag Match 30 min Time Limit
Takuma SANO & Masao INOUE vs. Tamon HONDA & Tsuyoshi KIKUCHI
-2nd Match: Tag Match 30 min Time Limit
Muhammad YONE & Yoshinobu KANEMARU vs. Akira TAUE & Shuhei TANIGUCHI
-3rd Match: Tag Mach 30 min Time Limit
KENTA & Taiji ISHIMORI vs. TAKA MICHINOKU & KAZMA
-4th Match: 30 min Time Limit
Akitoshi SAITO vs. Go SHIOZAKI
-5th Match: Tag Match 30 min Time Limit
Yoshihiro TAKAYAMA & Takashi SUGIURA vs. Kentaro SHIGA & Kishin KAWABATA
-6th Match: Tag Match 30 min Time Limit
Mitsuharu MISAWA & Yoshinari OGAWA vs. Mushi-King TERRY & Ricky MARVIN
-7th Match: Special Match 60 min Time Limit
Naomichi MARUFUJI vs. Kazunari MURAKAMI
-8th Match: GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Title Match 60 min Time Limit
Jun AKIYAMA & Takeshi RIKIO vs. D-LO BROWN & BUCHANAN
A good card to be sure. In a final answer to Ben from NYC's question from last week, Marufuji was jumped by Kazunari Murakami. They finally ran an article about it in Puroresu Weekly this week. No idea what to expect from this match, but Marufuji is one of the best juniors around and will give his best performance possible. The main event promises to be really good too. Rikio is better in a team than on his own and you really can't go wrong with Akiyama. D-Lo and Buchanan will heel it up in what will sure to be a fun match.
The Main Event
This week's Buy or Sell was a very good read. Fellow puro columnist Matt Adamson and the boss Larry "The Boss" Csonka gave some good responses to the puro questions. In particular though, the question on NOAH main event scene interested me the most. Especially considering I had this topic in mind for rambling about this week.
So the question here is "Is NOAH's current main event scene weak?" Looking at their roster one would have to think no. With a locker room that has guys like Misawa, Akira Taue, Jun Akiyama, Takeshi Rikio, Marufuji, and a soon to be returning Kenta Kobashi the main event is far from weak. All of these guys are legitimate draws (well I don't know about Rikio) and are well known and respected by the Japanese fan base. Make any one of these guys your heavyweight champion and you're set for months. Then when you look at the other major heavyweights on the roster, in Morishima, Akitoshi Saito, and even Yoshihiro Takayama when he's around you could be set for awhile. And even bringing in more juniors to challenge like Marufuji did with KENTA, Ogawa, and Takashi Sugiura is possible.
However, since I've been here I've been really disappointed with the main event scene. Not from the fact that they don't have anyone to challenge Misawa, but that they're not bringing their top stars up to do it. When I got here in September, Marufuji had just won the title and the buzz around that was incredible. People everywhere were pumped for it. Then in his defense against KENTA the crowd simply went nuts for Marufuji retaining the title. At the time, it looked like Marufuji would be champ for at least a few months longer. But then his next opponent was named as Misawa and a lot of people collectively went "Shit." I myself, did not because a Misawa title run can produce some good matches. And a lot of people assumed that he was going to drop the belt to Morishima right away. That didn't happen and since then Misawa hasn't really been setting the world on fire with his matches. The Morishima match was average and no one gave a damn that he was defending against Takuma Sano. You'd have to think that if you've got a choice between main eventing Misawa against either Sano or say Jun Akiyama you'd pick Akiyama.
Now Misawa is up against Bison Smith and this is making waves on the sole fact that Smith is the first foreigner to challenge for the belt since 2004. He's been booked strong the whole Northern Navigation. And as I've said numerous times, as much as I would love to see Smith win here it's probably not going to happen. NOAH can then continue to run through the list of contenders from before until either Morishima comes back up or they decide to give the title to Kobashi when he returns.
The main problem I see is that Misawa is holding the belt. And Misawa is one of the godfathers of puro not to mention the boss of NOAH. He's not just going to drop the belt to anyone unless it was good for business. Is Morishima going to draw better and have better matches as champion now or a year from now? Is a build against a guy like Akiyama going to be better than the build to a match against a huge scary white guy? While anyone against Misawa is probably still going to make money, the quality of the matches really haven't been that great. The more I think about the past 9 months I've been here I can't imagine why Marufuji lost the belt so fast. I saw his first match after winning the belt and he was insanely over. He stayed that way through that whole tour and really only lost favor with the fans when he went up against Misawa.
As long as Misawa is maintains his grip on the title there's not going to be a great improvement in the quality of matches in the main event. But I have to wonder how long it will take for even Japanese fans, who are conditioned to love Misawa without question might start getting a bit tired of it before long. I can see a few more months of him on top, facing guys like Akiyama and Taue and maybe Morishima again in August (assuming he drops the ROH World Title in Tokyo next month). What a lot of people are hoping will happen is that Misawa will defend against a returning Kenta Kobashi once more in an attempt to relive their classic battles from the past. While that is going to put butts in seats for sure, it wouldn't be smart for NOAH to count on this. Kobashi isn't coming back from knee surgery or something, he's coming back from cancer treatment. No one knows what kind of shape he's going to be in. Plus, Kobashi is very injury prone and to hope that he'll be a hundred percent and stay that way might be wishful thinking.
The smartest think NOAH could do is put the title on someone new a couple months down the line. Morishima would be fine and it would put him closer to the top tier of Japan's puro elite. It also wouldn't hurt to go with a guy like Akiyama. Unless of course Bison Smith shocks everyone tonight and wins in which case my entire column is moot. But Misawa the odds are good that Misawa will finish out the summer as champion, but whether his defenses are any good will tell with time.
Back Home
Let us consider for a moment the lighter side of pro wrestling. In general. What passes for comedy on WWE or TNA these days? Pudding matches, Kevin Nash, DX, Umaga and Khali's discourse on the finer points of Citizen Kane. To be sure, these and other things are hilarious. Well, maybe I haven't seen the pudding match yet but somehow I have images of Bill Cosby having seizures at the thought of it. To me on the main shows comedy always comes from back stage segments. Crime Tyme's shenanigans as well as when Finlay first got the Little Bastard. Remember how he kept him in a sack and pretended he wasn't there? Priceless.
Though honestly a lot of "smart" fans love it when wrestlers poke fun at kayfabe. Take Kevin Nash for example. His bits with the X Division are hilarious because he always seems to bring out the most absurd references he can think of. I mean Oz? How many people had to stop for a second and wonder what the hell he was talking about? Be honest, because I know I did. DX did the same thing to a degree, poking fun at Kurt Angle's rising platform and Triple H always talking about the "mystery" baby Stephanie was having.
In ring comedy isn't as common in the main stream anymore. Not that it doesn't exist, but it doesn't happen as often in an actually funny way. Most examples I can think of are from Money in the Bank 3 when King Booker pulled the tiny ladder from under the ring and the Armageddon 06 ladder match when Regal and Taylor were too scared to climb the ladder. Those were awesome, come on! But most comedy stuff revolves around gimmicks which gets old after a time. Eugene's super retard angle and Boogeyman's worm fetish stopped being funny or interesting ages ago. Vito's dress gimmick was never funny period.
I'm sure that we can all agree that everybody loves a good chuckle now and then. As serious as most people take wrestling, sometimes it's forgotten that it is supposed to be entertaining. Even if it's ROH and the focus is on in ring ability, you watch it for the entertainment value. And comedy can be a part of that. Just look at how over guys like El Generico and Delirious are. Even Adam Pierce can get in on the fun, donning a Repo Man mask after having it chanted at him for ages. Look how successful promotions like PWG and Chikara are, who mix serious wrestling with great gimmicks and comedy without getting too repetitive.
Fellow wrestling enthusiasts, I say this now: let us do our bests to keep our sense of humor strong. It's easy to roll our eyes at horrible, unfunny, gimmicks. And we should, but we cannot let that sour us to actual comedy that takes place in rings across the world. Let not Marufuji allowing Dino to molest him to have been in vain. Remember the good times with Colt Cabana and hope that this translates into his WWE run. If you don't agree with this, then in the words of Larry Sweeney "You're a bum."
E-MAAAAAILs
First, 411's Mike Campbell has a correction for me
Matt,
Since your feedback section of your column didn't mention this, I'll assume that you didn't know it, and provide the info. Ben from NYC mentioned he wasn't sure what happened to the other Florida Brother (Daniel Mishima). He was supposed to be the man under the mask of Dr. Muscle, but then he left Dragon Gate. As a result Dr. Muscle is basically the Black Scorpion of DG, anyone with a warm body wears the mask. Too bad too, wrestling needs more guys in bloody lab coats.
Mike Campbell
Thanks Mike. Dragon Gate was fun to write about, but there's just way too much information to take in with them. The Florida Brothers seem to be the most confusing at the moment since they've lost one half of them, yet they're still being listed on the official site. The Dr. Muscle/Black Scorpion comparison is appropriate though. And yes, wrestling could use more guys in bloody lab coats. I'm hoping for a Dr. Muscle vs. Delirious match on the ROH Japan tour.
Next Brad writes in again to share some news with me on future plans:
Mister Short,
Noticed that you said you'll be seeing RoH in Tokyo - so will I! You might remember I asked a couple weeks back on how to get tickets for a DG show. Well plans changed and I won't be near where there shows are at. On the upside, I'll be close enough to Tokyo to see the RoH show and I'm super psyched for it.
Hopefully you're right about a Nigel vs Morishima rematch for the title. If that happens I could totally see it changing hands there. I'd also love to see Marafuji and Kenta team up again to take on the Briscoes. As for Marvin and Shiozaki, I don't really know them enough to know what matches might be good. Maybe have Marvin don his Mushiking Joker garb and take on Delirious. Isn't there supposed to be some DG talent showing up there too?
Anyway, great column, keep up the good work.
- Brad
Calling me "mister" will get you everywhere, Brad. I love being formally addressed. Glad to hear you'll get to see ROH in Japan, I've just gotten my ticket. It's a good position if I say so myself, but a little farther back than I expected. Either that means ROH is holding a bunch of seats or they're selling fast. I prefer to think they're selling because that's an awful lot of seats they're saving.
Nigel vs. Morishima II is starting to look more and more likely to happen in Japan. MaruKENTA vs. The Briscoes would be amazing, but I hadn't considered Ricky Marvin competing as Mushi-King Joker. I doubt they would do that though unless Kotaro Suzuki was there to play Mushi-King Terry. I'm sticking to calling for Marvin vs. Claudio. Book it ROH! And yeah, Dragon Gate will be there for the Tokyo show but they haven't announced who will participate yet. I'd guess the guys who usually appear in ROH in multi-man matches. Maybe NRC vs. NEW HAZARD or Typhoon and The Resilience vs. Muscle Outlaw'z?
Short Takes
-I've got my ROH ticket and I can't wait until they start announcing the card.
-One Night Stand is TONIGHT! If I could, I'd buy this just for the ladder match. Damn the time difference. And no cable.
-Antonio Inoki is the biggest pimp in Japan. With the chin to match.
I'm done for this week. For more puro check out Matt Adamson's Destiny, it's always a good read. Also, Buy or Sell featuring Matt Adamson vs. Larry Csonka with some fun discourse on puro. Later, and remember to drink your milk, take your vitamins, and go to school. You too could become a star!
