NJPW Summer Struggle

 

Master Wato vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru

Kanemaru is much better than I really credit him for in his career. He was always the third biggest name in the juniors division and didn't have the flashy offense to really get me to remember him and appreciate his earlier career, I need to remedy that at sometime. Wato's dye job seems to be fading already so he definitely needs to get that fixed. On the outside Kanemaru bends Wato over the guardrail then runs toward him, steps up onto the guardrail, and hits a legdrop to the back of Wato's head, beautiful. Wato's dives and kicks look good in this match, but the finish is a little weird looking. Wato lifts Kanemaru for a powerbomb then drops backwards and Kanemura lands on his feet kind of, Wato drags him toward the corner, but Kanemaru rolls him up for the three count. Real bummer of a finish, but I guess it is a way to have Wato lose without losing momentum. Finish really took this down a couple notches for me. A simple opening match of a wily veteran vs. the young up and comer which was told pretty well.

5/10

Kazuchika Okada vs. Sanada vs. El Desperado vs. Toru Yano

Great start to this match as Okada goes up on the ropes for his normal entrance and Sanada and Desperado start stomping the shit out of Yano. As soon as Okada saves Yano he joines in on the corner attacks on Okada, because Yano is the best. Okada and Sanada teaming up to attack Desperado then Okada asking for a fist bump and betraying Sanada with a kick to the gut is great. Yano just stuck in the Paradise Lock while Okada and Sanada have a lengthy back and forth is great. A bunch of fun comedy stuff in this match with good wrestling and Yano hits Okada with a low blow and a rollup to win and then immediately starts apologizing to Okada. God, I love Toru Yano. They work the in and out flow of this match and its just a lot of fun.

6/10

Shingo Takagi vs. Minoru Suzuki

Suzuki takes the advantage early and takes the fight to the outside and nobody can match the sheer happiness that Suzuki radiates when beating the piss out of someone. And only Brock Lesnar matches the look of joy when he gets hit by a good shot from his opponent. Lots of great striking exchanges between these two guys. They do some really smooth back and forth avoiding each others attacks and going for their own. Sequence ends with Suzuki getting the sleeper hold then going for the Gotch piledriver, but Shingo slips out and hits a DVD. Shingo brings a lot of fire as the underdog and keeps firing back at Suzuki, but nobody can compete strike for strike with him and Suzuki gets the advantage with strikes and hits a Gotch style piledriver for the three count. A wonderful showcase of just how good Suzuki is at what he does and I'm looking forward to the rematch when hopefully Shingo can improve his hitting and get the win. Great stuff from these two guys.

9/10

Hiromu Takahashi vs. Taiji Ishimorii

Back and forth escaping each others moves until Ishimorii hits a spinning headscissors into an arm attack that gets the injured shoulder of Takahashi and gives him the advantage. I like how Hiromu does the falcon arrow where he spins himself to land in the pin instead of spinning his opponent to land in front of him. A lot of back and forth hitting of big moves in this match and when Ishimorii gets in trouble he gets the Bone Lock in and goes after the injured shoulder. Hiromu fights back again and hits a Time Bomb, but Ishimorii blocks the Time Bomb 2 and hits a Bloody Cross onto the shoulder of Hiromu and locks in the Bone Lock for the submission. A really good match between these two men, but it didn't really grab me. The injured shoulder was used when Ishimorii needed to get the advantage, and it played into the finish, but it didn't really seem to matter for a lot of the match, it was weird. Still if you want to see two dudes perform cool moves perfectly, this match had that in spades.

7/10

Dangerous Tekkers vs. Golden Ace

The action quickly spills to the outside where Dangerous Tekkers take the advantage especially on Tanahashi. Tekkers isoloate Tanahashi and work him over. Crazy to realize commentary is right and now Tanahashi is the weaker member of the team, damn the cruelty of time. Ibushi gets a hot tag and hits a great sequence of offense. Tanahashi and ZSJ get tagged in and Tanahashi goes right after the taped up knee of ZSJ with dragon screws. Really good back and forth action in this match and both teams had their target and went after it, and only Tekker's managed to capitalize on their plan. I like seeing Tanahashi and Ibushi adding more tag manuevers in their team and slowly starting to work better.

7/10

EVIL vs. Tetsuyo Naito

EVIL has the advantage early in the match thanks to a bunch of Togo interference and brawling on the outside. Naito eventually manages to turn the tables and get an advantage with a hurrincanranna. Both these guys are really comfortable climbing up and standing on the top rope, they do it so effortlessly, which can't be said for everybody when going for a superplex or hurrincanranna. We get a bunch of finisher teases from both men before EVIL distracts the ref for Togo interference then bumps the ref so Togo is in the ring helping him. BUSHI runs down and runs off Togo, but Gedo cuts him off. Sanada is down and hits a dropkick sending the chair into EVIL's face. Bushi recovers and the two run grab Gedo and Togo with headlocks and take them to the back. The match is now on even setting as nobody is there to interfere and both men are down. Togo keeps trying to cheat and Naito finally blocks an attack and hits Destino to get the win. This match was too slow and long with too much cheating before LIJ got tired of letting it happen. Not a bad match, but I'm not sure EVIL really fits as a main event player.

6/10

A fun, breezy show until a slower paced main event, but a really good show with five fun matches and a decent main event that got us Naito as the champ again and I'm looking forward to Naito defending the belts individually from now on. I really enjoyed the look of the ring on a baseball field and right on top of the pitcher's mound. Plus Shingo vs. Suzuki was fucking awesome. Definitely a good watch on a lazy Saturday. Watch the actual end of the match as Naito doing his tranqilo pose and watching the fireworks going off is a fun visual.

WWE Underground Sucked

WWE debuted a new gimmick idea to pop a rating, and because I'm easily tricked by them I decided to check in and watch WWE Underground on RAW. There's a ring with no ropes inside of a small warehouse looking place. It's got a smoky atmosphere and there are a bunch of people standing ringside pounding on the ring and Shane McMahon has the mic. There's also some not very good dancers on a stage as well. It's a cool setting, minus the dancers, so we're off to a decent start. In the ring there is a guy who doesn't get introduced and then Shane introduces Dabba-Kato who is a huge dude. He beats the shit out of the first guy and a second guy challenges him and gets destroyed as well. An inauspicious start to debut your new idea, but whatever still kind of gets the idea over.

Unfortunately after these fights we go right back to normal RAW and a pair of singles matches between the tag champs and challengers for Summerslam where Andrade and Garza have drugged Montez Ford's drink and it barely ruins his match, until the end. So after the debut of what's supposed to be a realistic fighting club they cut back to some goofy WWE shit that really undercuts that idea.

When we get back to the Underground we have Erik from the Viking Raids with some MMA gloves on against some no name guy. It's another squash match and afterword they go back to regular RAW. We're told there's one more fight scheduled and we are at regular RAW until there's 8 minutes left in the show. Hurt Business hear about the Underground and make their way there in the middle of Dolph Ziggler wrestling a no name guy again and gets a submission with a rear naked choke. Lashley gets in the ring and a challenger comes in and gets wrecked and then repeat that with MVP and Benjamin as well.

So to debut the idea of their underground fight club they had no real fights to showcase the rules and how it's different they just had some guys beat up some no name henchmen. And until the end the guys doing the squashing aren't big deal names either, or guys with real shoot fighting experience. It was a bizarre way to debut something, and after giving in to watching WWE again, it turned me off watching it another time. Another issue, as it often is with WWE, is that it is shot just like every other WWE thing. It has no hard cam, but it has several handheld cams just behind the people in the crowd and it cuts between camera angles every few seconds so none of the strikes or slams have any impact. It's also increasingly disorienting when trying to look at a new kind of set.

I'm torn between which of these two issues is the biggest problem I have with this idea. The fact that there is no real concept of what these matches are beside no rules fights, or that there were no real fights on it. You could probably explain how the matches work with some commentary during a back and forth fight. I know you can, because I am watching the Chikara version of this and they explain it during a gauntlet match. Nothing happened during these segments to sell the idea of Underground as being worth watching, when it easily could have been established. They already had a faction invade the Underground and beat up everybody who was there. Granted putting Lashley in the Underground makes sense as he has real MMA experience, and Benjamin makes some sense as well with his collegiate wrestling experience. The Underground is a concept with potential, but as wrestling knows a debut can kill any potential a concept or wrestler has, Shockmaster.

So this is a reminder to myself and anybody reading this. Don't let WWE sucker you in with their promise of a new direction. Wait until they prove they are doing something different before watching anything they do. And when you do watch make sure not to give them any money when you do it.