Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Centre, Sapporo
20th July 2015
Press conferences watched, alarm clock beeps at 7.30am, coffee is made, where is the bread, where IS my sodding bread? I'll do this on an empty stomach then. Assholes. ANYWAY. 364 days after the commencement of last year's tournament, in the same venue, the enlarged charabanc containing the New Japan roster rolls back into Sapporo to commence another edition of the greatest wrestling tournament shut UP PWG fans.
This review should be a rather short entry in the canon. The new format of the G1 has taken the sting out of the chances of any one night being completely blow-away awesome. At first I received the idea well, because I do believe it is important to spread these guys' workload out and let everyone recover, talk about what they're going to do out there and generally give everyone a great time. But they're all working every night, half of the time in tag matches, so it feels almost like a cruel joke.
The opening tag matches were all absolutely passable and if you saw them down your local rec centre you'd feel honoured. To their credit, they did feel eagerly contested, as if to say 'these matches are not meaningless!' In a standard attempt to prove just that, Tomohiro Ishii and Satoshi Kojima went at it after the bell to build some heat for their match down the line. It was fairly entertaining as any scrap is when someone bashes a bell repeatedly in an effort to make them stop.
Regardless, for many these shenanigans will not shake the stink of perfunctory around these matches and, with 18 nights of block competition ahead of us, reviewing them would be akin to madness. They're there for the house, not for us. My modus operandi going forward: watch the second half of two nights all in one sitting. All the benefits of a full card and none of the fat.
So, onto the Block A action.
DOC GALLOWS vs HIROYOSHI TENZAN
Jim Ross has this repeated near-mantra when it comes to diagnosing the modern wrestling problem: "slow it down." Modern wrestlers work too quickly and strike at the psychological basis of drama, it is argued. Randy Orton is often cited as a modern worker with a command of this psychological dimension and ability to pace his physical oration in a manner that can be comprehended to the back row, whereas the polar opposite would be someone like The Young Bucks.
The reality is that explosiveness and speed in bursts are exciting. Here we have two guys who are slow, physical, experienced, titled and storied...and it is at times difficult to watch. It isn't QED against Ross' argument, though I feel it a little quaint, but it doesn't exactly back up the theory with compelling evidence. There is something at stake in victory and defeat, in theory, and yet it is wrestled as if both carrot and stick were absent. Nine minutes in their company feels almost as gruelling for viewer as workers.
After a series of brawling segments and Gallows using his prop noose to choke his opponent, things liven up inside the final fifth where Gallows misses a second rope legdrop and is downed by Tenzan's lethal Anaconda Buster into the Anaconda Plus for the opening night win. **1/4
Tenzan [2] d. Gallows [0]
TORU YANO vs TOGI MAKABE
Makabe isn't for pissing around, as well as anyone who has seen him knows. This is all grist to Yano's mill who works the exposed corner spots and baits Makabe's easily-triggered fury by posing behind his back. Yano's early year program with Tanahashi has reminded the casual that his roll-ups are potential calamity for his opponent, and when Yano sneaks a low blow on the Unchained Gorilla and rolls him up all looks doom until a 2.9 kick out.
The home stretch is relatively straight-forward in the eventual Makabe win: a big lariat, a Death Valley bomb and a very impressive leap for the King Kong Knee Drop. Two points on the board for Makabe's opening night, better than his start one year ago. **1/2
Makabe [2] d. Yano [0]
BAD LUCK FALE vs TETSUYA NAITO
Contrasting sartorial choices tonight on an evening where many debuted new ring attire and entrance themes. Fale stuck with the pork-pie-cum-trilby he debuted at the G1 Press Conference, whilst Tetsuya Naito wore a suit to the ring teamed with a mask and a sort of head-snood. In short, he looked kind of brilliant, like Skeletor going to a funeral in a provincial nightclub.
The match was fine, with Naito leading the merry dance and Fale cutting off his lighter opponent's acrobatic tendencies mid-flight. The storytelling emphasis on Naito being reborn and renewed as part of Los Ingobernables leads to him dominating larger portions of the match, which some may carp about given his being 100lbs lighter than his opponent, though I don't particularly care.
A sloppy ending with a botched roll-up aside, this was an enjoyable ten minutes and change. Fale was the base and Naito the airborne missile. Whilst the skill gap between the two is comprehensive, Naito's victory didn't lessen Fale, writhing just as viciously as he did in Fale's Bad Luck Fall set-up as he did at Wrestle Kingdom 9 before being planted by the second turnbuckle Styles Clash. ***
Naito [2] d. Fale [0]
AJ STYLES vs KATSUYORI SHIBATA
Oh hey I like both of these guys quite a bit and what is this I am literally perched on the edge of my seat and going SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH to anyone who makes a noise for the duration that this match occurs and by that I mean from the camera pull-back to the ring and the wide shot of the Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Centre with the rampway in the distance and the ring announcer announcing the next match and the first low notes of AJ Styles' grower of a theme tune to the exit of the losing party.
G1 AJ is so much better than IWGP AJ. He doesn't need to cheat and generally looks every inch his Phenomenal One moniker, matching intuitively with method and pacing his vast array of brilliance to match the mood of the night rather than going for five star classics (which, it seems, is what prevents him from getting there). And with that fantastic bout with Minoru Suzuki recently replayed on AXS, it is a great reminder that there are no qualms anymore about AJ being able to mesh with some workers whose techniques might seem alien to quintessentially American wrestlers.
Such as, one might say, Shibata. He opens with a grinding headlock spot, wearing down Styles' neck before the former IWGP champ breaks free and into the drop-kick set up spot (opponent shoots to ropes, AJ drops down, opponent continues, AJ vaults, opponent continues, huge booming drop kick). Shibata clings to the ropes to avoid the drop-kick and charges in with a PK attempt that AJ wisely bails on. Great start.
Shibata gained control on the outside after landing his mark with an exhilarating sprinting lunge kick, lamping his man with rangy kicks, though control is ceded by missing a headshot and booting the ring post with a mighty sonorous CLANG. Styles, learning from his trials with Suzuki, takes immediate advantage of the limb and sets about mangling his technically-minded opponent.
The arm of Shibata was weakened by injury coming into the match, which Shibata used excellently by using his own mouth to cinch a hold in where his arm would not offer sufficient torque. The midgame tied well into the finish as Styles slowly cancelled out his opponent, wrenching in the Calf Killer to weaken the leg ahead of a future PK attempt that missed and led Shibata into a world of trouble, eating a Pele Kick, a Bloody Sunday and a decisive Styles Clash in quick succession for a comprehensive and entertaining win. ****
Styles [2] d. Shibata [0]
KOTA IBUSHI vs HIROSHI TANAHASHI
The format may rob us of that constant intensity of competition but the round-robin tournament style will forever, given a range of talent as deep and varied as New Japan, throw up interesting and new matches that whet the appetite.
This one, however, doesn't just whet the appetite: it overruns it with saliva. Wags online pitched as Son vs. Father, with the two battlers being pretty-boy fancy-hairs with high-flying tendencies and 'lifelong babyface' written through them like deoxyribonucleic acid. Two fantastic wrestlers and worthwhile headliners who have either never met or have not met in recent memory to render this outing as fresh as the trainers on Fat Joe's feet.
And what a feast it is. Over twenty elastic minutes it is not just Son vs. Father but Equal vs. Equal regardless of the outcome. Tanahashi goes to town on Ibushi's knee with Dragon Screws and submissions and the younger man fires back with scorching kicks, stopping only to wince, before steaming in with another.
Worked more like a pay-per-view main event, both men dug deep into their repertoire to surpass the match prior and send the fans home elated. Ibushi smashed his man with a Lawn Dart and then one-upped his WK9 rope-assisted outside-in German Suplex by hitting it higher and harder to Tanahashi. The Ace of the Century boomed in a Straightjacket Suplex and a Dragon Suplex of his own, each with a bridge that an 18 year old would be proud of, let alone a near 40-year old with a knackered back.
The seven-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion proved too game for the DDT mainstay, winning with a High Fly Flow in a bout of pristine escalation and pay-off. Tanahashi lapped up the post-match with air guitar galore, the fans standing to pay tribute to the man and his beaten foe. A must-see. ****1/2
Tanahashi [2] d. Ibushi [0]
In 1994 if you'd seen two shows a year with two matches of that quality you'd have been a lucky person. That's the nature of the beast New Japan have created for themselves, an audience thirsty for quality that might not always be wise to provide in the intensities desired. Nonetheless, a fine start.
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