Tag: axs

We’re continuing our look at WrestleKingdom 9, held January 4, 2015 at the Tokyo Dome. Three more matches tonight, finishing up the undercard portion of the event.

First up is a six man tag pitting Jeff Jarrett, Bad Luck Fale and Yujiro Takahashi against Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Tomoaki Honma. I completely forgot this match was on the card. And that reminds me, whatever happened to Jeff Jarrett being a part of the Bullet Club? That was a storyline that never really went anywhere beyond this match. This was really quick. Decent, but one of the shorter matches on the card. Honma won with the kokeshi headbutt from the top rope onto Yujiro Takahashi. The announcers compared it to Charlie Brown finally kicking the football (an old Peanuts comic strip gag from years ago). That sort of fits here, I guess, but him winning the G1 match later on in the year is the far better analogy.

Next up was the match between Minoru Suzuki and Kazushi Sakuraba, UWF-I rules. That means no pinfalls or submissions, either a KO, TKO, or ref stoppage will end the match. The presentation of the match was so cool, especially Minoru Suzuki who looked to be in the best shape of his career, wearing all white like he did when he won the King of Pancrase. This was really fun. Suzuki is one of the more unique wrestlers around as he always works HIS style of match, and it’s usually different than whatever else you’d see on a card we wrestles in. Lots of striking and submission attempts by both men. Suzuki kept goading Sakuraba to strike him, then Suzuki fired back, sinking in a sleeper, hip tossed him to the floor and Sakuraba passed out, so the ref stopped the match. This was a cool finish to a good match. Not the best on the card, but highly memorable.

Suzuki said he had been waiting for Sakuraba to come to New Japan for a long time. He didn’t feel much when shaking his hand, then said he wouldn’t elaborate since he didn’t like the way the interviewer answered the questions. He doesn’t look down at him. When asked why they hugged in the ring after the match, he refused to answer that as well and called the interviewer a loser. I miss Minoru Suzuki in New Japan. I so, so do.

Shibata is interviewed next. He talks about how he didn’t like the reactions he got in the Tokyo Dome before, but he liked it when he and Goto faced each other back at WrestleKingdom 8 as the reactions were more direct. In regards to his opponents, he says they have power and skill, and also work better as a tag team than singles wrestlers. When they won the tag league, they didn’t get a championship, so it’s here where they want to win the tag team championships.

The tag team title match aired. This was pretty good. The crowd were into Shibata and Goto as the challengers, and as a team they’re good. Anderson and Gallows are good as a team, and are fine as champions, but they aren’t great and aren’t going to really do anything to bring the tag team division out of the funk it is in this promotion. But this was a good back and forth match. A bit short, but was good while it lasted and never dragged.

Shibata and Goto mentioned that it was 20 years ago that they met each other, so they were glad they were able to become tag team champions tonight. Shibata also put over the fans, as to him they were the ones who helped them win the gold. Shibata said in his reflective interview pretty much what he said in the post match interview, he was happy to win the title. He finishes by saying he liked the shape of the belt.

We now have most of the undercard down, with the two big title matches still to go over the next couple of weeks. Pretty good show, though if there’s one match you need to see, it’s the Suzuki/Sakuraba bout, as it was a pretty cool match.

Tonight’s show took place on December 7, 2014 from the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium in Aichi. This show is the finals of the 2014 World Tag League.

First match is an eight man tag match where Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Togi Makabe and La Sombra take on Shinsuke Nakamura, Kazuchika Okada, Yoshi-Hashi and Tomohiro Ishii. New Japan has a very basic formula when it comes to tag team matches- they’ll put rivals on opposite teams, they’ll wrestle each other a for a while, somewhere in here there’s a barricade spot, then eventually they pin the weak link on the team who has no real feud with anyone while his partners are all held back, which in this case is Yoshi-Hashi. In fact, in most years it’s been Yoshi-Hashi. Not that they’re bad, but they are very formulaic and don’t stray all that much. This was a fine bout that pushed programs for WrestleKingdom 9 and it did it’s job well in that regard.

Hirooki Goto is interviewed. He remembers 2014 as a year of tag matches for himself. He and Shibata worked out their relationship after the Seibu Dome G1 finals, and the Tag League was their first time teaming together on a constant basis. About their opponents, they knew how good they were since they faced them before.

Then the Tag League finals aired, with Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows (who are also the champions) faced Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata. This turned into a pretty good match; the crowd was red hot for this toward the end. The start wasn’t nearly as interesting but they worked it into a pretty good match. Maybe a shade below normal New Japan main events but I’d have this around the ***½ star range. Goto and Shibata, since they never seem to be in the real main event scene, could be the ace of this division if New Japan ever really gets behind having a heavyweight tag team scene.

The problem is they haven’t, and don’t seem to be based on the booking of the division this year, which we’ll see in later episodes on AXS TV. They win the match with a PK to Anderson, a shotgun kick that sends Gallows to the outside then Goto pins Anderson with the shouten kai.

Gallows said they didn’t need to win the Tag League again. They (their opponents) want to fire shots, we’ll fire back harder. Anderson says the Tag League means nothing because they have the belts, then challenged them to a match at the Tokyo Dome with the titles on the line. I cleaned up their language here as it was rather salty. I didn’t think you can say those words on cable TV, but I guess AXS is one of those premium channels.

Shibata says in a post match interview in the ring that he wants a belt, since he’s never felt he’s achieved anything here in particular. Goto said the time is right, and the next target is those belts. In another post match interview backstage, the two talk about knowing each other in high school. Goto says it’s nice to have a partner next to him that he could rely on.

In his reflective interview, Goto mentions that match gave them confidence and was happy to accomplish something that night. He thinks that’s the moment their tag team became one. He thought Shibata was happy to win the match, but they are both hungry for more titles. he mentions the Goto Revolution, there are no stages, just about results. When he turns everything around, that is when it will be over.

This was a good show for what it was. The Tag League doesn’t mean a whole lot in the long run as it’s usually teams you see maybe once a year, plus Tencozy and the Bullet Club, and the match quality is nowhere near the same as the G1. Goto and Shibata made sense to win here since it seemed like they were being groomed as the next great tag team to hit New Japan, but as we’ll see later in the year, that wasn’t the case. Big next five weeks on AXS as the entire WrestleKingdom 9 card will be shown, with next week focusing on junior heavyweights as reDragon, Forever Hooligans, Young Bucks and Time Splitters square off over the junior tag titles and Kenny Omega battles Ryusuke Taguchi for the junior title.