The Navigation Log 6.10.07: This Week in NOAH Results

Posted by Matt Short on 06.10.2007

It's a bonanza of shows! In this edition of the Navigation Log we've got the results from the Northern Navigation final, the NOAH Fan Appreciation Trios Tournament, and NAVIGATION! Plus, some thoughts on the big, nasty, fuzzy hat wearing beast that is Takeshi Morishima. Come on, if nothing else his hat is awesome.

NOAH had a long week, so I'll jump right into things. As opposed to rambling about the weather like usual. Oops I'm doing that now. Lots of results from the week to report on so onwards and upwards!

6/3 Hokkaido Sports Center: Northern Navigation Final
1. Kentaro Shiga, Kishin Kawabata & Tsutomu Hirayanagi beat Masao Inoue, Masashi Aoyagi & Ippei Ota
2. Akitoshi Saito beat Ted DiBiase Jr.
3. Yoshinari Ogawa & Akira Taue beat Tamon Honda & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi
4. Yoshihiro Takayama, Takuma Sano & Takashi Sugiura beat Takeshi Morishima, Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi
5. KENTA beat Go Shiosaki
6. Naomichi Marufuji beat Taiji Ishimori
7. D-Lo Brown, Buchanan & Eddie Edwards beat Jun Akiyama, Takeshi Rikio & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
8. GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title: Kotaro Suzuki & Ricky Marvin (c) beat Kenichiro Arai & Taku Iwasa (3rd defense)
9. GHC Heavyweight Title: Mitsuharu Misawa (c) beat Bison Smith (3rd defense)

Nothing really major came out of this show. Misawa retained against Bison Smith as expected (though I wanted my crazy theory to pan out). The match was probably about on par with Misawa's other recent title matches which means average. He really made Smith his bitch in the end, winning with a hard elbow to the back of the head. Misawa might have slowed down a lot in the past few years but he still throws some of the sickest elbows ever. And I'm quite glad to hear that he didn't win with his new version of Emerald Flosion because its just not as painful looking.

The Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team title match is being called match of the night, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Marvin and Suzuki continue to roll through challengers and this is the second time in a row of beating a team from Dragon Gate. DG has an amazing stage to perform on with NOAH right now and they've really been tearing down the house in matches with guys like Marvin, Suzuki, and Marufuji. Here's hoping there more in the future.

Nothing else from the undercard though. RO&D got the win in their six-man match against Akiyama, Rikio, and Kanemaru. Too bad that didn't really mean too much.

6/7 Korakuen Hall: Fan Night Trios Tournament
1. Fan Night 6 Man Tag Team Tournament - Round One: Kentaro Shiga, Kishin Kawabata & Tsutomu Hirayanagi vs. Mohammed Yone, Mushiking Terry & Yoshinobu Kanemaru went to a draw
2. Fan Night 6 Man Tag Team Tournament - Round One: Tamon Honda, Takashi Sugiura & Shuhei Taniguchi vs. Takeshi Rikio, Akitoshi Saito & Masao Inoue went to a draw
3. Fan Night 6 Man Tag Team Tournament - Round One: Naomichi Marufuji, Go Shiosaki & Ippei Ota beat Jun Akiyama, Takuma Sano & Akihiko Ito
4. Fan Night 6 Man Tag Team Tournament - Round One: KENTA, Kotaro Suzuki & Ricky Marvin beat Junji Izumida, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Taiji Ishimori
5. Fan Night 6 Man Tag Team Tournament - Semi Final: Kentaro Shiga, Kishin Kawabata & Tsutomu Hirayanagi beat Tamon Honda, Takashi Sugiura & Shuhei Taniguchi
6. Fan Night 6 Man Tag Team Tournament - Semi Final: Naomichi Marufuji, Go Shiosaki & Ippei Ota beat KENTA, Kotaro Suzuki & Ricky Marvin
7. Fan Night 6 Man Tag Team Tournament - Final: Naomichi Marufuji, Go Shiosaki & Ippei Ota beat Kentaro Shiga, Kishin Kawabata & Tsutomu Hirayanagi

Didn't see this announced anywhere, if I had I would have tried to go to it. Just a quick fun little tournament as a sign of thanks to NOAH's fans. You know that the tournament isn't serious in that the first two matches went to a draw and the teams that advanced were decided through rock, paper, scissors. Well OK, maybe RPS isn't something to be taken lightly. A good win for the team of Marufuji, Shiozaki, and Ota. I can't wait to see clips from this show.

6/8 Yokohama Cultural Gym: NAVIGATION
Pre-show: Junji Izumida & Tsutomu Hirayanagi vs. Mitsuo Momota & Ippei Ota went to a draw
1. Takuma Sano & Masao Inoue beat Tamon Honda & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi
2. Mohammed Yone & Yoshinobu Kanemaru beat Akira Taue & Shuhei Taniguchi
3. KENTA & Taiji Ishimori beat TAKA Michinoku & KAZMA
4. Akitoshi Saito beat Go Shiosaki
5. Kentaro Shiga & Kishin Kawabata beat Yoshihiro Takayama & Takashi Sugiura
6. Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa beat Mushiking Terry & Ricky Marvin
7. Kazunari Murakami beat Naomichi Marufuji
8. GHC Tag Team Title: Jun Akiyama & Takeshi Rikio beat D-Lo Brown & Buchanan (2nd defense)

Akiyama and Rikio keep the gaijin from winning any gold this week. Their match with D-Lo Brown and Buchanan could have gone either way I think as it's not unheard of for foreigners to hold GHC Heavyweight tag gold. Plus, D-Lo and Buchanan are well respected inside of Japan and it would have made a good news story. Seems like Akiyama and Rikio are going to be given a long title run, which is fine by me. Akiyama is awesome and Rikio is fine in a tag match.

One surprise was Kazunari Murakami not just beating Marufuji, but doing so in just over five minutes. Squashed? Are they going to do something with Murakami in NOAH? Hopefully Marufuji gets another shot at him down the line.

Yoshihiro Ogawa and Mushiking Terry seem to be on a collision course for the GHC Jr. Heavyweight title sometime in the future. Between Ogawa beating down Terry to now scoring a pinfall win over him, the title match is almost certain. And I hope it does happen as Ogawa and Terry (aka Suzuki) will be a hell of a lot of fun. Also glad to see KENTA killed KAZMA in that tag match. To hell with KAZMA.

A Quick Thought on Morishima
Takeshi Morishima looks like an absolute beast in ROH. No, he does stop right there with your "low rent Samoa Joe" comment. Well OK, he definitely doesn't have Joe's personality but the guy still brings a lot to the table. He's stiff, he has some sick suplexes, and he's agile for a man his size. Plus, he plays his role in ROH perfectly. He's an unstoppable giant from another country who has no problem with taking someone's head off. Think Great Khali, but has wrestling ability. And at the rate he's going right now, who ever finally beats Morishima for the title is going to be insanely over. Not Austin Aries beating Samoa Joe over, but still.

There is one problem I'm starting to see crop up for Morishima though. And it's more got to do with how he's booked in both ROH and NOAH. While he's in ROH he's booked like a monster. He's had few real challenges in defending the belt, probably his biggest test was against Nigel McGuinness. Think of how he won the belt, plowing through Homicide and then killing BJ Whitmer in his first defense. Morishima isn't booked like this in NOAH. Well, not to the same extent. He rarely gets to simply run over his opponents and for someone who's booked so strongly in ROH, it didn't take too much for Misawa to put him away.

So what's the problem? Unless Morishima is going to be spending the rest of his career in North America, he might be in a bit of trouble in Japan. NOAH still likes old school booking of its heavyweights (hence why the older guys aren't going anywhere). Morishima hasn't been booked to that level yet. He's had the high profile matches, but when it comes down to it well, Misawa's fighting spirit is stronger than Morishima's.

To a lot of NOAH fans here Morishima is looked to as someone who's going to be a future puro superstar in the mold of Misawa or Taue. Oh I know he's not at that level yet. Believe me I know, for all his positives he's not completely polished yet. But there's people who think that he will. But he's not been booked like that yet.

So here's what it looks like to your average Japanese fan picking up a Puroresu Weekly every Wednesday. You flip to the NOAH results and you see Morishima getting beat by a roll up or some forearms or getting beat most of the match or taking the loss in a tag match to guys his size. Hell, the only time he's been pinned was by Samoa Joe, a big guy and a bona fide star. Then you flip to the foreign results and you see him running through guys like Homicide, BJ Whitmer, or Jay Briscoe. All smaller guys or in Whitmer's case unknown. So this average Japanese fan thinks to himself "Well, he's good at beating these small guys but I guess he's not good enough to hang with the bigger guys." Then he doesn't buy the magazine and no one makes money. Ok, that last part is kind of a jump but that's not the important part.

I have no doubt that Morishima is going to win the GHC Heavyweight title somewhere down the line. Either late this year or in 2008. If they want the guy to be a huge star from this win, he'd be well off being the one to beat Misawa. Misawa's name still means something and a win like that for Morishima would really get people's attention. But he's going to have to get some huge singles wins on his way there. And it will also probably mean him losing the ROH title before this happens. Morishima's not quite there yet, but hopefully he'll get a bigger push in NOAH sooner rather than later.

Back Home
From hearing how great Impact was this week I actively searched it out for once. I haven't seen a full episode of Impact since last August. And it was everything that it had been described as. I'm loving how Robert Roode is coming along character wise and the women's match was good too. The backstage stuff was great too with Una-Bomber Christian and Tomko. Then came the main event of Chris Harris vs. James Storm for a spot in King of the Mountain. Their Texas Deathmatch was awesome. This wasn't announced as no holds barred, but the ref allowed it. And Harris and Storm turned out another great brawl. The finish sucked ass though. I understand the time constraints and that the ref needed to reign the match in someway, but I still don't like the finish. And I've got to say all that crap at the end without fully acknowledging the greatness of the match is a load of crap.

Though really the one thing I'm glad about with the double count out is that there's now still an issue between Harris and Storm. The Texas Deathmatch had seemed to be the blow off of their feud and it would have been a great ending to it. But what they showed Thursday is that they're still not finished, which I really, really like. There's two things that being a great tag team provides: great matches as a team and when the inevitable break up happens, the matches have a great story line. Maybe that makes me a little cruel with tag teams, but it's true. Some of the best rivalries are held by guys who used to team together. Look at ROH with Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer. I remember back to the last time the Hardys we a team before Jeff left and people were salivating at the prospect of a Matt vs. Jeff feud. It's a great story line, two guys break up after years of success as a team. They start fighting for whatever reason, jealousy, titles, women and the fights get personal because of their past together. It becomes proving who's the better man until it's more than just a personal battle it's a blood feud that requires some kind of special final match to truly determine who the best is. These kinds of feuds are awesome to me and they don't have to be month after month, but can be stretched out.

I Like Reading Emails!

One email this week once again from 411's Mike Campbell

The fact that Bison Smith is challenging for the GHC is a perfect example of how screwed up NOAH is right now, and the reason is the same thing that led to the downfall of WCW: Lack of elevation. The NOAH of 2007 isn't vastly different than that of 2001. Kobashi is out with injury, Misawa is the GHC Champion, basically keeping the belt warm. And the undercard (with the only exception of the juniors) is basically a mess.

At this time, there really isn't anyone Misawa could drop the strap to without it looking like a total fluke. Akiyama has already tried and failed. Rikio tried and failed. Taue has the cred to take the title, but not to hold it long term. The only one who even looks remotely close to being able to do it is Morishima. And he's still a long way off. Unless NOAH has plans for a mega push when his ROH stint ends, they're basically stuck in a holding pattern. And this time Misawa doesn't even the option of someone like Vader, a foreign monster who's both over and has the credibility to carry the strap.

The reason Marufuji lost the title so quickly was because he was lacking in (A. Credibility as a major champion, and (B. Drawing power, the KENTA/Marufuji headlined Budokan show did a horrible paid attendance. I never thought I'd say this, but look at New Japan with Tanahashi to see how to correctly book a top champion who's got problems with credibility. And this is coming from someone who's got a reputation for hating on NJ and being a NOAH fan.

Mike Campbell

Comparing NOAH's main event right now to WCW was a comparison I wasn't going to make when I was writing up my column last week. But it does fit the mold. It's true, NOAH is doing a lousy job of elevating younger guys up the card. Hence the problem with Morishima, he's popular but they're not putting him on the same level as a Misawa or Kobashi. And of course none of it is helped much when all the promotion's top stars are calling the shots.

I don't think you can discount a guy's credibility against Misawa here though. Rikio maybe because he's never been the same since his title run. I can still buy Akiyama as a legitimate contender because of his own past in NOAH. He's had the wars with the guys like Misawa and Kobashi and showed that he is on their level and that he can run with the title for a long time. Giving it to him doesn't change the problem of lack of elevation in the company, but the past has shown that Akiyama doesn't mind putting over new guys. And no, Smith wasn't the best foreigner they could come up with. But he's got a history with NOAH and is considered the company's top foreign talent. He's absolutely no Vader and was a huge step down from Mike Awesome who challenged last, but he was the best they could do. Smith's not terrible I think, but they could have pushed him a little stronger leading up to the title match if they wanted people to take him seriously. That one squash at the start of the tour wasn't enough and the way he lost isn't going to help him in the future.

Short Takes
-Cade and Murdoch are your NEW World Tag Team champions! I've got to give some insane props to them who proved that sticking with it gets you rewards in the end. Honestly, after they were jobbed so much, broken up, and then given ridiculous gimmicks on Heat (anyone remember them commentating their own matches?) they finally got a title win over a legitimate team (Rosey and the Hurricane don't count, sorry).

-If Harris and Storm are allowed to keep going at this rate, that feud is going to be feud of the year.

-Glad to see the Kings of Wrestling back together. I hadn't been too keen on bringing them back fully, but neither of them are doing anything so this works. And with Larry Sweeney in their corner you can't go wrong with it. Great to see the full stable get some love in Buy or Sell this week. Yes folks, Kings of Wrestling is more than Hero and Castagnoli.

-I'm sorry I'm missing Ice Spiders on Sci-Fi. Stupid Japanese TV.

We're all done for this week. If you want some more puro goodness, be sure to check out Matt Adamson's Destiny. It's a damn fine read for a perspective of puro outside of NOAH. Rock on people, stay clean and soberish until next weekend.