The Revolution Will Be Strong Style: G1 Tag League Finals, Destruction ‘09

Ladies and gentlemen, hoi polloi and elites, TWDiehards across the globe, welcome to the continuation of a revolution that is single handedly re-weaving (and single handed weaving takes some serious skill) the fabric that holds together the flimsy American media that was inadequately covering professional wrestling here in the States.

The Wrestling Daily is taking over and saving the world from ratty wrestling websites that can’t even be bothered to proofread their own articles and check their sources for legitimacy and accuracy. They would just as soon lie to you in order to get you to read their material and contribute to the intellectual decay of society, rather than be the legitimate source of the news and analysis they claim to be.  The Wrestling Daily isn’t in the business of fraudulent kayfabe; we’re in the business of pro wrestling journalism.

Many pro wrestling fans across the globe choose to live on a steady diet of show ruining spoilers, generic result recaps and juicy rumors created by booger eating mouth breathers from the safety of their porno spambot infested laptops while slamming down greasy cheese sticks drowning in cheap marinara sauce at a local Denny’s.

You people deserve better than to be subjected to the whimsical, Bakugan burned imaginations of ring rats who’d like you to believe that they are insiders (or people who know insiders) who know the business.  In reality, these “insiders” can’t even tell the difference between a legitimate or fraudulent Myspace profile.  You deserve to read coverage from people you know you can trust to get it right.

We want TWD readers to be the most well informed fans in the world; we want being a TWD reader to be the equivalent of having a degree from Stanford.  You will be dealing with facts in your pro wrestling debates with your friends, while others will be working with the latest fabricated gossip and fraudulent interviews from some delirious and self aggrandizing eighth witted Joe Schmo on the Internet.

We hold these truths to be self evident; all wrestling news sites are created equal, but only The Wrestling Daily is leading a revolution, and that revolution WILL be strong style.  You won’t find Puro coverage like this ANYWHERE on the net, as myself and the Puro Dude are dedicated to keeping all of you well informed about what’s going on across the left pond.

Enough foreplay; we all just need to come to grips with reality, and here to confirm that reality, thanks to the power of the TWD Time Machine purchased by Ray Bogusz after being granted generous funding by our fearless, generous and ludicrously rich leader, Mike Bessler, is post American Revolutionary War aristocrat and little known Samuel Adams administrative assistant Tolstoy W. Deetrick:

Well that pretty much settles it.  If Puro is good enough for my founding fathers and their assistants, it’s good enough for me.

LET THERE BE PURO!

G1 Tag League

When last we spoke, New Japan was in the midst of its annual G1 Tag League tournament.  The concluding stages of the G1 Tag League tournament kicked off on October 31 in Yokkaichi, Japan with three critical matches that each played a role in determining who would qualify for the semifinal round the following evening at Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall.

Just to jog all of your memories, here’s a look at the standings heading into the G1 Tag League finale and the scenarios discussed in the last RWBSS:

Block A
1. Shinsuke Nakamura & Toru Yano [6 points]
2. Yuji Nagata & Wataru Inoue [4 points]
- Manabu Nakanishi & Takao Omori [4 points]
- Masato Tanaka & Tomohiro Ishii [4 points] ELIMINATED
5. Hirooki Goto & Kazuchika Okada [0 points] ELIMINATED

Block B
1. Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson [6 points]
2. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma [4 points]
3. Masahiro Chono & AKIRA [2 points] ELIMINATED
- Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt [2 points]
- Jado & Gedo [2 points] ELIMINATED

Block A Scenarios

• If Nagata & Inoue defeat Nakanishi & Omori, Nagata & Inoue qualify for the semifinals and win the block by virtue of their victory over Nakamura & Yano, who they would be tied with at 6 points.
• If Nakanishi & Omori defeat Nagata & Inoue, Nakanishi & Omori qualify for the semifinals and would finish second in the block by virtue of the loss to Nakamura & Yano, who they would be tied with at 6 points.

Block B Scenarios

• If Bernard & Anderson defeat Makabe & Honma, Bernard & Anderson win block A outright.
• If Makabe & Honma defeat Bernard & Anderson, Makabe & Honma will win a tiebreaker with Bernard & Anderson by virtue of their victory over Bernard & Anderson.
• If Taguchi & Devitt defeat Chono & AKIRA, they could advance to the semis if and only if Bernard & Anderson defeat Makabe & Honma.  If Makabe & Honma tie or defeat Bernard & Anderson, Devitt & Taguchi are eliminated.  Taguchi & Devitt would be tied with Makabe & Honma (4 points) if they defeat Chono & AKIRA and Makabe & Honma lose.  By virtue of their earlier victory over Makabe & Honma, Taguchi & Devitt would advance to the semis.

The G1 action kicked off with Apollo 55 putting themselves in position to qualify for the semifinals by scoring a huge victory over the team known simply as “The Masters,” Chono and AKIRA.  The match was an unspectacular yet hard fought contest that witnessed Apollo 55 utilize their speed and athleticism to stay a step ahead of the slower footed team of puro longtooths.

Ryosuke Taguchi, aka “The Funky Weapon” (which might be one of the greatest nicknames of all time) pinned AKIRA to pick up the victory for his team after hitting the Dodon, a tiger suplex lift into a front face short power bomb.  With the victory, the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions staved off elimination, but only for the time being.

Having earned the two points needed to at least have a chance to advance to the semifinals, Apollo 55 needed the Bad Intentions team of Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson to defeat Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma to advance to the finals.  Given that Tomoaki “Epic Fail” Honma was involved, I can’t imagine that Devitt & Taguchi were really all that concerned that it would end badly for them.  Even if they were nervous, they didn’t have to wait long to learn their G1 Tag League fate, as the Bad Intentions match went on right after the Apollo 55 match.

I sometimes wonder why the hell Makabe keeps Honma around.  I realize that it’s all part of Makabe’s “face” turn (Don’t ever let Makabe hear you call him a face; Makabe vehemently claims that he above trite protagonist-antagonist labels and detests being placed into template matches pitting baby faces against heels) and that Makabe & Honma are polar opposites that are hilarious together, but how much longer can Makabe realistically be expected to continue teaming with a guy who clearly holds him back?  After a while, fans will stop buying into the act, if they haven’t started already.

So what of the match?  Several things became painfully apparent as I watched this match.  First, Bernard yells entirely too much during a match.  Seriously, it gets annoying after a few minutes.  Everything Bernard does, for some reason, requires a grating growl that reminds me of the average professional women’s tennis match.  I thank you for being an effective big man, Mr. Bernard, but would you please shut the hell up?  I get sick of having to explain to my wife why I’m listening to large, angry animals growling on my computer.

Second, I think it’s sick how much I really enjoy watching Tomoaki Honma get his ass kicked.  I don’t believe that anyone in the business can take a beating and make it look convincing quite like Honma can.

Honma spends so much time lying on New Japan canvases that they should actually consider painting an outline of his body on the mat.  When Honma sells a beating, I’m reminded of the “10″ face on a pain scale at a doctor’s office.

Still, even when it comes to the pain scale, I manage to feel awful for the “10″ face.  Seeing 10’s level of pain really makes me feel bad and tugs at my heart strings.  When I see Honma take a beating, I’m always compelled to smile, clap, or laugh, and sometimes all three at the same time.

Lastly, Honma’s raspy voice does not match his physical appearance on the same level that Bobby Lashley’s voice does not match his physical appearance. I, for one, believe it would be awesome if the two men swapped voices for a week.  There are times that Honma sounds as if he swallows lit cigarettes whole.  Lashley, on the other hand, sounds like an effeminate 16 year old teenage boy.  Perhaps TNA could sign Honma to be Lashley’s voice over specialist. Imagine that: a Japanese man dubbing over an American for a change.  It would be sort of ironic, given that Lashley does at times resemble Godzilla.

Honma brought some serious fighting spirit to this contest, but unfortunately the…ahem…magic of Honma was killed by Bernard & Anderson when they destroyed Honma with a Magic Killer to win the match.  Bernard let out one of his drunken polar bear screams as the referee’s hand slapped the mat for the three count.  With the victory, Bad Intentions clinched block B and eliminated Makabe and Honma from the tournament, giving the other spot in the semis to Apollo 55.  Here now, is the footage of the Apollo 55 celebration.

In block A action, Nakanishi & Omori shocked Nagata & Inoue after Nakanishi put down Inoue with a Hercules Cutter after roughly 17 minutes of action.

Inoue was more than up to the challenge of taking on the much larger Nakanishi & Omori.  Inoue is steadily getting more and more offense each and every time out against the heavyweights, and tonight was no exception.  Inoue even frantically begged Nagata to tag him at a crucial juncture late in the match.  Nagata would come to pay for making that decision though, as Inoue, with as much fighting spirit as he showed in this contest, still took the pinball loss for his team.

Following the match, Nagata wasn’t a happy camper and neither was Inoue.  Being the teacher, Nagata gave Inoue a stern tongue lashing that more or less ended after Nagata slapped Inoue in the face in an attempt to generate some spirit within Inoue.

NJPW, 10/31/09
Yokkaichi City Gymnasium
2,300 Fans

1. Koji Kanemoto d. Nobuo Yoshihashi (8:06) with a crab hold.
2. Takashi Iizuka & Tomohiro Ishii d. Super Strong Machine & Mitsuhide Hirasawa (13:00) when Ishii used a brain buster on Hirasawa.
3. G1 Tag League – Block B: Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt [4 points] d. Masahiro Chono & AKIRA [2 points] (12:59) when Taguchi used the Dodon on AKIRA.
4. G1 Tag League – Block B: Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson [8 points] d. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma [4 points] (11:32) when Bernard pinned Honma after the Magic Killer.
5. G1 Tag League – Block A: Manabu Nakanishi & Takao Omori [6] d. Yuji Nagata & Wataru Inoue [4 points] (17:07) when Nakanishi used the Hercules Cutter on Inoue.
6. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hirooki Goto, Tiger Mask & Kazuchika Okada d. Shinsuke Nakamura, Toru Yano, Jado & Gedo (16:29) when Tanahashi used the High Fly Flow on Gedo.

Final 2009 G1 Tag League Round Robin Standings

Block A
1. Shinsuke Nakamura & Toru Yano [6 points]  ADVANCES TO SEMIS
2. Manabu Nakanishi & Takao Omori [6 points] ADVANCES TO SEMIS
3. Masato Tanaka & Tomohiro Ishii [4 points] ELIMINATED
4. Yuji Nagata & Wataru Inoue [4 points] ELIMINATED
5. Hirooki Goto & Kazuchika Okada [0 points] ELIMINATED

Block B
1. Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson [8 points] ADVANCES TO SEMIS
2. Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt [4 points] ADVANCES TO SEMIS
3. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma [4 points] ELIMINATED
4. Masahiro Chono & AKIRA [2 points] ELIMINATED
5. Jado & Gedo [2 points] ELIMINATED

The “Truth” tour moved to Korakuen Hall for the conclusion of the G1 Tag League.  The first semifinal bout of the evening pitted Bad Intentions against Wild Child in what sounds more like a rock off between two wannabe 80’s hair bands than an actual wrestling match.  Throw in KISS and Wasp, and we’ve got ourselves a kick ass four way tag team affair, or at the very least another lame attempt at duplicating Woodstock ’69.

The opening minutes of the match were rather hilarious.  Bernard and Nakanishi engaged in a shoulder blocking contest to see who could knock who down; neither man could get the job done.  Bernard was FURIOUS that he couldn’t manage to knock down Nakanishi.

Anderson, who saw that his partner was struggling to knock down the 280 pound bull known as Nakanishi, extended his hand and tagged out Bernard, letting him know that this was a job for the man they call “The Machine Gun.”  Keep in mind that Anderson is only 6 feet tall and 240 lbs, where Bernard is 6 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs over 330 lbs.  I’m guessing Anderson felt that a “Machine Gun” is more powerful than a Giant.

Anderson hit the ropes and darted toward Nakanishi faster than the speed of sound…and promptly bounced off of Nakanishi like a bullet off Superman and was sent flying to floor, much to the enjoyment of the fans in attendance.  Anderson rolled back into the ring and asked Bernard if he wanted to take another crack at Nakanishi; Bernard shook his head and told Anderson to get back in there.

Other than that, there was really nothing remarkable or notable about this contest. Anderson and Bernard took the match and a spot in the finals after Bad Intentions claimed their 5th victim of the tournament (Nakanishi) with the Magic Killer. The fans really weren’t into it all that much and it never seemed to get out of neutral.

Nakanishi & Omori don’t have much in the way of natural charisma, and Bernard & Anderson executed well, but what they executed just wasn’t what you expect to see in the semifinals of a major tournament.  The match reminded me more of something you would see on the under card of an average episode of Friday Night SmackDown.  I get that the winner had to wrestle twice in one night and that they have to pace themselves, but the match just didn’t feel like an important one when it should have.

The other semifinal match was between two teams that I hoped would be meeting in the finals, with Apollo 55 scoring the massive upset.  I have to say that this match just doesn’t belong in the semifinals and because it is in the semifinals, it feels so much less important than it actually should be.  I should feel excitement when I think about this match, but as I sat down to watch this contest, I felt disappointed, under whelmed, and lethargic.  That’s a sign of bad booking.

This match, simply put, was better than its semifinal counterpart.  Taguchi, Devitt, and Nakamura were their typical awesome selves.  Yano, who isn’t nearly the worker the other three are, held up his end of the bargain as the cheat to win heel that knows how to get the crowd to boo him.

The ending was very well done.  Devitt rolled up Yano with a sunset flip pin, but Nakamura darted in and shifted Yano’s weight so that Yano was pinning Devitt.  Taguchi ran in and double dropkicked Nakamura & Yano, returning Devitt to his original roll up position.  Taguchi quickly ran over and helped Devitt hold Yano down as Apollo 55 scored the pinball victory over Yano just as Nakamura turned around to try and break up the pin attempt.

Apollo 55 wouldn’t have long to celebrate, as in the main event later in the evening, the “Funky Weapon” and the British sensation found themselves in the G1 Tag League championship match against a team that they lost to earlier in the tournament, Bad Intentions.

New Japan really must love Karl Anderson.  Why do I say this, you ask?  Anderson, as I mentioned before, is known as the “Machine Gun.”  Part of his gimmick is that he acts like he’s loading a machine gun and then pretends to spray everyone in the room with gunfire.  While Anderson does this during his in ring introduction, New Japan actually plays a sound bite of machine gun fire, complete with the sound of a cocking gun.

Well hell, why stop there?  Fine sirs of New Japan management, if you are going to do this, you need to shell out the big bucks and do it right; it’s time to bring in Michael Winslow from the Police Academy movies to do the machine gun sound effect as he did in the movies.  Sometimes, in order to rake in the big bucks, you’ve got to spend the big bucks.

The championship match was a good one.  Both teams busted their asses to make this match great and it showed.  The fans were into this one from the get go and I like that Apollo 55 didn’t come off like a Cinderella team that was trying to steal a victory.  The obvious size advantage held by Bad Intentions didn’t overwhelm the booking of the match, and Apollo 55 were allowed to look like the champions that they are (since they hold the Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship).

As impressive as Apollo 55 looked, Bad Intentions was able to kill their magic.  Devitt became victim number 6 of the Magic Killer in the G1 Tag League, allowing Bad Intentions to pick up the victory.

After the match, Bad Intentions turned face somewhat, as Bernard grabbed a mic and tipped his hat to Apollo 55, putting them over as “tough sons of bitches.”  Bernard then declared that Bad Intentions were coming for Team 3D and their IWGP Tag Team Championships on November 8 at Destruction ’09 and promised to bring the belts back to New Japan.  I would be more excited if Apollo 55 were challenging for the belts and not Bad Intentions, but I have a feeling that Apollo 55 will be getting a shot at the “big” belts in the near future.

It’s time for the IWGP Tag Team Championship to be held by a team that regularly works in New Japan.  Team 3D’s reign isn’t really helping the company in any way, shape, or form.  I’m intrigued by New Japan’s choice to build up another gaijin team in the G1 Tag League to take down the gaijin tag team champions.  The arrangement that New Japan has with Team 3D (3D flies in every so often when they aren’t working in TNA to work for New Japan) is stunting the growth of tag teams in New Japan.  The belts need to be around more than they have been.  Invader angles are always fun, but Team 3D’s reign has run its course.  It’s time to move on.

After the show ended, the ever persistent and ultra relentless Takashi Iizuka (who happened to be disqualified during a tag team match between himself, his partner Tomohiro Ishii and Makabe and Honma) attacked the car of New Japan Pro Wrestling President Naoki Sugabayashi with a baseball bat.  In the car with Sugabayashi was none other than Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma.  Iizuka first obliterated Honma (like he needed a bat to do that) and then pulled Makabe out of the car after breaking a side window with his bat and bloodied Makabe until help arrived.  Glass reportedly got into the eyes of President Sugabayashi, who for some reason was in the driver’s seat driving his own car.  What the hell is the President doing driving his own car?   Come on New Japan.

All of this, of course, allowed New Japan to generate some heat for the upcoming chain match between Makabe and Iizuka on November 8 at Destruction ’09.  Destruction indeed.

NJPW, 11/1/09 (SXW)
Tokyo Korakuen Hall
1,900 Fans – No Vacancy

1. Tiger Mask d. Taichi (7:58) with a chickening face lock.
2. G1 Tag League – Semi Final: Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson d. Manabu Nakanishi & Takao Omori (11:31) when Bernard pinned Nakanishi after the Magic Killer.
3. G1 Tag League – Semi Final: Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt d. Shinsuke Nakamura & Toru Yano (9:39) when Devitt pinned Yano.
4. Yuji Nagata, Wataru Inoue, Super Strong Machine & Mitsuhide Hirasawa d. Masahiro Chono, Jushin Thunder Liger, Koji Kanemoto & AKIRA (11:03) when Nagata used the Drive Screw on Kanemoto.
5. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma d. Takashi Iizuka & Tomohiro Ishii (10:25) when Iizuka was DQ’d.
6. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hirooki Goto & Kazuchika Okada d. Masato Tanaka, Jado & Gedo (14:21) when Tanahashi used the High Fly Flow on Jado.
7. G1 Tag League – Final: Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson d. Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt (16:01) when Anderson pinned Devitt after the Magic Killer.

One week later, in November, New Japan presented Destruction ’09 from the celebrated Sumo Hall in Tokyo.  The card for this show, to say the very least, was stacked with great matches from top to bottom.  The big one, of course, was the main event; an ideological struggle between two intergenerational rivals that stood to define New Japan’s immediate future.

On one side of the ring was Hiroshi Tanahashi, a high caliber showman and a world class athlete that many call the “Ace” performer of New Japan. The man referred to in his entrance video as a “high flying star” and a “high energy lover” can be considered a poor man’s Shawn Michaels; Tanahashi isn’t nearly the worker that Michaels is, nor is his character’s flamboyance nearly as pronounced, but both men go out each and every single night and try to give you a total show, both in terms of in ring wrestling and charismatic dramatics.  This would never happen in New Japan (at least I don’t think it would), but if there would ever be a wrestler that entered the Tokyo Dome on a zip line from the upper deck, it would be Tanahashi.

Tanahashi came into the main event of Destruction ‘09 as the challenger for an IWGP Heavyweight Championship that he was never beaten for, but rather was forced to forfeit after suffering a fractured cheekbone. The reason Tanahashi was forced to forfeit the belt stood in the opposing corner: Shinsuke Nakamura.

Nakamura is the figured head of a sort of strong style revival in the “King of Sports.”  Nakamura views Tanahashi as the embodiment of a New Japan movement towards “sports entertainment” that has robbed the company of the strong style spirit that was abundant during the days when the likes of Antonio Inoki, Tatsumi Fujinami, Keiji Mutoh, Masahiro Chono, and Shinya Hashimoto ruled the land.

In Nakamura’s view, New Japan has become a company more focused on cheap thrills and cheesy bells and whistles rather than the actual art of professional wrestling.  Today’s New Japan is an embarrassment to its founding father (Antonio Inoki) in the brooding eyes of Nakamura, who has taken it upon himself to form his own faction, CHAOS, with the intention of restoring the company to its past glory and bring it closer, stylistically speaking, to its strong style roots.

The first steps in Nakamura’s revolution?  Avoiding yet another brief IWGP Heavyweight Championship reign and cutting off the head of the sports entertainment snake, Hiroshi Tanahashi.

The match told the story of the straight forward strength of Nakamura’s strong style and the beauty and grace of Tanahashi’s style, even though Tanahashi showed a fair amount of rage in this contest.

The frantic opening spar was just flat out fun to watch.  I’m a bit of a stickler for matches between heated rivals starting out like this.  So many times in wrestling I see matches between two wrestlers who HATE each other start off with something goofy like a collar and elbow tie up that ends up with two guys merely staring at each other.  That’s just insulting psychology; if I’m in the ring with a guy who broke my face, I’m not going to feel compelled to engage him in a friendly test of strength or a happy go lucky collar and elbow tie up.

Nakamura ultimately proved to be too strong for Tanahashi, as the defending champion finished off the challenger with his trademark sequence of strikes (roundhouse kick, straight punch, Boma Ye) for the pinball victory.  It is a huge victory for Nakamura, who despite being in the IWGP title picture for the past few years has always been second billing to Tanahashi.

Following the match, as expected, Nakamura nominated Yuji Nagata to be his next challenger after Nagata pinned Nakamura during the G1 Tag League tournament in a tag team match.  I would prefer that this match happen at January’s Wrestle Kingdom IV at the Tokyo Dome, but instead it will happen on December 5 in Aichi, Japan.

Given the shadow of the Inoki Genome Federaton hanging over New Japan (thanks in part to Nakamura’s recent verbalization of his quest to find “Inoki’s belt”), it’s anyone’s guess what direction New Japan is heading in when it comes to the Tokyo Dome show.  For that matter, promoting the Nakamura-Nagata match a month prior to Wrestle Kingdom throws some doubt on what might happen in the title match on December 5, given that there aren’t many, if any, wrestlers that are worthy of headlining a Tokyo Dome show with Nakamura in New Japan right now, outside of Tanahashi and Nagata.

Getting back to the match, some rated this version of Nakamura-Tanahashi as the greatest match the two have had together to date, but I don’t see it.  Comparatively speaking, their match at Wrestle Kingdom II on 01/04/08 was better.  Hell, I thought their semifinal match at the 2009 G1 Climax was better, and Tanahashi worked most of the last half of that match with a broken face.

Still, the match was a good one, but it left me a little disappointed.  I had high expectations for this match, though perhaps that was unrealistic given that Tanahashi had been on the shelf for a little over two months.  I would rate the match at 3.5 stars out of 5, but ideally this should have been the match of the night and it wasn’t.

So what was the match of the night?  Was it the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match between Mistico and Tiger Mask IV?  Don’t be ridiculous, this isn’t early 2007, plus the match involves New Japan’s resident mail man Tiger Mask IV.  Was it the Chain Death match between Togi Makabe and Takashi Iizuka?  That was a fun match, but no.  Did the impossible happen?  Did Team 3D and Bad Intentions steal the show with their IWGP Tag Team Championship match?  Hell no.

I bet none of you would have guessed Hirooki Goto and Masato Tanaka…well, ‘cept maybe Puro Dude.

Tanaka and Goto put on a show in a match I rate as 4 stars out of 5.  Unfortunately for Goto, his slide into oblivion continues, as it has been nothing but downhill ever since he laid an egg in his championship match with Tanahashi on 05/03/09. Tanaka, who has been insanely good in 2009, caught Goto with a Sliding D and pinned the struggling winner of the 2008 G1 Climax at the 14:28 mark.

Where Goto goes from here is anyone’s guess, but I would imagine something has to give at some point.  Not delivering in a high profile match is a huge crime in Japan (where as, in the United States, not delivering in a high profile main event at WrestleMania 25 will lead to several more matches and a boring program afterward), but I think Goto has done a solid job bringing it in every match during his losing streak.  How much more “proving” Goto has to do is impossible to tell, but it beats the hell out of losing your job.

Tiger Mask IV is the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion for an agonizing sixth time, defeating Mistico in the conclusion of yet another Tiger Mask revenge story in New Japan.  The video of this match hasn’t yet made the Internet, but I hope for either man’s sake that it was an improvement on their less than stellar effort on the G1 tour on 08/15/09.  Both men really mailed it in on that match

I know that what I’m about to say might be considered sacrilege by some puro fans, but it might be time to just ditch the Tiger Mask character altogether.  Perhaps having another man don the mask would give the character some new life, but I think the time has come to move on and put an end to the Tiger Mask era in puro. I would be willing to compromise and say it’s time to put an end to the 14 year run of Tiger Mask IV if and only if whoever plays Tiger Mask V is as good as Satoru Sayama was.

The IWGP Tag Team Championship match between Team 3D and the red hot (in terms of booking) Bad Intentions ended in a double count out, which means we’re going to get to see this match again in the near future.  Hooray.  Expect to see that match at Wrestle Kingdom IV in the Tokyo Dome.

As expected, the Chain Death match between Makabe and Iizuka was a wild and bloody affair that saw Makabe avenge a series of ambush attacks by Iizuka throughout the “Truth” tour, including the most recent Presidential car ambush.

NJPW “DESTRUCTION ‘09″, 11/8/09 (WPW/PPV)
Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan
7,500 Fans

1. Jado & Gedo d. Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt (9:32) when Gedo used the Gedo clutch on Taguchi.
2. TAJIRI d. Kazuchika Okada (9:03) with a la magistral.
3. Manabu Nakanishi, Takao Omori & Koji Kanemoto d. Masahiro Chono, Jushin Thunder Liger & AKIRA (9:44) when Nakanishi used an Argentine backbreaker on AKIRA.
4. Yuji Nagata & Wataru Inoue d. Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii (11:00) when Nagata used a backdrop hold on Ishii.
5. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask d. Mistico (c) (12:01) with a modified armlock to become the 58th champion.
6. IWGP Tag Team Title: “Team 3D” Brother Ray & Brother Devon (c) vs. Giant Bernard and Karl Anderson went to a double countout (15:42) (1st defense).
7. Special Singles Match – DESTRUCTION AWAKING!!: Masato Tanaka d. Hirooki Goto (14:28) with the Sliding D.
8. Chain Death Match – DESTRUCTION BURST!!: Togi Makabe d. Takashi Iizuka (16:55) by KO.
9. IWGP Heavyweight Title: Shinsuke Nakamura (c) d. Hiroshi Tanahashi (22:47) with the Boma Ye (2nd defense).

Tune in next week, as we take a look at New Japan’s next tour and the return of the Super J-Cup tournament.

Get more great updates on content just like this by following The Wrestling Daily on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.