The Navigation Log 8.24.08: Morishima, Goto vs. Muto, and the NTV Cup

Posted by Matt Short on 08.24.2008

Takeshi Morishima worked two WWE dark matches this week, but what are the chances he'll actually sign with the 'E? We'll look at some of the possibilities as well as downsides to a Morishima WWE run. Also Hirooki Goto wins the G1 Climax and earns the right to face Keiji Muto for the IWGP Heavyweight Title and NOAH kicks off the Shiny Navigation with the opening round of the Nippon TV Cup!

Last week was easily the most relaxing week I've had in awhile. I just took it off and lay on my ass for seven days with the TV on. The weather has been great and I'm actually not exhausted like I usually am by this point in the week. And that is why the best vacations are the ones where you don't go anywhere or do anything at all. Thanks gas prices!

Onto the Navigation Log!

Special Report: Morishima to the WWE?
Internet puro fans were thrown into a tizzy this week when current GHC Heavyweight Champion and former ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima competed in two dark matches before Raw and the Smackdown/ECW tapings. On Raw Morishima went over Charlie Haas with a top rope dropkick while the following night he defeated Jamie Noble with his Backdrop Driver with the sleeveless Tony Atlas in his corner. People's heads exploded when more pictures surfaced of Morishima shaking hands with John Cena and Vince MacMahon (who amazingly can walk after his horrific accident). This was to many puro fans what Bryan Danielson winning a dark match over Lance Cade a few months ago was to ROH fans. The question then becomes, is this going to happen? Will we see Takeshi Morishima sign with the WWE?

It's important to start with the basics. WWE has expressed interest in Morishima for awhile now. There were reports of people being sent to Japan at least last year to talk to him, but NOAH wasn't about to let anything happen. They were building Morishima up for the title run he's in the middle of right now and didn't want to drop a potentially big star to the WWE at the time. What happened last week was different though. Morishima had travelled with several NOAH officials to the tapings and essentially had the company's blessing to work the shows. This was helped along by Harley Race, who is a great partner with NOAH in the US, who used his connections with the WWE to get the tryouts. If anything, the two dark matches this week are the end result of a lot of hard work on the part the WWE to just get a look at Morishima up close. What NOAH gets right off the bat is unclear, but there are advantages in the future. None the less, NOAH was one of the first to announce the matches with an unfortunately misspelled headline of "Morishima appears at WWE ROW" (they fixed it eventually). So from the looks of the situation now, the WWE is still interested in Morishima while NOAH is willing to help open the door for their star to potentially sign with the WWE.

What I have seen being voiced by fans the most is they are concerned about if Morishima went to the ‘E and he were given the typical "Oriental" gimmick. Think back to Kenzo Suzuki's WWE run and it's easy to see where the worry comes from. US wrestling had rarely done a good job of not delving into the stereotypes when portraying Asian wrestlers. There's a few exceptions to the rule of course, but it has been pretty bad for the most part. There's nothing wrong with having him be a foreign monster, but it would only work if he were treated and used seriously like Umaga is. The hope for him is that he won't sign if they give him an insulting gimmick. And truth be told, it's damn annoying to hear USA chants whenever a foreign heel comes out regardless of whether nationality is an issue in the match. But I digress.

The whole potentially racist issue aside, Morishima is a perfect fit in the WWE. He's big, he's fast, and he's got a unique look to him. While he's not jacked as far as muscle tone goes, but he makes up for it with a vicious in-ring style that can really help get him over with American audiences by just beating the hell out of people. He'd have a lot to gain by working for the biggest wrestling company in the world as well. While the WWE doesn't always boast top notch in-ring wrestling, there's no one out these who can deny that right now it is THE pinnacle of the wrestling industry and that having a steady job there is a huge honor. Even if Morishima didn't have a long run in the WWE, he would bring back some extra prestige to his name and will make him and whatever company he works for upon his potential return to Japan look all the more important.

The events of this last week really make the upcoming Shiny Navigation all the more important. Morishima will be defending his title against Kensuke Sasaki in the final show of the tour. It's unclear if they were prepared to let Sasaki win the title and have his moment as being the first to win the Triple Crown, IWGP Heavyweight Title, and the GHC Heavyweight title before all this. It could have gone 50/50. I think the chance of Sasaki winning went up even high now as Morishima may be leaving the company. At the same time, I'm also inclined to think that they want Morishima to be a strong champion and letting him beat Sasaki, even if he went to the WWE later, would be show of good faith to Morishima. That's what one has to take into account here. NOAH is not trying to get in the way of this deal potentially happening. If they wanted to they could have just refused to let Morishima go in the first place and not let him out of his contract if he wants to go to the WWE. At this point they can still keep him onto his contract.

A good point that I've seen put out there a lot is that NOAH has not been overly reactionary about this. They've been open in letting Morishima tryout and haven't made any signs of forcing him to stay with NOAH. An amicable parting from Japan would be best and leaves the door open for Morishima to come back. NOAH management has been very smart about this. While they will be losing a valuable asset to them, they'll be doing it on good terms in the hopes that Morishima will come back eventually as an even bigger star and raise the stock of NOAH a great deal. If Morishima is smart, he'll keep this diplomatic approach too and not just sign away a contract without discussing it with management first. Going to the WWE with permission would be a great show of respect and acknowledgement of how he came to the level he's at today. Ultimately, I feel that if Morishima is offered a contract then he will sign on with the WWE and that NOAH won't stand in his way of doing that. And if he decides to do it now, then it will be the best decision that he can make for himself.

Might I add that I would absolutely love to watch Morishima kill some bitches on TV every week.

G1 Climax Finals: Goto vs. Muto
The finals of New Japan's G1 Climax were last weekend and ended with what many are considering a big surprise. Hirooki Goto, who many have pegged as one of Japan's premier young wrestlers, made a huge statement by winning the tournament. What was so unique about his victory was that this was his very first G1 tournament and he not only won Block B and won the finals beating Yuji Nagata and Togi Makabe on the same night. Goto is now restarting his rivalry with legend Keiji Muto, which last ended with Muto as The Great Muta beating Goto in a match that was considered mostly "meh" by fans. Goto teamed with Shinsuke Nakamura to invade the last All Japan show, winning against the team of Muto & Akira Raijin with Goto laying out his championship opponent after the match.

The title match is set for the All Japan Sumo Hall show on 8/31 and it is expected to be a big night. Goto's chances are about 50/50 as far as I can see. New Japan wants to push the guy and a great chance to do it would be for him to play the part of the New Japan hero and take the IWGP Heavyweight Title from Muto. At the same time, does Muto really want to put over another company's young star on the main event for his own company's show? Which leads to question if the IWGP title match will be the main event or if they'll go with Suwama's Triple Crown defense against Taiyo Kea.

I really hope the Goto wins the title though. This kid is an amazing talent and has a great future ahead of him. He was great as a junior and kept on getting better after excursions to Mexico. Since graduating to heavyweight he's still be good, but seems to have always missed on the win that would really catapult him to the top. The G1 Climax win and the coming title match could be just what he needs.

The card for the Sumo Hall show looks very strong too. All Japan is banking on this getting a huge turnout and one of their biggest shows of the year thus far. Another addition is Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Koijima teaming up. They each helped one another against GBH and VoodooMurders respectively and will join forces against a VoodooMurders/GBH combo of TARU and Togi Makabe.

All Japan 8/31 Sumo Hall
Triple Crown: Suwama © vs. Taiyo Kea
IWGP Heavyweight Title: Keiji Muto © vs. Hirooki Goto
Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. TARU & Togi Makabe
AJPW World Jr. Heavyweight Title: Ryuji Hijikata © vs. KAI
Osamu Nishimura, Nobukazu Hirai & Seiya Sanada vs. Minoru Suzuki, NOSAWA Rongai, & TAKEMURA
Joe Doering, Akira Raijin, & Scott D'Amore vs. ZODIAC, Shuji Kondo, & "brother" YASSHI
Kaz Hayashi, El Samurai, & Antonio Thomas vs. T28, Hiroshi Yamato, & Phil Atlas
Masanobu Fuchi vs. Nobutaka Araya

NOAH: Shiny Navigation
The Shiny Navigation finally kicked off this weekend as the NTV Cup got underway. The first day had some good action with few surprises:

-Atsushi Aoki & Akihito Ito beat Naomichi Marufuji & Kento Miyahara
-Katsuhiko Nakajima & Kota Ibushi beat Ricky Marvin & Eddie Edwards
-KENTA & Taiji Ishimori beat Bryan Danielson & Davey Richards
-Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki went to a draw with The Briscoes

As such, the standings look like this:

Atsushi Aoki & Akihito Ito: 2 points
Katsuhiko Nakajima & Kota Ibushi: 2 points
KENTA & Taiji Ishimori: 2 points
Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki: 1 point
The Briscoes: 1 point
Bryan Danielson & Davey Richards: 0 points
Naomichi Marufuji & Kento Miyahara: 0 points
Ricky Marvin & Eddie Edwards: 0 points

This is only after the first day and it's impossible to make many judgments from it. A huge surprise was the team of Aoki & Ito winning out against Marufuji and the Kensuke Office's Miyahara. Miyahara took the pin, but it's quite unexpected that the rookie team was able to take a clean win off of a team with Marufuji on it. I won't expect many more wins for the rookies, but a good start can be an eye opener. Nakajima & Ibushi and KENTA & Ishimori winning are to be expected. I really would like to see how the Nakajima & Ibushi vs. Marvin & Edwards match went. It seems like it would be a fun grouping.

Elsewhere, Takeshi Morishima teamed up with his still partner Muhammad Yone to take on his Budokan Hall opponent Kensuke Sasaki and Kensuke Office's Takashi Okita. Morishima thus goes one up on his challenger in these little tag team skirmishes that are sure to crop up during the Shiny Navigation. This tour looks like it will be a ton of fun. With the NTV Cup going on through the entire tour and with the prospect of Morishima vs. Sasaki at the end, this will be a strong tour for NOAH.

Weekly Puro
I wanted to show a Hirooki Goto match this week to celebrate his win, though it's a case of having a hard time choosing. So while I might have used this one before, it is a good one and I could watch it over and over to be honest. This is from 2007 and is Goto taking on Hiroyoshi Tenzan. I love just about everything in this match. Goto bled buckets while Tenzan was just all around vicious. Enjoy!

New Japan: Hirooki Goto vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan




At Home
Despite being on break all week, I ended up missing a lot of wrestling. I missed Raw to spend time with the girlfriend, turned off TNA because it was grating on my nerves quite a bit (the street fight was awesome though), and Smackdown got pre-empted for Major League Baseball. I was most disappointed with Smackdown to be honest as it sounds like it was a very good show. ECW was very good too, and since it was the only show I saw in its entirety I will declare it my show of the week (unless the Smackdown replay is as good as it sounds). ECW worked well for a multitude of reasons. The opener was great. It was nice to see Super Crazy on TV and actually getting to show off a bit. His and Evan Bourne's dives spectacular. Even Ricky Ortiz managed to not suck that night. He had some marginal improvement from the previous weeks, but make no mistake he's got a long way to go. He's at least got the advantage of natural charisma, something lacked by most of the new guys coming up. The main event was all around a perfect big man vs. little man bout. I think it's right to call it maybe the best Mark Henry match ever. It's hard to say where they can go from here though. They won't do a third scramble match for Unforgiven, mainly because I can't see them giving the ECW Title 20 minutes on a PPV. It will probably still be defended again and is most likely leading to an ECW Rules match.

How can I not bring up the Championship Scramble matches though? It's weird to be sure. A hardcore WWE fan would argue that it's different from TNA's overly gimmicky matches due to them not flooding the PPV with other gimmicks. Maybe even going so far as to say Mike Adamle's match making is a parody of how booking is done in Orlando. No dice. We need to recognize that the scramble matches may very well turn into a convoluted mess of things. 20 minutes to essentially play keep-away will either work or it won't. They have at least come out and said that only the man who has the title at the end of the 20 minutes will be the champion and we won't have multiple title changes in one night. What I will say that I like about the match, particularly the Smackdown version is that we're definitely getting a nice collection of wrestlers. You've got Jeff Hardy as a semi-main event star while MVP is a good upper mid-card guy. Then there's Shelton Benjamin who they seem interested in push strong on Smackdown and the surprising inclusion of THE Brian Kendrick. Benjamin and Kendrick's inclusions give me vague flashbacks to when Carlito and Chris Masters were given a short main event push and wrestled in the Elimination Chamber. It was like a tryout that obviously didn't work in the long run, but it was a change. I see the same thing with Benjamin and Kendrick. Shelton they really want to get over while Kendrick didn't seem like he would be jumping high up the card any time soon, caught on well so it looks like they'll give him a shot in a main event. The match on Raw at least makes sense as the combination of Punk, JBL, Cena, Batista, and Kane have all been fighting each other for months. I just hope they can deliver the goods when the time comes. If they do, I'll not say a bad word about Scramble Matches again.

Short Takes
-Got to see Pineapple Express this week and damn was it good. When people set out to make a stoner movie and don't take themselves seriously you get Pineapple Express. The fight scenes made that movie.

-I liked SummerSlam quite a bit this year. The Hell in the Cell lived up to my expectations even though no one got chucked off the cage. But the spot where Edge spear the Undertaker through the side was an awesome visual.

-Another awesome visual: Edge being sent to Hell. Cheesy? Yes. Cool way to end the show? Absolutely. Zombie Edge to come? Or worse, he goes to Hell and comes back with his own supernatural powers.

-I like that Consequences Creed is getting TV time now. I had wondered what happened to the guy after they said he was signed to TNA, since he had gotten so many people talking after he appeared on PPV the first time.

-Gail Kim back to the WWE really only means good things for their Women's Division. Hopefully she can help get some of the weaker Diva into a little better ring shape.

That's all for this week. I'll have updates on the NTV Cup next time as well the results for the Dragon Gate Summer Adventure Tag League. Until then, peace!