The Burning Hammer Newsletter: KENTA Injury, Jr. League Results

Pro Wrestling NOAH

Saying that it hasn’t been a good year for NOAH is like saying that RAW’s writing is stale. While true, it’s an obvious understatement. And the year only gets worse for the Emerald group. To recap:

March 16: Co-Jr. Ace and former GHC Heavyweight Champion Naomichi Marufuji blows out an ACL during a match on a card that he was promoting himself (this is commonplace in Japan, as New Japan’s Masahiro Chono, All Japan’s Satoshi Kojima, and Dragon Gate’s Masaaki Mochizuki all promote their own cards from time to time). Marufuji has yet to return, and likely won’t until December.

June 13: Founder and all-time great Mitsuharu Misawa dies in the ring after a belly-to-back suplex.

October 28: Co-Jr. Ace KENTA blows out an ACL vs. Kotaro Suzuki in a Jr. League match. He will miss 6-9 months, and has vacated the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title.

KENTA is out for some time (image credit: Pro Wrestling NOAH)

What does this mean for NOAH? Other than losing both their best in-ring performer, a wrestler who can draw, and greatly damaging the depth of their Jr. Heavyweight division?

It means that the finals of the Jr. League will now double as the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title decision match, as in the winner will win both the Jr. League, and the Jr. Title.

And…what does this mean for your’s truly?

Well…on October 26, I bought two 5th row seats for myself and a friend to go see the Ring of Honor show just outside of Toronto, ON, on November 14. My friend is not a wrestling fan, however, I convinced him that he would enjoy the show by telling him about the athletic nature of it, the comedy that Delirious and Colt Cabana would be bringing to the table, and of course, KENTA.

So now KENTA won’t be there. And now I’m pissed.

*UPDATE* When KENTA first went down, I was, as you could tell here, devastated. He is my favourite Jr. wrestler in the world, and right up there with Kobashi and Mutoh in my favourite wrestlers period. However, when he did go down, there was one name that came to mind that I thought would be the perfect replacement for him, as close as they could get to an equal.

Ring of Honor, thank you for reading my mind.

Kensuke Office’s Katsuhiko Nakajima, aka my boy Naja, will be replacing KENTA on the cards he was supposed to wrestle on. For me personally, this means that I will now get Naja vs. El Generico. I’ve only seen a few of EG’s matches, though I hear he’s a damn good wrestler, so let’s hope that’s the case, and these guys deliver. Regardless, Naja is one of the best in the world today (*coughTWD50cough*), and I’m ecstatic to get the chance to see him live.

Saving the show for the Puro Dude, Mr. Nakajima (image credit: Kensuke Office)

So let’s bring it back to the Jr. tournament.

The four semi-finalists were Nakajima (who I originally had pegged as most likely to win), Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Jushin “Thunder” Liger, and a surprising Delirious, whose insanity brought great joy to the Japanese crowds (of course it did, the guy is awesome). Three of these four men are former GHC Jr. Heavyweight Champions, so which one would be victorious?

NOAH, 10/31/09 (G+)
Tokyo JCB Hall
2,900 Fans (No Vacancy)

1. Taiji Ishimori, Ricky Marvin, Atsushi Aoki & Akihiko Ito beat Yoshinari Ogawa, Kentaro Shiga, Makoto Hashi & Genba Hirayanagi (13:20) when Ito pinned Hirayanagi
2. Junior Heavyweight League – Semi Final: Yoshinobu Kanemaru beat Katsuhiko Nakajima (10:17) with a rolling front cradle.
3. Junior Heavyweight League – Semi Final: Jushin Thunder Liger beat Delirious (10:45) via pinfall
4. Mohammed Yone & Shuhei Taniguchi beat Junji Izumida & Kishin Kawabata (10:08) when Taniguchi used a German Suplex hold on Izumida.
5. Takashi Sugiura beat Tamon Honda (9:29) via referee stop (front necklock).
6. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama beat Yoshihiro Takayama & Keith Walker (3:55) when Kobashi used a short-arm lariat on Walker.
7. Go Shiozaki, Akira Taue & Akitoshi Saito beat Kensuke Sasaki, Takeshi Morishima & Takashi Okita (17:08) when Shiozaki used a lariat on Okita.
8. Junior Heavyweight League Final & GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title Decision Match: Yoshinobu Kanemaru beat Jushin Thunder Liger (18:53) with the Touch Out to become the 19th champion.

So the winner of the inaugural NOAH Jr. Heavyweight Tournament, and the GHC Jr. Title is former Jr. Ace Yoshinobu Kanemaru, which means that NOAH is looking to the past to ensure their present.

The new champ, Kanemaru (image credit: Pro Wrestling NOAH)

Kanemaru was the ace of the division from 2001, when it was first formally introduced, until 2005, when KENTA defeated him in the Tokyo Dome to win his first GHC Jr. Title.

Once Kanemaru started being booked below KENTA and Marufuji (and rightfully so), his work took a step back. He could still do all the things he used to, but his matches lacked that spark, that fire that KENTA’s matches always supply, and the creativity that Marufuji’s matches have. Basically, Kanemaru stopped caring.

While not on the level of New Japan’s resident mailman Tiger Mask IV, Kanemaru’s matches were boring, and I dreaded watching them. Only with the June passing of Mitsuharu Misawa, has Kanemaru again stepped up his work, and as such his matches have become more palatable.

Kanemaru’s match in the Jr. League vs. fellow stablemate Genba Hirayanagi for example, was a lot of fun. Both played up the fact that they are heels who, because they are in the same faction, were wrestling fairly, at least to start.

Predictably, Genba started heeling Kanemaru, who being the leader of the faction, was able to one-up his young charge. The result of was highly entertaining bout that I can’t give all the credit to Genba for, as would have been the case six months ago.

With all of that being said, I can’t say that I like the booking here one bit. NOAH decided to not use the tourney to push Atsushi Aoki, who had gotten a GHC Jr. Title shot on September 21 vs KENTA. That’s fine, he had just had his moment, let someone else.

The time was perfect for Nakajima to take over as Ace. The fact that he’s a Kensuke Office member means nothing, as KO works every match on every NOAH tour (huge props to Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto for their help in stabilizing NOAH after Misawa’s passing, both in their continued presence in NOAH, and in Sasaki’s workrate shooting up huge since June).

Nakajima is over with the NOAH fans. He’s proven himself to them by having two very good-to-excellent matches with KENTA in February and March of this year, especially 3/1, which is solidly in my Top-5 MOTYC for 2009.

Naja already has a GHC Jr. Title reign under his belt (defeating KENTA on 2/11 this year, before losing it back on 3/1), and is so obviously ready to lead the division.  While Marufuji should be back either on the December or January tours, unless Kanemaru was given the title to drop it back to Naja in the rematch on a big December card, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, as Marufuji wont be ready to carry the division the moment he comes back.

Other notable news coming from the tour…

• Liger won three matches during the tour – both tourney and non – using the super old-school Lou Thesz Press (sans punches, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin added those in himself).
• Sugiura vs. Honda from 10/31 was apparently an excellent Halloween treat. Then again, of course it was, Big Boss Sugi pisses excellence.
• Kenta Kobashi, who continues to look good in the ring despite his destroyed knees, successfully defended the GHC Hardcore Title (again, it’s not “hardcore” in the way that North Americans use the term), defeating gaijin Keith Walker on October 28 in 13:59 with a short-arm lariat that would’ve made JBL cringe.
• Nakajima and Suzuki had a very good 30:00 draw on 10/15 that actually went 30:01 – I timed it myself, haha. The bout ended as Suzuki, a disciple of Misawa, hit Misawa’s dreaded Tiger Driver ’91, folding Naja like a worn out accordion. Less than one second after Naja hit the canvas, the bell rang to end the match. Even though they were a half-second off, that’s a helluva way to time out and end a 30 minute broadway. Go out of your way to see this match. It was well-paced (yet another example of why Naja should hold the GHC Jr. Title right now: carrying spot machine Suzuki to a well-paced broadway); it had a great finishing stretch incorporating a few different – and surprising – styles; and while the TD ’91 is worth finding it for alone, Naja hits what can only be described as a U-Turn German Suplex that sees Suzuki go up very high, and come down very hard. The look on both mens’ faces after Suzuki kicked out, especially Naja’s: priceless.
• Shuhei Taniguchi’s never-ending trial series, that I believe has been going on since 2007, continued on October 24. Taniguchi lost to Kenta Kobashi in 11:17, another victim of the short-arm lariat. I will say that Taniguchi has improved by leaps and bounds this year, easily NOAH’s most improved worker. His constant attacking of Kobashi during the 8-man on 10/15 was almost as fun as Akiyama and Sugiura decimating one another.
• Speaking of which, Sugiura called out Shiozaki after said 8-man, and looks like the next challenger for Go’s GHC Heavyweight Title (I’ll rant about that another day).

Random News

HUSTLE appears to be finished. Dave Meltzer reported this to be the case as all of their shows leading up to HUSTLEMANIA on 12/25 (yes, Christmas) were cancelled, including one show that was to be the day after the press conference where this was announced. Funny “You know you’re screwed when…” note: when it was announced at Sumo Hall that HUSTLEMANIA would be running on Christmas Day, the crowd booed. Ya, that’s not good.

Apparently, HUSTLE is behind on paying wrestlers (and let me tell you, MUGNUM will not stand for that!). This would explain Toshiaki Kawada’s sojourn into ZERO1. Hopefully, it also means Kawada in NOAH 4-6 times a year…and hopefully it means one more Kobashi vs Kawada match.

THE SUPER J-CUP IS BACK!

In more shocking, and for my money much bigger news, New Japan announced that they will be hosting the return of the Super J-Cup Tournament. The tournament, which in the past has done both single and multi-day formats, will smartly take place over two days, December 22 and 23.

So why am I writing about this if the esteemed Mr. LeBlanc covers New Japan? Because the Super J-Cup is a tournament that encompasses all of Japan. The tournament will see either 8 or 16 wrestlers from multiple companies come together in a political minefield, which it will be up to Jushin “Thunder” Liger, a former J-Cup Champion and surely the booker of the event, to successfully handle.

So for kicks, let’s make it 16 wrestlers, because anyone familiar with the original Super J-Cups will know how much fun it is to have a plethora of wrestlers in the tourney. Here are the 16 wrestlers I would have in my all-star version of the 2009 Super J-Cup (Note: KENTA would have been the first if not for his knee injury.):

• Jushin “Thunder” Liger (If you don’t know where he’s from by now, go watch RAW)
• Prince Devitt (NJ)
• Katsuhiko Nakajima (KO/NOAH)
• Kota Ibushi (DDT)
• Kaz Hayashi (AJ)
• Yamato (DG)
• Masato Yoshino (DG)
• Shuji Kondo (AJ)
• Alex Shelley (TNA/NJ)
• Naomichi Marufuji (NOAH – if healthy)
• Pac (DG)
• Genba Hirayanagi (NOAH)
• BxB Hulk (DG)
• Minoru (AJ)
• Billy Ken Kid (Osaka Pro)
• Taiji Ishimori (NOAH)

Will all of these guys be in here? Absolutely not. Seeing as this is a political minefield, many of these guys will not be sent simply to job in the first round. From this list, I can only see Genba, BKK, and maybe Ishimori jobbing in the first round, though I can’t see NOAH wanting to send 25 percent of the jobbers for the tourney’s opening round. To that end, you could see non-main streamers like Hayato Jr. Fujita, Munenori Sawa, or even The Great Sasuke, who could come in to put someone like a Prince Devitt over in the opening round (dueling topé suicidias, anyone?). You could also see Hidaka from ZERO1, or up-and-coming walking spot fest KAI from All Japan come in (KAI losing in the first round but at least being in the tournament makes a lot of sense).

Honestly, I would lose my mind if former Kaientai DX member (and former WWF’er) Men’s TEIOH were in the tournament. To this day, TEIOH is one of the most technically proficient wrestlers in Japan, and his matches are just gloriously fun. Come to think of it, why didn’t I pimp him for the TWD 50, coming in one week? Not to mention, he could lose in the first round and there would no problem there.

Okay let’s try this list one more time, and this time make it more realistic:

• Jushin “Thunder” Liger
• Prince Devitt
• Katsuhiko Nakajima
• Kota Ibushi
• Masato Yoshino
• Genba Hirayanagi
• BxB Hulk
• Alex Shelley
• Naomichi Marufuji (if injured: The Great Sasuke)
• Billy Ken Kid
• Men’s TEIOH (BJPW)
• KAI (AJ)
• Takashi Okita (KO/NOAH: another guilty pleasure of mine; Okita vs Yoshino in the first round would be…amazeballs.)
• Munenori Sawa (BattlArts)
• Hayato Jr. Fujita (Michinoku Pro)
• Ikuto Hidaka (Z1)

Okay, with this list, you have 8 obvious guys who can make it out of the first round, which of course means an upset will happen. I would definitely have…

Actually let’s save that for a discussion that I plan on having with Mr. LeBlanc, for all of you to enjoy of course!

Remember folks, TWD 50 in one week!