The Navigation Log 3.23.08: New Champs, Kobashi's Schedule, and Faction Strife

Posted by Matt Short on 03.23.2008

KENTA & Taiji Ishimori bring GHC gold back to NOAH, Kenta Kobashi gets more involved in NOAH, and Dragon Gate's faction infighting leads to a match the company hasn't seen in years. Featuring Kota Ibushi in the Weekly Puro!

Happy Easter is you're celebrating it today! Despite being born and raised in a Catholic household I'm probably not going to be doing anything for it. Part of it has to do with me being a lousy example of a Catholic. The other part is me not wanting to leave my nice very nice dorm room to go home. I'm not big on being around family either but that's neither here nor there. Whatever, I've still got jellybeans. That's what Easter's all about right?

Onto the Navigation Log!

GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Title Match
The past few months have been weird for the Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team titles. Ricky Marvin was injured in a match with Dragon Gate's Speed Muscle and the decision was made to put the belts onto the DG team. The belts were being exclusively defended on Dragon Gate shows. Eventually Shingo Takagi & BxB Hulk defeated Speed Muscle for the titles and it was at that point when people started to wonder when NOAH was going to bring the belts back to the green mat.

This last week at the Dragon Gate GATE OF GENERATION PPV KENTA & Taiji Ishimori were tapped by NOAH to take the belts back. They were the second team from NOAH to attempt this, with the team of Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Atsushi Aoki being beaten by Doi & Yoshino. Not to knock on Aoki, but when you send a rookie in the middle of his trial series you can't expect a much different outcome. He's going to be beaten up and worst of all… he's a rookie. The team of KENTA & Ishimori has a lot more going for it though. First, you've got one of NOAH's top junior heavyweights in KENTA in there. He's been in a lot of hard hitting matches and can go the distance. Second, while Ishimori might have only just been signed full time to NOAH he still brings a wealth of experience with him and knowledge of their opponents since he is after a former Toryumon trainee himself.

Long story short, KENTA& Ishimori succeeded and took the belts from the New Hazard team. As much as I liked the idea of DG teams holding the belts, it just was not working out. The belts weren't being defended enough and they were becoming something of an after thought. It was disappointing after Ricky Marvin & Kotaro Suzuki had made the belts mean something during 2007. They stepped up when NOAH needed some kind of attraction to make up for the fact that the heavyweight division was just killing time until Morishima was ready to beat Misawa and Kobashi could return.

Now that the belts are back, I expect business to go back to normal with the tag titles. They might not receive the same level of attention that they were getting last year, but with KENTA & Ishimori as champions there's potential for some interesting matches down the line. I wouldn't be surprised to see Kanemaru go after the titles again with Aoki or another partner down the line. Aoki himself could possibly find another partner to challenge for the belts. When Marvin is 100% again I fully expect he and Suzuki to come looking for a chance to reclaim the gold. Then there's still a plethora for combinations from Dragon Gate that can come in and make challenges. I don't know if KENTA & Ishimori will end up being as successful as Marvin & Suzuki, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Kobashi's Comeback
The hottest story from Japan in 2007 was the triumphant return of Kenta Kobashi to NOAH. A real inspirational tear jerker indeed. Even though he was cleared to wrestle for his return match, Kobashi's doctors still that he wasn't anywhere near competing on a full time schedule. NOAH decided that they would book him sparsely in the coming months. He worked two shows during the First Navigation and increased his workload during the Second. From the reports out of the shows he was gradually getting stronger and it looked Kobashi was gearing up for a full-time return.

NOAH had expected to book Kobashi for the full Global Tag League and use him in the tournament and on every show. This was nixed by the doctors yet again. However, Kobashi's workload has been greatly increased during this tour as he is booked for most of the shows. While not immediate it does seem like we're going to be looking at a full time return by the next tour.

In a time when wrestlers are willing to cut corners to come back from serious injuries or return too soon, NOAH's attitude with Kobashi is refreshing. Especially with someone like Kobashi who is injury prone. They don't need him coming back from cancer treatment only to blow his knee out again. Gradually increasing his workload will be better in the long run, both for the company and Kobashi himself.

SEM News
NOAH runs their wrestler produced SEM shows from time to time. There's rarely anything worth mentioning from these shows to be honest, at least from where I sit. The last show that interested me was during the Christmas season when they ran a card based around rookies facing off against NOAH's legends. The results were predictable, but still showed that the company was showing signs of starting to move their dojo boys up the card.

The last show that was run under the SEM title featured a tag team match between KENTA & Akihito Ito taking on Katsuhiko Nakajima & Ryuji Yamaguchi from the Kensuke Office. The match went to a time limit draw and was so well received that a rematch was signed for the next SEM. This one will have no limit on time and has some high expectations for it. This has a great deal of benefit for Ito, who stood out (to me anyway) at the ROH in Tokyo show where he had a one shot match against Shuhei Taniguchi. Ito also did well during the Mauritius Cup at the end of the year and looked to be in a good position heading into 2008. Being able to hang in matches with the likes of KENTA and Nakajima shows that he's getting better and I wouldn't be surprised if the guy were to get a trial match series of his own depending on how the rest of 2008 goes for him. I like Ito, what can I say?

Dragon Gate News
Aside from KENTA & Ishimori winning the tag belts, there was a lot of other big news coming out of Dragon Gate this past week.

Masato Yoshino did extremely well in his challenge for the Open the Dream Gate title. Naruki Doi had to throw the towel in for him after CIMA locked him in a variation of his own Sol Nociente submission and Yoshino wouldn't tap. Doi and Yoshino reconciled despite the stoppage and Speed Muscle is back in business. When CIMA tried to shake both of their hands Gamma broke up the love fest. Which makes a bit of sense, there's no point getting too friendly with the enemy. Ryo Saito then came out and made his bid to be CIMA's next challenger. That match will take place at the end of April, but is also revealing in some growing tensions within Typhoon.

Saturday, Dragon Gate action started to pick up again. Yoshino challenged Typhoon's perceived weak link Anthony W. Mori to an Open Brave Gate title match. His goal is to be able to say he beat all of Typhoon and all that's left is the low man on the totem pole. Yoshino seems to be looking past Mori it seems and that could be a mistake. Mori is very capable in the ring and could be a spoiler for Yoshino's impressive title run. If he makes it past this defense though he'll have some major bragging rights. Typhoon already looks like it may be on the ropes (despite CIMA holding the Dream Gate) and another failure to bring in the Open the Brave Gate in won't do much for morale within the group. Saito has already been showing his discontent which has led him to challenge CIMA. Dragon Kid and CIMA also dissolved their tag team CK-1 on Saturday after some dissention after losing a tag match in which YAMATO beat CIMA.

Dragon Gate plans to settle all disputes on May 5th. Signed for that show is a match that hasn't been seen since the Toryumon days. CIMA, Dragon Kid, YAMATO, BxB Hulk, Masato Yoshino, and Yasushi Kanda will compete in a Mascara contra Caballera Cage Match. Last man left in the cage will lose his mask or his hair. It's a high stakes match and the type of thing that can dramatically change the shape of the three major stables. Stay tuned…

Your Weekly Puro
In case anyone forgot, Japanese indy sensation Kota Ibushi is coming to ROH. In order to get people more acquainted with his work outside of NOAH last year I bring you this match from El Dorado's final show of 2007. This is Kota Ibushi defending his Independent World Jr. Heavyweight title against KAGETORA of the Animal Planets faction.

El Dorado: I WAS BORN TO LOVE TREASURE~!
Independent World Jr. Heavyweight Title: Kota Ibushi © vs. KAGETORA




At Home
I'll save my extensive look at Wrestlemania for closer to the date of the show. It is Wrestlemania after all and I'd be remiss to talk about it without having all the pieces in order. All I'll say about WWE this week is that Santino stealing Jerry Stupid Lawler's Subway sandwich could be the best thing I've seen on TV ever. I wish more segments would end that way.

I mainly wanted to talk about Chikara's King of Trios. I bought the DVD set this past week and I've got to say it is an awesome set of wrestling DVDs. There's a few things I'd like to say about them so bear with me.

The standouts from all three DVDs were the trio of Da Soul Touchaz from Chicago. I can't imagine why we've never heard of them much outside of that region because they are amazing. Acid Jazz, Willie Richardson, and Marshe Rockett along with their manager C-Red tore the house down on Night 2 first against Team BSE from Canada and then against Chikara mainstays F.I.S.T. They've got that charisma factor that just makes it so easy to get behind them. Richardson in particular was impressive. He's a big man which can be rare on the US indy scene and plays the power game perfectly. You often see big guys being able to pull off impressive aerial moves (see Kevin Steen and early Ruckus). He's got a wicked top rope leg drop though. My soul has definitely been touched. I hope the come back.

Akua from AZW in Hawaii was another stand out to me. Fans initially complained about the AZW team's performance but commentary revealed that Akua's partners, The Immortals, had just started wrestling. This showed and they dragged down the in-ring product. Akua did his best to carry the team though and he looked very good against Team Japan. Akua can only get better and I hope he steps out of Hawaii more so he can improve.

Hydra manned the fuck up on Night 1, taking a vicious beating from BLK OUT and took the dangerous Rubik's Cube/Joker Driver. He seems to be making a habit out of it at King of Trios as he took a Steiner Screwdriver from Chris Bosh last year. It was nice to see him and the rest of The Order of the Neo-Solar Temple be treated in a more serious light. Eddie Kingston was spot on in his heel roll all three nights. He was a dick on commentary and his mocking Lince Dorado's injury during the finals was probably the ultimate in dickish taunts.

The Colony were equally impressive. They didn't have a bad match and really only lost thanks to outside interference from Vin Gerard. That feud is going progress in coming months when Worker Ant goes for some retribution. I also finally got a good look at one of Dragon Gate NEX's top students, mcK.Z. I've seen brief clips of the guy but it's rare to find his full matches. His gimmick is essentially the embodiment of Japan's obsession with hip hop culture as he sports an OG jersey and raps his theme song to the ring ala Ron Killings and John Cena. His greenness is still apparent, but he still showed that he's got a lot of talent. If he widens his moveset he'll be a real threat in Dragon Gate down the line.

All the veterans looked strong too. Glacier was a nice surprise in the tournament and he did his best. He put Vin Gerard over HUGE on Night 3 by losing in a four corner match. Demolition & One Man Gang were the most well received team on Night 2 and they had great moment for Chikara. People are going to remember the Larry Sweeney vs. One Man Gang Strut off for a long time come.

I can't stress buying this DVD enough. You have teams from all over the world in the biggest tournament in wrestling history. Matches to definitely watch are going to be Da Soul Touchaz vs. FIST and Team Mexico vs. Team IWS.

Short Takes
-Delaney Watch! I predict Colin will get into the 24 Man Battle Royale at Wrestlemania. Is this a bold prediction? Not really, but if it happens I'll get to be right which is the most important thing of all.

-I've been replaying Day of Reckoning 2. Man, I hate tag team matches. The CPU will always arrive to make the save while your partner stands on the apron like a goon. The only way to win tag matches on Story Mode is to knock out your opponents. Boo.

-FUCKIN' ITALIAN STOLE MY SAMMICH.

-People need to know more about Kaientai. The real Kaientai. The greatest stable ever to exist in Japan. I must find the last Kaientai reunion match, featuring Smackdown's Number One Announcer. People shit themselves when he came out.

That's all for this week. Next week we'll discuss the ROH vs. Dragon Gate shows and whatever else happens over the week. Peace!