B Block action gets underway as I struggle to catch up and am already a couple of days behind, forgive me, it is madness around here. But we G1 like warrior poets and let’s just get on with it, shall we?
Juice Robinson vs Yoshi-Hashi
I am on record as being a pretty big Juice Robinson supporter, and I remain so. Like Jay White, I think he plays the crowd about as well as one can in these modern times, strange and terrible as they may be. I’m not even sure if that means it would work in front of a more Westernized crowd although Juice does seem to still resonate when he’s over here, as does Jay. But that is more an indictment of our own post modern mutant crowd, of which we are all sadly a part, who tend to judge the performance rather than enjoy the performance, which I suppose is what I’m doing here too, but fuck it, these things get weirder and weirder the more we think and talk about them, and also tedious, so let’s not linger too long on this topic.
But Juice is back in a New Japan ring proper and he has a new style, which is apparently Blues Brothers inspired because lol why not I guess. Underneath all the ridiculousness, Juice is a well-trained New Japan style wrestler who mixes in some Western grandiosity like a modern day Dusty Rhodes on coke, which is most certainly not a bad thing although classic Dusty was also likely on coke if only because everyone was back then but it sure did not reflect in his physique but fuck it we’re already rambling here.
Yoshi Hashi, meanwhile, remains who he is, which is to say a dude who always looks on the verge of a panic attack, deeply uncomfortable in his own skin, which is sad because he can do good things when he gets fired up, which sadly is not all that often. He is a champion now, although the lowest rung of champion you can be in New Japan, which is somehow fitting and also kind of adorable as it was when Okada strapped the belt on Yoshi Hashi like a proud older brother or someone who didn’t give a fuck that he just lost the match for the vacant six man tag titles because let’s face it, Okada has better shit to do. But again, we digress, and I suppose it’s because there’s not that much else to talk about here other than Juice and Yoshi Hashi had a match and it was a decent enough match, very much what one would expect from the two when they are both at their game which is perhaps me underselling it a bit as I had no problems here, I like Juice and Yoshi Hashi probably deserves more than my scorn and mockery, but that is also kind of his role and everybody gets it, even him, especially him, which is probably the saddest thing of all. Anyway, I’ve got no issue with this match and neither should you.
Toru Yano vs Sanada
Toru Yano remains a wrestling poet, and while the Meltzerian school may not Get Him that is perhaps more a compliment than anything else. I’m sorry, Dave. I don’t mean to belittle The Meltz but let’s face it, he can be awfully myopic when it comes to his wrestling, but that is probably true of all of us, is it not? But Yano will Yano and that means he will infuriate and delight and also surprise with quality wrestling now and then as is befitting a dude with a legit amateur background which is the hallmark of all great clowns. There must be substance beneath the façade or it is all just bullshit. Yano, like myself, is a clown because he chooses to be and that is the difference between him and your ordinary jackass.
Sanada, meanwhile, remains a man hunting for that Glory moment. Betrayed by Evil alongside everyone else, it is perhaps saying something that Evil was the man who took that spot and not Sanada, but then again, Sanada’s aloofness doesn’t really lend itself to being a monster or a supervillain but rather the enigma that he is, but enigmas are enigmas only because people are stupid and uncomfortable with anyone or anything they can not immediately access or nail down. It is both what makes Sanada who he is, what makes him special, and what keeps him from being pinned down to A Spot.
Anyway, the two had exactly the sort of match you would expect, with each doing his thing. Sanada trying to trick Yano with the Paradise Lock in almost Yano like fashion was a nice bit of a role reversal, but of course you don’t fuck with the master and so Yano turned that around and got Sanada counted out. Of course, it all couldn’t have happened without the interference of a Young Lion who shouldn’t be involved like that, no matter how good his intentions and Sanada should beat him in the showers or whatever the hell they did to Benoit to make him a ruined man. Yano, meanwhile, should buy the boy lunch or something, but he probably won’t because Yano is kind of a dick.
Hirooki Goto vs KENTA
I still feel for KENTA, who remains scorned by all, both Japanese fans and mutant geeks over here. It has to be especially galling for him as a dude who chased a dream in a way no one had really done before only to see it all fall apart in a nightmare of injury and misuse, followed by him trying to return a hero’s return only to be shit on by everyone even though his move set and style had been stolen and aped by everyone from Daniel Bryan to Shibata to CM Punk, and hey, two out of three ain’t bad, amirite? That’s probably not fair because as gangly and uncoordinated as he is, even Punk had the mental wherewithal to ape the right dudes and wrestle interesting matches. We all shit on the dude now, but let’s be fair. No? No. Okay, fine, fuck Punk. But still, the point remains that KENTA is a legendary kind of figure who is being treated like shit by everyone and you can’t blame him for being salty about it. Worse, he has clearly been shunted down the line of Bullet Club dudes, as Jay White gets Gedo, which makes him the Club Ace really, doesn’t it? And then Evil gets Dick Togo, and poor KENTA can’t even get Jado, treated like a common Yujiro. The fucking indignity.
With all that said, he channels all of that inner rage into kicking dudes in the face and submitting them when he feels like it which is really the best KENTA there is, so it all works out in the end. Kinda, right? I mean, he is never gonna be exactly who he was, but who among us can say differently? Time and its cruelties comes for us all, and we are left changed and inglorious, and yet we can find a new kind of glory in the change, in our own decrepitude, a wisdom and sort of indignant rage against the dying of the light and such words of poesy.
And then there is poor Goto, the man who can never quite be The Man, and also a dude who slid into KENTA’s spot as Shibata’s pal, which makes KENTA abusing him here all the more poignant and sad, really. This sort of thing always seems to happen to Goto though, right? I want good things for Goto, but it never quite comes off. Still, it doesn’t get much lower than a dude calling his shot on you and then pulling it off, making you look like an utter chump. Poor Goto deserves better, that’s all I know, but somebody has to pay the price for KENTA’s rage and mistreatment and, well, of course that someone would be Goto. It is what it is.
Zack Sabre, Jr. vs Evil
This was really interesting as ZSJ played de facto face against Evil and it actually worked. I thought so, anyway. As a dude who really doesn’t have much time for ZSJ, I actually kind of liked him in this role. He still looks like a man who would be broken by an ill wind and he is still most definitely a dick, but he took his dickishness and turned into something if not noble than at least appreciable in the face of true assholishness on the part of Evil and Dick Togo. It is also perhaps because ZSJ seems vaguely humbled without TAKA around to jock him, which also added to this match’s dynamic as TAKA and Dick Togo were of course Kaientai running buddies back in the day, and now ZSJ is left alone while Evil gets himself some of that Kaientai juice. It would have perhaps been fun to see TAKA and Dick Togo on opposite sides here, dueling assholes for their asshole charges, but it maybe worked out better this way.
Of course, ZSJ isn’t a face by any means, especially when he is palling around with fellow dickhead Taichi, but the subtlety of leaving him alone to deal with both Evil and Dick Togo tipped the crowd in his favor and he played the role well, I won’t lie. Escaping with a flash pin both allowed him to come off looking triumphant against evil (and Evil) but didn’t make him look too heroic either, you know? It was just the right balance. He can now go back to being the asshole dick that everyone knows and loathes, but it’s interesting to see he has this sort of card to play if and when the time comes to do something different with him.
Evil, on the other hand, hasn’t exactly set the world on fire since his turn, and it feels kind of bad because he is a solid dude, just maybe not the right dude at the right time for this spot, but it was probably necessary especially given Naito’s role. Naito needed someone to betray him and, well, Evil was there and it was either him or Sanada really and we already talked about Sanada maybe not being right for it either. But Evil has a chance now to settle into the role and maybe take a new run at things even if that means ducking away from the title picture for a while, which is honestly probably for the best. They established him, and then pulled him back, and that is honestly the way it was probably planned. These things take some delicacy, some push and pull before they really solidify him. People freaked out because it felt like Evil was being pushed down everyone’s throat, but I don’t think that was really the case so much as they just needed to establish him and now they can pull back a bit and see where things go. From that viewpoint, perhaps things haven’t worked out so terribly after all. I don’t know, and that’s about as honest a thing I can say, as any of us can say, until time proves us all fools, liars or geniuses.
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Tetsuya Naito
I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure whether these two would be able to bring it on a scale necessary to compete with the best of A Block, mostly because both have a tendency to get banged up and Tana is getting older and I am not the world’s biggest Naito fan, but fuck, I was very wrong. This match killed it, and Tana looked the best he’s looked in forever, sick abs and all, while Naito continues to prove me an idiot every time he brings the juice like he did here.
I’m not sure why I don’t warm to Naito like everyone else, but I’m glad when I’m wrong, and both he and Tanahashi wrestled a great match, complete with dueling bits of dickery towards each other’s troublesome knees. That’s a thing I’ve always appreciated about Tana, his ability to somehow be both the world’s biggest babyface and kind of a dick at the same time when the moment calls for it. It allows him to work the crowd in whatever direction the match calls for, a lost art for most performers.
Naito also has some of that, a lot of that actually, more and more with each passing year it seems. He’s obviously kind of a natural dick, but he also plays a vulnerable side really well, almost as well as Tana, and the result is a match between two dudes in which they both pull at crowd’s heart strings even while cutting them at the same time, both face and heel in one bravura blend that is hard to really describe and can only be really appreciated by witnessing the well-behaved Japanese crowd breaking from their clapping to audibly gasp even though it is Against The Rules. When you can get the Japanese to break protocol because their hearts demand it, you know you have taken things to a great place.
In the end, it was Naito’s match, but it felt throughout like it could and should belong to Tanahashi. The crowd seemed somewhat deflated and disappointed in the result, but that is no bad reflection on Naito but rather how goddamn great the Ace remains, why he is The Ace, and why this match worked as well as it did. I mean, Naito is the Big Draw, but Tana remains the Man of the people’s heart, and both maintained their roles throughout, transcended them and even switched between the roles in their own way, which, again, is what made the match so superb and what makes both such amazing performers deserving of such a special place in Japanese wrestling, in all of Pro Wrestling, history. Yes, this is me finally giving in to Naito. Bless his ass. And that’s just the start of B Block action in what promises to be yet another sublime and ridiculous G1, may it last forever.
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