The Navigation Log 6.22.08: BOSJ Winner, Suwama’s First Challenger, Morishima is Crazy, and ROH Back to Tokyo

Onto the Navigation Log!

Best of the Super Juniors XV: And The Winner Is…
After a hard fought tournament, the ultimate winner of the BOSJ tournament last weekend was the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Wataru Inoue. Inoue probably had the hardest task in the semi-finals of the tournament as he was charged with the task of knocking off the undefeated leader of Block B, Tiger Mask. After getting the huge upset there he went on to face Koji Kanemoto in the finals where he finally won his first BOSJ title.

This win was an important one for Inoue. Following his victory he announced that he was going to vacate the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship and graduate to the heavyweight class. The timing of this falls along with his coming participation in the G1 Climax, which he earned a spot in by virtue of his BOSJ win. This is the time for Inoue to really step up and show what he’s got. He’s a long shot to win the G1 as he’s just moving into the heavyweight division. But guys with something to prove, when motivated are tough guys to beat. I’m looking forward to G1 Climax even more now.

Since Inoue has vacated his title, New Japan is planning another juniors tournament to crown the next champion. While it won’t be quite as extensive as BOSJ, the field will make for an interesting batch of matches. Regulars like Koji Kanemoto, Jushin Liger, AKIRA, Ryusuke Taguchi, Minoru and Tiger Mask are set to compete. Prince Devitt who was injured and had to sit out the BOSJ will be back in action as well. TNA’s Jimmy Rave apparently impressed the right people in New Japan as he has been invited to compete as well. It will be interesting to see where they go with this tournament.

All Japan in Osaka
All Japan is gearing up for a big show in Osaka, featuring three title matches including Suwama’s first defense of the Triple Crown.

First the AJPW Jr. Heavyweight Title will be on the line as Ryuji Hijikata defends against the always dangerous El Samurai. Hijikata has already made a strong title defense, but El Samurai is a much bigger test for him.

Keiji Muto & Joe Doering will defend their AJPW Tag Team titles against the team of Minoru Suzuki & Taiyo Kei. Kei & Suzuki have banded together with the sole purpose of capturing the titles in mind and here is their big chance to do it. Muto & Doering will be tough to beat though. Muto is Muto while Doering has been on quite the streak, performing strongly in the Champion’s Carnival and then winning the mask of the Voodoo Murders’ ZODIAC. Should be an excellent clash with a strong chance for the titles to change hands.

Suwama’s first challenger for the Triple Crown is going to be Osamu Nishimura. This is a huge test for the young champion as Nishimura has essentially made Suwama his bitch up to this point, using his experience and style of wrestling to shut down the younger man. Suwama though has vowed that this won’t happen this time around and has diligently prepared by studying Nishimura’s matches and style for any kind of weakness. I have to say I really love the set-up here. Suwama’s first defense against a man who has been an Achilles’ Heel and the build to that has been the champion being forced to learn from past mistakes. Essentially, Suwama has to learn what it takes to be Triple Crown champion and that it takes a degree of intelligence along with power and skill. Good show All Japan.

NOAH-rific Summer
I’m finally getting a change to see the big matches from the GREAT VOYAGE show and I love what I’ve been seeing. Atsushi Aoki vs. Yoshinari Ogawa ended up being a really good psychological affair. Ogawa dominated Aoki for a good portion of the match, which was to be expected, but didn’t do it with strength. It was a great example of intelligence on Ogawa’s part that forced Aoki to adapt. Very early on Ogawa worked over the leg, which forced Aoki to rely more on mat wrestling that his flashier moves. He tried instead to work over Ogawa’s arm to set up for his cross-arm breaker submission, but experience won out in the end. I liked it for the change of pace. Mostly, Aoki’s trial series has been about him getting his shit kicked in by bigger guys and hard hitters. This was a nice change of pace, though I’ll admit that I haven’t yet seen his match with Bryan Danielson, which could have gone the same way as the Ogawa match with Aoki being tied in knots. Or he could have gotten his fucking head kicking in.

Kenta Kobashi & KENTA vs. Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima was an amazing spectacle if nothing else. KENTA and Nakajima brought the fire of the younger generation while Kobashi and Sasaki knocked each other around. They repeated their dueling chop battle from their singles match back in 2005. It’s funny that the chop-fest can come off boring to some fans, but the live crowd eats it up. Kobashi vs. Sasaki is one of those match-ups that radiates heat in Japan just by virtue of it being Kobashi vs. Sasaki. Because they spit hot fire. The match was great and went from bell to bell. Some people hate that kind of finish, but in some cases it works perfectly for puro. You get a full, exciting match with the potential for even more in the future. It works really well with tag team matches like this one. Case in point, we didn’t get a decisive finish for this match, but we know there’s more to come. Following this match KENTA and Nakajima continued to beat on each other after the match, resulting in officials having to get in between them. Odds of Nakajima getting a partner from the Kensuke Office going after KENTA & Taiji Ishimori’s GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team belts: very high. I’d love to see more from those two, especially since Nakajima busted out the greatest counter to the Go2Sleep ever as he somehow caught the knee as he was coming down and rolled it into an ankle lock.

Last but not least was Takeshi Morishima vs. Takashi Sugiura for the GHC Heavyweight Championship. Let me just say right off the bat that, Sugiura really is trying to become the Japanese Kurt Angle. He’s been using moves like the Olympic Slam and ankle lock for awhile, but from my own observations and despite his move set, the way he carried himself reminding me more of a Dean Malenko than a Kurt Angle. I can no longer live in this dream world as Sugiura decided that for this match he was going to wear trunks similar to those Angle wore in the Lockdown main even against Samoa Joe. Damn is all I can say to that. On the plus side of things, the match came off really strong to me and the crowd liked it as well. Both guys looked real strong throughout it and Morishima’s power won the day. Sugiura fought like a heavyweight and I think it’s safe to safe that his status as a junior is well behind him at this point. He threw everything he had at Morishima, but in the end he got flattened. Literally, he was actually flattened when Morishima decided to bust out the MORISAULT at the end of the match. Quite an impressive feat, but it looked like he barely got the full rotation on the moonsault as he landed it wrong. One Backdrop Driver later Sugiura was done. A good match as it got over Sugiura. He pulled out all the stops to the point where Morishima had to do something completely unexpected to finish him off. I’m fine with Morishima doing the moonsault for big matches, provided he can get it right. Big men doing the move is always impressive, but Morishima’s got a long way to go before it looks decent. Where’s Vader? Sure, he’s pretty much retired at this point, but if they could get someone like him to give Morishima some pointers on a big man moonsault, it could really be beneficial in the long run.

NOAH will be looking toward it’s Summer Navigation which will be kicking off next Sunday. The Northern Navigation had a lot of big matches lined up, but the Summer Navigation is looking to blow that out of the water. For starters, when the tour kicks off in Tokyo, the Korakuen show will be headlined by an 8-man tag match pitting Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Davey Richards, Atsushi Aoki & Genba Hirayanagi against KENTA, Taiji Ishimori, Kotaro Suzuki, & Ricky Marvin. The match has the added stipulation of being a 2/3 Falls Match. Nothing is at stake yet, but the nature of the match could potentially set up future challengers for KENTA & Ishimori and Kanemaru’s GHC Jr. Heavyweight title.

Later down the tour, the GHC Hardcore belt will be on the line with typical weird stipulations surrounding it. The match will be Kishin Kawabata & Kentaro Shiga vs. Genba Hirayanagi & the ever dangerous To Be Announced. Kawabata & Shiga had a great 2007 as champions when the GHC Hardcore belt was a tag title, but Kawabata dethroned his partner in a singles match to become the sole champion. From the looks of things, this is going to work under a system where whoever wins the fall wins the belt. Hirayanagi has been on a mission to get the title away from Kawabata, but his unknown partner could either be a hindrance or a help. On the same show Katsuhiko Nakajima will face Jun Akiyama in what is sure to be a match where Nakajima gets smacked around quite a bit. Nakajima is also set to take on Mitsuharu Misawa on this tour just to drive home the point about jumping NOAH stars post-match apparently.

Fresh off the heels of his first title defense, Takeshi Morishima is going to be facing his toughest challenge to date. He has two big singles matches coming on back-to-back shows that are going to be huge tests for him. First, he’ll be going one-on-one with Kensuke Sasaki and then on the next show at the Budokan he’ll be defending his title against the red hot Takeshi Rikio. It’ll be a damn tough two shows for Morishima, but if he can pull it off it will be a huge deal for him.

ROH Back to Japan
Ring of Honor announced this week their intentions to return to Japan for this fall. As an attendee of their previous Tokyo show, I find this to be a great move on ROH’s part. That show was really good, and despite some hiccups it was top to bottom a great card. I wish I was still in Japan to hit up both of these shows, however time and money don’t seem to align correctly for me to pull that off. Plus over there good tickets go for about 70 bucks a pop. Sure it’s not bad when converted to yen, but Differ Ariake ain’t a cheap venue. Korakuen might be cheaper, but I think they’d have a harder time filling it. Even though other Japanese indy promotions manage to draw well there. If they got the press going on it fast and made both shows out to be a huge deal and got the right combination of stars, they probably could fill Korakuen Hall pretty well.

Doing both shows in Tokyo is probably the best idea for them too. The Tokyo crowd was going nuts for the event I was at, thanks in large part I believe in ROH succeeding in bringing in a younger set of fans. There were a whole lot more high school aged fans there than I’d seen at NOAH events which seemed to mostly draw older fans and ring rats. I don’t know what it is that got the young people so hyped up for Ring of Honor that day, but it was good to see. Maybe perhaps the kids these days are looking for something new and ROH fit that for them. Or maybe because it was a holiday and they enjoy pro wrestling in general. Either way, the Tokyo show was packed and they should be able to do that again. With NOAH backing the shows there shouldn’t be any real problems with that.

At Home
Since I did my share of yakking about Raw and ECW on the podcast, I don’t have to do it here! Though I wish I could, because Impact and Smackdown weren’t quite as good this week. Not to say Impact was a bad show, but they set the bar pretty high after last week so a little bit of a letdown is inevitable. The highlight of the show for me was Awesome Kong being taken to the limit by Shantelle Taylor in the $25,000 Challenge Match. You know she’s going to become a regular after a performance like that. You don’t go that strong against Kong and not get more TV time. The biggest thing I didn’t like about the show was that it just seemed like they used every possible moment to say “Pink Taco.” Haha vagina, yes Pink Taco we get it. No one loves immature humor more than me, but that was downright stretching it. Plus, it didn’t help that the Pink Taco itself was just the same garage area that they use for every taped segment. And while I still object to Davari being Team International’s captain based on the fact that despite his WWE tenure he hasn’t done much to make me think he’s worthy of captaining a crack team of international wrestlers, he did well this Thursday with Tyson Dux. I’m loving the World X-Cup so far and I can’t wait to see Team Mexico in action. The only thing I’d like to see different with this whole thing is I really wish TNA didn’t play so hard into xenophobia. Davari still doing his same old shtick is part of that. The “oriental” music for Team Japan cuts me deep since I spent four years in college studying about how all the oriental stuff is old and doesn’t even apply any more. Let’s hope Team Mexico doesn’t come out to Mexican Hat Dance or something. Even despite my objections, I’m not going to let that stop my enjoyment of some potentially great matches.

As for Smackdown… well reading the reports on 411 I got a real kick out of people in the comments claiming they hate Vickie Guerrero for all the reasons that they’re supposed to hate her. It’s great because that’s exactly how they’re supposed to react and even though there’s people out there who will swear up and down that it’s not because of how the story turns out. These people are silly. Vickie Guerrero is the best heel on TV right now. She gets very real heat just for going out and saying “excuse me.” We’ve finally got a heel that the IWC is willing to actually hate, rather than sit back and give kudos for awesome heel work. I realize there’s a measure of hypocrisy in what I just said, but I too hate Vickie Guerrero. Hell, she’s such a huge heel right now she might even push MVP face if this contract dispute thing keeps going. Turning heel is about the only thing left for him to do on Smackdown. If ECW wasn’t moving its tapings to Raw, the best thing I could think of would have been Teddy Long drafting MVP (who gave him his big time contract in the first place) then using the ECW brand as a staging ground to “liberate” Smackdown from Vickie. The only problem is finding star power on ECW. Though CM Punk is Mr. Money in the Bank. We also finally saw the end of Deuce & Domino this week too. If either of them move on past the gimmick to have great careers I think we can award them the Deacon Batista Award for Achievement in Surviving Silly Gimmicks. Honestly though, the timing of this around the draft screams that Deuce might end up being a part of that much coveted 2nd Generation Stable the Internets is clamoring for.

Short Takes
-Much kudos for the idea of Elijah Burke getting a new gimmick. Has anyone made a Blackula reference yet? I hope I’m the first. I’ll give whoever came up with this some real props, because it’s something you’d never expect from Burke. And it’s better than everyone else’s idea which was “HAY LET’S PUT HIM IN A STABLE WITH OTHER BLACK WRESTLERS.”

-Matt Striker bulked up since the last time he made TV.

-Kozlov really looked like he fucked up Jamie Noble this week with that head butt. I dig the physical style, but dude, don’t go hurting people. The more I see of Kozlov, the more potential I see, but I have no idea how they’re going to bring it out. Hey, if Mike Knox can start losing some of the cookie cutter big man-style of the WWE there’s no reason Kozlov shouldn’t.