NJPW - The Spiral (Tokyo Dome, Oct '02)

[Guest PlatypusFool]

I'm gonna start doing this for tapes I watch and feel the need to comment on, just run through the important / interesting matches and comment on them.

 

The first two matches (Lyger, TM4 & Kakihara vs. American Dragon & The Havana Pitbulls, and Makabe & Minoru Fujita vs. Kenzo & Tanahashi) were standard fare, with everyone performing to expectations. I really don't understand the US indie kids pimping of American Dragon, he seems nothing more than a capable wrestler, although I guess I'm not getting his best work here.

 

Koji Kanemoto vs. Heat (Minoru Tanaka) for the IWGP Jr. Title was a decent little match. It was better than their previous, distinctly average, encounters from earlier in 2000 as some of the early limb work actually played into the finish in some sort of vague way. Their sequences are also excellent here at the basic aesthetic and athletic levels, very pleasing on the eye and generally very cool. The same problems plague this match as ever though, with neither wrestler being prepared to sell limb work for a sustained amount of time, an important factor to miss in a submission based match such as this. There was also no illusion what so ever to the fact that Koji is fighting Heat instead of Tanaka, he still pre-empts a lot of his opponents choices like they're old friends, and they build off their previous matches, even though technically this is Heat's debut.

 

The first of the NJPW vs. Makai matches, and the third, were very similar encounters, and quite entertaining. Yoshie vs. Yanagisawa was a decent little shooter based match, although not really shoot style. It gave the fans what they wanted, Yanagisawa kicking the shit out of Yoshie until the egg man makes his spirited, and surprisingly heated, comeback. The audience, although hardly large for a Tokyo Dome event, really start responding to Yoshie here, and go ape shit for his finishing back fist attack. Obviously, these two don't have the talent to make this a memorable match, if Yana was more talented then they could have stretched the beatdown out before the comeback, perhaps making something special, but he just isn't good enough. Naruse vs. Murakami was very similar to that last match, with the crowd responding well to Naruse this time, eve nthough he would fall ot Murakami's attack. This is why I believe the Makai Club angle to be a very good thing for NJPW, although it will never result in great matches. It makes the fans care about the undercard guys. Yoshie was nothing before this angle, but now he's taken on a good, useful, role as an undercard defender of NJPW, and is over with the fans as a result.

 

The second match of the series, Osamu Nishimura vs. Bas Rutten, was by far the best match of the night. It's wrestled under 'European Catch Rules', which means a rounds based system over ten rounds is wrestled. This stipulation creates a aura about the match, that although it isn't a shoot style contest, it has shoot style elements, and therefore, holds such as the cross armbreaker mean so much more to the crowd. The work here is really smart, starting off with Rutten trying his massive range of kicks, and Nishimura working to his strengths and trying to get Rutten on the ground. This results in a story coming from a particular takedown, where Rutten over extends his leg towards Nishimura, and Nishimura catches it, tripping Rutten over by hooking the other leg and taking him to the mat. The first few rounds set up this dynamic, but Nishimura's problems come from when Rutten takes a different approach once he realises that he can take Nishimura on the mat due to his extra experience with submission holds. He stops over extending his legs at this point, takes it more controlled, and comes very close to getting a submission from Nishimura, the bell saving Nish each time. It's at this point when the limbs become an issue, as the fighters move away from trying to get the quick win and attempt a longer strategy, wearing each other down. As their strategies play out, they begin to become desperate, the time limit is approaching, and they need to finish their opponent off before the match ends in a draw. Rutten returns to his original plan in desperation, is once again taken down by Nishimura in the same way as before, and nearly falls to another submission. As the rounds tick by, the fighters mastery of their particular signature moves becomes important, and Rutten sneaks his shining wizard out of nowhere, nearly knocking Nishimura out completely. As they head into the final round, both wrestlers have taken their toll on each other, and it's an all out war to finish the other one off in any way that they can. They both try everything, but it's not enough, and the bell to signal a draw is rung. I really enjoy this match, the selling was very good, the characterization is very good, with Nishimura playing a concentrating technician, and Rutten playing an emotional and experienced fighter, and the little things they did to add to the psychology, like the key takedown, were well implemented. ***3/4

 

Tenzan vs. (the new) GREAT MUTA, and Chono vs. Joanie Laurer, were embarrasing matches, blending too many elements of sportz entertaiment to be any good. Chono did alright, actually, in the face of much adversity, carrying Joanie to something approaching watchable. This match had a good story behind it, with Chono wanting to force Joanie to respect him, and NJPW in general, and they wrestled well to this story. Numerous spots where Chono shouted to Joanie to show him what she's got results in him shrugging off elbow attacks from her, and the quite ingenious moment when Joanie has Chono in a figure four, which he is blatently no selling because she can't do it properly, and while he sits in the hold is shouting at her to do it properly. The finish works excellently with this storyline, as Chono downs Joanie with a simple Yakuza kick, no different to any other Yakuza kick, giving the impression that he could have fiished her at any time, he just wanted to toy with her. If Joanie had been replaced by a competent worker, then this could have been good, but she's just so awful to watch, so embarrasing compared to everyone else in Japan... ever... that this can't ever be a quality match.

 

Nakanishi vs. Bob Sapp is an interesting match. Much like Yoshie's match, and Naruse's, Nakanishi gets killed until it his time for his spirited comeback. But, because this is Sapp, and because this is Nakanishi, this example is so much better than either of those matches. Sapp is the perfect monster, charasmatic and huge, and Nakanish plays off this brilliently, timing his comeback and his attacks to perfection, creating an excellent pace. It's shown by the crowd reaction, as they truly do go mental when Nak starts gaining the upper hand, and especially when he lifts Sapp into the argentine backbreaker. It's this that is interesting to me, as the crowd reaction would indicate a perfect future role for Nakanishi. He's quite possibly the next in the line of great aces, defending the company against all with his simple but very charasmatic and over moveset, super strong Nakanishi, beast killer!

 

Nagata's match against Kazayuki Fujita pales in comparison to his best work, although this is also good. They're nothing here that sets it apart from a standard Nagata match, and only the very simple rulebreaker vs. honourable fighter story is present. They don't even work off their history of one being a shoot fighter, and one being a pro wrestler. Having said that, Nagata's performance is good, and he carries Fujita succesfully. Once again, like againzt Takayama from May, Nagata sells the knees to the head that he has taken very well, showing weariness even when he is on offence. A decent match, nothing special.

[Guest BionicRedneck]

I really don't understand the US indie kids pimping of American Dragon, he seems nothing more than a capable wrestler, although I guess I'm not getting his best work here.

He is actually pretty awesome.

[Guest PlatypusFool]

Why?

[Guest BionicRedneck]

Because he is

 

Check out:

 

American Dragon vs. Spanky from King of the Indies 01

 

and his whole performance at the Super 8 2001 tourney. 2 fun matches, and a great final against Low Ki.

 

I haven't seen much else from him as I try to steer clear of alot of the indies, but I hear good things about his ROH stuff.

[Guest Doyo]

If you are into someone like Steven "William" Regal or Dean Malenko's

work then you would like Dragon. He is one of the few indy wrestlers who focus

on psychology and technical wrestling instead of highspots. He sorta gets

overhyped by many because of this.

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

If you are into someone like Steven "William" Regal or Dean Malenko's

work then you would like Dragon. He is one of the few indy wrestlers who focus

on psychology and technical wrestling instead of highspots. He sorta gets

overhyped by many because of this.

He's not really overhyped. He's hyped as what he is......a REALLY good wrestler who is better than 90% of the WWE roster and deserves what's due to him.