Tim’s Take 11.04.08: Going Broadway

That was until the United States saw a couple of 60-minute draws that renewed faith in how wrestling could be presented, as two of the best wrestlers on the indy circuit wowed audiences with two separate one-hour draws that brought out the best in professional wrestling, as for a time, Samoa Joe and CM Punk were quite possibly the best wrestlers going at that time. Their second draw was given the highest honor the Internet community could bestow: A ***** rating from Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer. It was quite possibly the best match that Ring of Honor ever put on, and it put Joe and Punk on the map just in case anyone had never heard of them.

From there, the idea of a straight up 60-minute draw has been revisited many a time, most notably with the 4-Crown unification bout between Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan in Japan, generation rivals that were one of the best tag teams ever earlier in the 2000s, but had gone their separate ways after Keiji Mutoh decided to go to All Japan in 2002, and Kojima followed while Tenzan stayed behind. They hooked up in a match that looked like it would go 60 minutes, but instead during a 10 count near the end of the match, Tenzan couldn’t answer the bell, with the match time ending at 59:55, one of the only times where a match destined to go Broadway eeked it out at the end. It was interesting, to say the least.

There have been other matches like that since, but only last week, KENTA and Naomichi Marufuji got together for a Double Title match, as Marufuji had just won All Japan’s Jr. Heavyweight title. NOAH booked themselves into a corner when they made that Marufuji’s first title defense in NOAH against their champion, but neither side was willing to have their man lose. Marufuji was a former GHC Heavyweight champion, meaning if KENTA wins, all of a sudden, the AJPW Jr. Heavyweight title is valued more than the GHC Heavyweight championship (which, ironically, it just might be at this point), but if Marufuji wins, then all of a sudden, NOAH looks weak for jobbing out their champion to someone with a title from another company. Therefore, they decided to go Broadway.

There had been 30-minute draws in NOAH before plenty of times. They had been 60-minute matches before as well, what with the numerous multi-man tag matches and survival matches, but this had been the rare time where there was a chance to go Broadway. So they did, but what people ended up talking more about wasn’t the fact that they did go 60, but why they went 60. Entirely different, indeed.

Joe and Punk went 60 because a) they could, and b) because they wanted to. Joe had been such a hot commodity and Punk had wanted to be where Joe was, so they decided to go 60 because it would allow the ROH fans to see them as equals, generation rivals worthy of putting on a good match that would resonate with the fans.

This is where you can definitely make a comparison to Flair/Steamboat. It was a trio of matches that showed how well the two worked with each other, and it was brought on upon itself because Joe had dominated ROH so thoroughly. Joe needed a credible challenger, so Punk was suggested. From there, it was history. Punk got three matches to show how good he was and that he could go the distance (he did go 93 minutes with Chris Hero in an IWA-MS match) and Joe got to show how amazing he was as an ace. That led to ROH being THE place to be. You saw Bryan Danielson and Austin Aries go almost an hour and a half that summer, as well, and while that was a great match, it didn’t mean as much in the long run outside of what we knew going in: Aries and Danielson are great wrestlers.

In Marufuji and KENTA’s case, it was used a lot like the 60 minute draws that were used in the 70s and 80s so that nobody lost face. It didn’t really do much outside of showing that they were equals, but we knew they were equals going in! They had traded back so many wins back and forth over the years that it was easy to see what type of match this would be going in, and they just did what they could for 60 minutes. I personally think that for a 60 minute match, they did fine. It wasn’t what people would expect for 60 minutes, but it was fine nonetheless.

WWE got into the act with a one-hour match between Shawn Michaels and John Cena last year that blew up England and got everyone into a frenzy. It was Broadway on free TV. Once again, it proved that Michaels still had it and that Cena could go for 60. It allowed the fans to see Cena in a different light, even if he did lose. It kept both guys near the top, but it moved their characters in a different direction and kept them strong.

Broadways as stalemates don’t work as well as Broadways that go the full distance to show character growth. As someone who praised KENTA and Marufuji for doing all they could to go 60, in the end, it didn’t mean much. Broadways now-a-days are certainly special thanks to the ADD fan of today, and while ROH is a place where a true 60-minute match is the first place to be appreciated, I don’t expect too much out of them unless the match is used to make both guys mean something in the end.

Broadway is a lost art. Guys like Flair, Steamboat, Race, Jumbo Tsuruta…these guys were artists when it came to going the distance. Bryan Danielson is probably the only guy right now who could do 60 and get away with it, and it’s only after watching KENTA/Marufuji and recounting some of the great Broadway matches in history do I realize that in order to do it right, you have to make it mean something.

The next time two wrestlers decide to go Broadway more than just for the sake of going Broadway, let me know. I’ll be more than willing to watch.