The Navigation Log 5.11.08: Northern Navigation Preview

Posted by Matt Short on 05.11.2008

We've got a preview of NOAH's upcoming Northern Navigation. Find out what titles are on the line, who's challenging for belts,and which gaijin will be visiting. We've also got the fallout from the last Dragon Gate PPV and the Adventures of Young KENTA and the Ladder.

I am lucky like a fox it seems. No less than 48 hours ago my computer decided that the time was ripe for it to completely shut down. Stop working. Kick the bucket. And other death metaphors. So not only were my chances of finishing a column this week, but something worse was at stake. Namely, my final paper for my senior thesis was completely shot to hell. So I had to completely rewrite my entire thesis paper in about 12 hours. Keep in mind that my notes were gone too and I was thus forced to look shit up maybe two hours before it was due. As such, I'm stressed beyond imagination so I'm keeping things mostly light this week. And I promise that if I drink I won't post in the comment section like I did last weekend.

So onto the Navigation Log!

NOAH of the North
With the Global Tag League in the books, NOAH is looking ahead to their big Northern Navigation tour. Having released the initial cards for the entire series, this tour looks like it has some serious potential. Lots of singles matches, lots of title matches, and some unique pairings are going to highlight the tour.

So far three title matches have been announced for the Northern Navigation. The first will be a GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title defense by Yoshinobu Kanemaru against freelancer Magnitude Kishiwada on 5/17 in Tokyo. Kishiwada had been wrestling mostly for Dragon Gate as a member of the Muscle Outlaw'z, but he recently went freelance and started appearing for other independent promotions. Most notably he appeared in El Dorado to feud with Shuji Kondo. Kishiwada has a long history on the independent circuit, mainly for being one of the best heels. He's also a power wrestler and honestly does not really fit in as a junior. His place in this match comes mostly from the fact that he's an indy guy. While he might technically fall in the heavyweight category, he's not at that level. Kishiwada is still awesome though and should prove a good match for Kanemaru. Is there any chance of a title switch here? Its possible since Kishiwada is a freelancer and there's quite a few guys they could give the title to who would be worse. I don't see it happening though and I expect a successful defense from the champion. This all means nothing really, because the sheer awesomeness of Magnitude Kishiwada wrestling in NOAH outweighs who wins or loses the match. It's a case of the fans being the winners.

Bison Smith & Akitoshi Saito will be cashing in on their big win from the Global Tag League and will challenge Naomichi Marufuji & Takashi Sugiura in Niigata, Japan. Smith & Saito are red hot right now and I think that they have a very good chance of winning it. NOAH likes to keep their Heavyweight Tag Team belts on guys who are actual heavyweights. On the other hand, Marufuji & Sugiura have pretty much graduated into the heavyweight division and have done a good job as champions. It might be a hasty decision to make this match right away, but I don't think you can go wrong with either team as champions. Smith & Saito have become a great unit and there are obviously plans for them especially if they gave them the GTL win.

I say its hasty to have Marufuji & Sugiura to lose the titles because Takashi Sugiura will be challenging Takeshi Morishima for the GHC Heavyweight Title in Yokohama. Sugiura pinned Morishima on the final night of the Global Tag League and it has directly led to this. I don't doubt that Morishima will retain the title, but Sugiura will be a strong opponent and the match should be pretty good. NOAH is banking on the drama of Sugiura's previous win to draw fans in, but I wonder how effective it will be.

Atsushi Aoki's Ten Match Trial series will resume on the Northern Navigation as well. He'll first take on The American Dragon Bryan Danielson in Tokyo and then Yoshinari Ogawa in Yokohama. Aoki's been pretty damn impressive in his trial series so far, already having scored a rare win over Davey Richards. Wins in a trial series are rare and scoring multiple wins is even rarer. Aoki's got maybe a 50/50 shot against Danielson. Danielson is a gaijin, he's over, but won't lose much standing in a loss since he's not been a huge investment for NOAH. On the other hand Dragon is probably one of the most pushed gaijin that NOAH uses outside of Bison Smith. I think he'll get a great match from Aoki, but he will definitely win. Meanwhile Ogawa should be able to make quick work of Aoki being that he's one of the senior members of the NOAH roster.

Aside from Danielson, other foreigners appearing on this tour will be ROH Champion Nigel McGuinness, BJ Whitmer, and making his belated debut the mysterious RAPTOP who in no way, shape, or form is Matt Cross wearing a mask. RAPTOR is set to face Naomichi Marufuji on this tour, along with the usual tag matches. McGuinness and Whitmer however will take part in a three-way match on the tour's opener facing each other and KENTA. When is the last time NOAH has done a three-way anything? I'll give them credit for doing something different though. And they booked the right guys into it as Whitmer, McGuinness, and KENTA have a lot of experience in three-ways.

NOAH in the UK: Initial Card
This has been out for awhile, but covering the Global Tag League ate up a lot more time but here are the four matches already announced for NOAH's UK show that will take place at the Coventry Skydome, June 21st.

-Special Tag Match
Mitsuharu Misawa & Naomichi Marufuji vs. Kenta Kobashi & Go Shiozaki

-Jun Akiyama & Bison Smith vs. Takeshi Morishima & Mohammad Yone

-Junji Izumida & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Wade Fitzgerald & Martin Stone

-Atsushi Aoki vs. Joel Redman

I can't stress this enough: if you live in the area and are a fan of Pro Wrestling NOAH, GO TO THIS SHOW. Especially if you're not likely to ever visit Japan in your lifetime. This is a rare opportunity to see some major Japanese stars perform. Not the least of which is Kobashi himself. NOAH is a great live show and worth the price of admission.

DEAD or ALIVE Fallout
Dragon Gate's DEAD or ALIVE PPV was a fun little show. Most of the undercard was throwaway matches, but they were interesting in their own right. Particularly, the hardcore match between Shingo Takagi and Naoki Tanisaki was entertaining. They didn't really break new ground with it but there were some nasty looking chair shots. I wish I could say the same for the barbed wire board that came into play, but then that could have been some of the fakest looking wire I've ever seen. Takagi won the match pretty handily with his new variation of the Last Falconry which he's calling MADE IN JAPAN. No indication that Tanisaki is going to join New Hazard at this point. And the events from later in the night made it even less likely to happen.

Naruki Doi vs. KENTA was an excellent little special attraction match. Both guys worked hard and looked good coming out of it. KENTA ultimately won, somehow managing to survive Doi's sick Muscular Bomb and sliding kick. The two shook hands at the end. SPORTSMANSHIP!!! I'd love to see more from these two. Doi was kept fairly strong in defeat and KENTA got to show off his wrestling skills. All around a good match.

Meanwhile in a decision that I'm less thrilled about Taku Iwasa & Kenichiro Arai were defeated by Ryo Saito & Susumu Yokosuka and lost the Open the Twin Gate tag team titles. That sucks. The match itself is fine, but Iwasa & Arai as champions have been one of my favorite parts of Dragon Gate since the won the belts. Nothing against Yokosuka & Saito, but the Tozawa-juku team is somewhat lacking direction right now. They've been positioned as a top line team and Iwasa by himself has been pushed as a strong singles competitor. Meanwhile, the rest of the stable Akira Tozawa & Katsuo are off being fat. No really, that's their gimmick. They're fat. I've got nothing wrong with it as it is, but it's making the existence of the Tozawa-juku stable almost unnecessary. A split is definitely needed I think. Now from a completely non-mark standpoint the switch makes sense given who the challengers were. Saito has just reconciled his differences with rest of Typhoon and winning the belts was necessary to show that he's still committed to the stable. And Susumu Yokosuka has gold now and there are far worse things that could happen.

The Six-Man Mascara contra Cabellera Cage Match easily the most dramatic match of the night. There were so many different stories being played out over the course of the match that it was impossible to hate. This cage match was solid fun, though in some respects it lacked the insane highspots that some fans might expect from Dragon Gate stars inside a steel cage. But let's not forget that there was a time where a cage match didn't automatically mean someone was going to do a dive from the top. No, the story of how the individuals from their respective stables would survive was far more important in the long run here. BxB Hulk was alone, yet managed to elude his rival and former New Hazard teammate YAMATO and be the first to escape. Dragon Kid and CIMA reconciled their differences. CIMA had a chance to escape but returned to the ring to save Dragon Kid from an attempted unmasking. This allowed Kid to escape but CIMA was still trapped. Masato Yoshino came to blows with Yasushi Kanda and YAMATO, signaling his departure from Muscle Outlaw'z. After YAMATO escaped it came down to CIMA vs. Kanda and an all out brawl as both stables tried to save their man. Oil somehow came into play to prevent CIMA from climbing out but he was passed a pair of gloves by Saito. Yoshino thwarted an escape by Kanda and Naruki Doi himself got into the cage to beat on Kanda. Ultimately, CIMA escaped and Kanda lost his hair.

Doi and Yoshino are officially done with MO'z. They've promised to form a new unit, which is where I expect Tanisaki to end up. After all he was saved by two guys dressed as Dr. Muscle during a beatdown last month. Typhoon is stronger than ever with all their differences put aside and new set of shiny belts to their name. Meanwhile New Hazard is about the same as it was going into the PPV. Takagi had joked with Hulk that if he lost his hair in the match he would have to become "Pumping Hulk" in imitation of Takagi's gimmick. Since that did not happen, at the 5/14 show Hulk's dance team is going to be joined by BxB Shingo and BxB Kong. Epic.

Weekly Puro
It was another hard week in picking a match to feature. I settled on this one because of its rarity and the fact that it features young KENTA and young Kotaro Suzuki. It's a NOAH vs. DDT match and its pretty awesome. Thanks go to 411 reader soulpower who uploaded this and last week's match. His channel on YouTube has some awesome matches and is worth checking out here.

NOAH vs. DDT: KENTA & Kotaro Suzuki vs. MIKAMI & KUDO






At Home
The 100th Episode of ECW seemed somewhat anti-climatic. I mean, after the commentator walk-out and the entire roster being told to report to Raw it really seemed like something big was going to go down. And then it didn't. They could have at least used it as a way to build for One Night Stand, but you can't win them all. Regal meanwhile is still staying awesome. There's people saying that the turning off the lights thing isn't going to keep getting the same amount of heat. True, it could get old fast, but I have some faith that they'll change it up somehow. I mean they have to. They can probably keep it up for a little bit longer with Regal using his position to duck Kennedy's challenge.

TNA's Sacrifice is tonight! I always say this, but I usually mean it. The card looks pretty strong. That's the thing about TNA PPV: they always look good on paper. Then booking kicks in and shit goes tends to go downhill from there. Dome of Doom should be worth checking out and if they give the ladies ladder match enough time it could be fun times. I don't know why they couldn't have just called it a hair vs. hair ladder match.

Short Takes
-TNA's Sonjay Dutt will be taking part in Chikara's Rey de Voladores next weekend. I for one can't understand why they're going to let that juiced out freak back into Chikara. What is Leonard F. Chikarison smoking?

-Colin Delaney has a contract! Fuck yes! Now get him and Tommy Dreamer those Tag Team Title belts for a month or so before they lose them! Seriously, I really hope Colin doesn't get lost in the shuffle. He's a hell of a talent and could do well as a tag team wrestler, but his size means he's going to job a lot with no direction.

-Holy crap Estrada is ripped.

-I've got to say, Nick Hogan is probably the biggest douchebag in the world and got what was coming to him. Larry Sweeney was a better Nick Hogan than Nick Hogan.

-In DDT Land, Dick Togo came out on top of a 5-way elimination match to become the new KO-D Openweight Champion. Far more critical was the announcement of my Mixi friend (think Japanese Myspace) Gorgeous Matsuno as the new DDT commissioner. Matsuno = greatest thing ever.

That's all for this week folks. Until next time, peace!