Toru Yano vs Taichi
Another Yano poem, and proof that you can’t out-clown the
ultimate clown. Taichi tried Shenanigans to get over on poor sweet Yano only to
have Yano employ the same tricks to better effect, to such effect that they
left him victorious yet again over a dude who would laugh and spit on him
because he doesn’t understand what it means to be a poet clown like Yano. And
even better, Yano didn’t have to lower himself like Juice and some others to
harass my sweet Miho Abe.
Yano was always gonna be the hardest dude for Taichi to beat
simply because Yano is smarter than him, and Taichi can’t fuck with him like he
does everyone else and thus must find another way but he is too lazy and so it’s
a simple thing for Yano to humiliate him and take his manhood and his friends
away from him at the same time. And now Yano is dancing and he keeps on dancing
and he says that he will never die and I believe him. I believe him.
Jeff Cobb vs Tetsuya Naito
In the end, it’s probably gonna come down to Naito and Jay
White for block supremacy, which should be no real surprise, and the way they’ve
gotten it there has been well played, with White being humbled and humiliated
by the Chaos dudes he betrayed and Naito laying in the weeds like he always
does, ready to take it in the end because he’s better than all the swine like
Jeff Cobb.
I shouldn’t be so hard on Cobb and I’m really not because he
brings all the fun throws and such, it’s just that this tourney is so High
Level and almost all the dudes are so damn good that it’s hard to pull for the
token ROH dude, a dude who could probably stand to lose a few so he doesn’t get
so easily gassed, and who has the personality of one of the giant tuna caught
off the coast of his Guam homeland. I will still respect him for the throws and
such and hope he gets better and better because New Japan always needs a hoss
like him and it would be even better if that hoss was able to take it up the
card a notch.
Naito, of course, is Naito, a rapscallion who is always
gonna be there in the end, and who I think is probably the best bet to take the
block and then down Ibushi in the finals to set up a champion vs champion match
at Wrestle Kingdom which will inevitably end with Naito’s head getting dropped
a bunch and also with him finally cashing on his popularity and drawing ability
with New Japan. But that is all just idle speculation as we near the end of
this beloved tournament, and I will just move on.
Hirooki Goto vs Jon Moxley
Surprised that Goto took this so quickly, but in the end it
was always gonna be Moxley vaulting these dudes to new heights so he can ride
away to AEW glory come the fall, and so Goto comes out of this looking vastly rehabilitated,
a shining example of the power of Big Shibata Energy. He survived a nice head
spiking near the end and turned right around and dropped Moxley to emphatically
win and hey, what more can you say? My heart is open to the dude and I hope he
continues to get the love.
Moxley, meanwhile, remains a Real Dude, showing again that
he can wear different skins depending on who he’s facing and what the situation
calls for, and this tournament for him was all about showing everyone that he
can do all the things the oldsters swore he could do back when he was a rising
young lion and not the watered down wild and crazy guy wrestling in fucking jeans
in WWE. He can take this and use it as a canvas, a month or so of just good ass
wrestling, varied and true, to show everyone that he is a legit dude, a star,
and someone who absolutely deserves the chance to run to wear his heart wants
to take him and us.
Juice Robinson vs Jay White
I’m gonna say something here that will probably make you go
okay Neil, fuck off, but this was maybe my favorite match of the entire
tournament so far. From the intimacy of it, which I have talked about before,
where you can hear everything everyone is saying and feel the emotions that are
driving them, to the deliberate pace, which made every movement each dude make
feel vitally important, this was a masterclass to me of what wrestling can and should
be, and even better for those who care about such things, it didn’t involve a
lot of dangerous or stupid shit or head destruction. It was just two dudes who
know each other very well, who have Feelings of a sort for one another, trying
to hurt the other and trying to win a goddamn wrestling match in the process,
and it was all very Real and very True.
Jay White remains the absolute slimiest dude in wrestling,
and I’m gonna say another thing here that some people will get mad about, but I
think he’s the best wrestler on the planet right now. Everything he does is
perfect. From the vile character work and shitheaded insolence to the cruelty
of his throws, their precision, he has the whole thing down cold and you can absolutely
see why Gedo is determined to ride this dude to the end.
Also, it’s kind of funny how New Japan supposedly wants to
get guys to tone down the swearing, but then you have Gedo of all people
audibly screaming fuck every match and, well, good luck trying to get the rest
of the boys to behave when the head dude is out there going raw as hell every
damn time.
As for Juice, it’s remarkable how far he’s come, and how
much he Gets It, whether it’s an old school approach like this or whether it’s
him standing and trading fire with a dude like Ishii, everything he does feels
important, it feels meaningful, and it’s easy to see how that translates so
well to an audience that should by all rights have dismissed him as a fucking
goof long ago. But they haven’t. They love him, and that’s all because he makes
you want to care about him. He still has a shitty finisher, but fuck it, man,
that is a minor thing in the grand scheme of things and one day he will almost
surely figure out a better one and then we can all die happy.
But . . . yeah, I loved this match probably more than anyone
else will, and I like these two dudes probably more than anyone else does. They
are an obvious bridge to western audiences, but more than that, what they do translates
so well to the Japanese fans, who care hotly one way or another about both of
them, two white dudes who came up in their dojo system and who are now the
ultimate face and the ultimate heel in a land where people dumbly say those
things don’t matter. They matter, it’s just that they have to connect on a
visceral level, whether that comes from the grandiosity of honor wars like Ishii
or the old All Japan dudes were a master at, or whether that comes from a more
westernized approach to showing Real Emotions. In the end, whether it’s Real Techniques
or Real Emotion, it’s all the same thing, and in the best cases, like with Jay
White, it is both.
Tomohiro Ishii vs Shingo Takagi
This was, of course, a blast, as everyone knew it would be,
too old gnarled goats just trying to ruin each other and steam roll their way
into the hearts of everyone, a battle of will and honor, of vicious No
Surrender strikes and head drops. Both come out of it looking like Grade 1
Spirit Warriors, and hey, what do you know, that’s the name of the fucking
tournament.
Ishii has made himself into a legend with matches like these
year after year in the G1 and while he’ll never be The Guy on account of he
looks like a broken down potato, he is basically the gatekeeper of greatness in
New Japan. He is Heimdall standing on the bridge of Asgard, not letting anyone in
who isn’t willing to sacrifice himself or show that he can bring the thunder
when it’s called for. He doesn’t take shit from anyone and asks for no quarter
in return and everyone sees this and loves him for it. He is an eternal
champion of the New Japan Spirit Warrior way and we should commend him for it.
Takagi, of course, remains a great favorite of wrestling
fans because he shares a lot of that in common with Ishii, but also because he
has tools, speed and power, that separate him from almost every dude he
wrestles, allowing him to run in whatever gear a match calls for. It’s probably
too late for him to be a Top Top Dude, but it’s a hell of a thing when New
Japan can just reach out to a guy like him when they’re in need. You don’t see
that anywhere else really, and it’s just one more reason why, for me, New Japan
is, and will probably be for quite some time, the best place for the pro
wrestling that we all know and love. Except for you Dobbsy, because you like
all the crazy seven foot cartoon shit, but that’s okay because you’re still my
dude and on some level your tastes are actually high level, understanding that
above all, wrestling is a goddamn spectacle and should be loved as such. It is
just that, for me, and for most of you reading this, that spectacle is never so
pure or so emotional as it is here in the beautiful New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Now if they’d only sign Sid . . .
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