Jeremy Clark
This is the first installment of Puro Nekkyo where I will be reviewing whatever puroresu I happen to watch and you can’t tell me what to do because it’s my series. Nekkyo is Japanese for “zeal” or “enthusiasm.” I thought you should know that. Nothing I write in the future will ever be this educational again. I promise.
Diamond Ring Summer Dream in Korakuen 8/31/2013
There has been some drama in Diamond Ring lately regarding Kensuke Sasaki’s training style and there is already talk of guys leaving possibly making this the last Diamond Ring show. Will this show live up to the name of Kensuke Office/Diamond Ring if it is indeed their last great hurrah? And does Diamond Ring even have a name worth measuring up to? Find out tonight!
Party Ball Battle Royal
Black Tiger vs. CHANGO vs. Danshoku Dino vs. Kikutaro vs. Kyohei Wada vs. Michael Nakazawa vs. NOSAWA Rongai vs. Ryuji Hijikata vs. Yutaka Yoshie vs Namazuman vs. Antonio Honda
Quick participant rundown: Wiki says Nosawa was the most recent Black Tiger and this guy is obviously not him, but could be the 5th iteration – Tatsuhito Takaitawa. CHANGO is an indie wrestler and there is very little information about him online, but he seems to have debuted with El Dorado Wrestling. “Biting, clawing, and the Welcome to the Jungle” are listed as his signature moves. Anyone with even peripheral knowledge of Japanese independent wrestling should be aware of Danshoku Dino (Gay Dino). He’s also worked for a few promotions in the US like Chikara and CZW. Dino plays an over the top gay stereotype and works the gimmick into most of his offense. Kikutaro is a comedy worker and another big indy name in Japan. He has wrestled in various US promotions as well. Kyohei Wada is a former AJPW referee who left the company to work freelance in 2011. Nakazawa mostly works for Dramatic Dream Team and is known for his “hentai” or pervert character. He does a lot of low brow humor similar to Dino, but is more of an all-round sexual deviant. NOSAWA was trained in Mexico and works all over the world and has been booked by promotions including TNA, ROH, AJPW, PWG, XPW, and CMLL. Hijikata is a shoot-style wrestler who debuted with BattleARTS in the late 90’s. He has mostly been with AJPW since 2002, forming teams with Suwama and later the Voodoo Murders stable. Yoshie wrestles a bit like a baby Mark Henry and has worked for all the major promotions in Japan. Namazuman is a person… er… persons? According to his/their character page on the Kensuke Office site, the Namazuman character might be one person (creature?) with multiple bodies. One of them is played by Sugi – probably. Honda is a regular DDT guy and is surprisingly nearly as good in the ring as he is at the comedy stuff.
The object of the match was to be the first person to open the traditional Japanese kusudama (or party ball as it’s called in the Smash Bros. series). Participants could be eliminated via pin, submission, or by going over the top rope and hitting the floor, but the match could not be won without the party ball being opened.
The match itself is nothing but guys taking turns doing their comedy spots while everyone else sort of stands around. It’s heavily clipped for TV and that’s probably for the best. Highlights include Namazuman grabbing CHANGO in a wrist lock and walking the ropes Old School style trying to reach the ball from there but getting distracted when Dino locks lips with CHANGO and crotching himself on the ropes for his own elimination, quickly followed by a gay-stunned CHANGO being thrown out by Dino. Dino then grabs Hijikata and tries to kiss him, but Hijiakata holds him off even with Wada and the match’s actual referee pushing him from behind. Hijikata rolls up Black Tiger for the elimination but then everyone else flips Tiger on top of Hijikata for his exit. Things start to heat up (I guess) with the final 5. Nakazawa, Kikutaro, and Dino (we’ll call them Team Owarai) decide to work together against Yoshie. Wada is there, too, but who cares about an old referee? A bit of miscommunication leads to Kikutaro getting laid out by Yoshie so Dino distracts Yoshie with a kiss while Nakazawa takes off his thong to ready it for the Ultimate Venom Arm (basically the Iron Claw but with underwear). Nakazawa’s finisher connects, but only for a two count. After a bit of arguing back and forth Dino decides it’s time for his version of the stink face and pulls off his tights revealing his thong. This leads to the worse camera shot I think I’ve seen in all of professional wrestling as the cameraman decides this is a good time to zoom in directly on Dino’s spread asshole (thankfully still covered by a thong) while he’s perched bent over the top turnbuckle. Yoshie is all “ew,” grabs Nakazawa’s hand, makes him give himself the Ultimate Venom Arm , shoves Nakazawa into Dino’s open ass cheeks, and splashes them both to eliminationsville. Kikutaro offers Yoshie a hug and a low blow and attempts to debut a new move with a name so long he draws applause from the audience about halfway through announcing it. It is, of course, reversed. Yoshie pins him with a quick splash and assumes he’s won, but the referee tells him he still has to open the party ball. After a couple of weak attempts, Namazuman gets back in the ring and tries to get Yoshie on his shoulders, but that’s a lot of fat. Yoshie remembers that Wata is still in the match and petitions him for help. After some discussion regarding how much Wata can squat, Wata offers to get on Yoshie’s shoulder and open the ball for him. Together they just barely reach the paper ribbon and the party ball opens up showering the ring in cash. Yoshie’s celebration is quickly interrupted once he notices the rest of the wrestlers are scooping up all his money and he gets more bad news as the referee explains that Wata is the winner. A disappointed Yoshie stares up at the party ball longingly as a surprised Wata circles the ring collecting his winnings. I don’t usually like to do full recaps, but I felt it was warranted with this type of match.
Not worth your time. The sheer number of guys involved and the clipping means everything goes by so fast there’s little time to register what just happened. If you like Japanese indy comedy wrestling, there’s much better stuff out there with everyone involved. I guess if you’re that specific sort of fan that wants to see Yoshie work with indie comedy guys or if you love Kyohei Wata and want to see him win what I assume is his only match, then it gets a mild recommendation I guess.
Special Joshi Match from Producer Akira Hokuto
Nanae Takahashi & Yumiko Hotta vs. Natsuki Taiyo & Sareee
I don’t watch current Joshi at all. I think I might have seen maybe 5 matches that have taken place post 2000. Yumiko Hotta is one of my all-time favorites, so I was pretty excited to see her in the ring even if it’s been over a decade since I’ve seen her wrestle. Hotta’s MMA history bleeds pretty clearly into her in-ring style. If you’re in to stiff shit kickings, Hotta’s your lady. Takahashi debuted in All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (AJW) in 1996 right as the company was starting to decline and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her wrestle before. Taiyo debuted in AJW towards the very tail end of the company’s life and is one of the most athletic flyers in pro wrestling right now. She is super tiny, but makes up for it by putting her full weight into everything she does. Although, now that I think about it, isn’t that all Joshi? Hey, she makes a dropkick from her 130 pound frame look like it would cause internal damage, so that’s enough for me. Sareee is 17 (!) and made her debut with WORLD WOMAN PRO WRESTLING DIANA at the age of 15(!!).
This is clipped worse than the opener. Sareee looks good for a 17 year old and is appropriately spunky, Takahashi seems perfectly acceptable if not underwhelming, Taiyo usually looks amazing in what little we see of her, and Hotta is a goddess of kicking people in the face and doesn’t kick anyone in the face enough. That part was disappointing. Top rope splash from Takahashi to Saree for the finish.
If you’ve never seen Joshi then this is far, far from the best introduction, but there is the traditional joshi stiffness and there are some truly nasty shots in this match. Hotta gets dropkicked directly in the face a couple of times and it is cringe inducing. Outside of the clipping, the match’s real downfall is how limited Hotta looks in her movement and just how super weak some of Taiyo’s non-dropkick based striking looks.
Mitsuhiro Kitamiya, Satoshi Kajiwara & Osamu Nishimura vs. Voodoo Murders (Kengo, TARU & YASSHI)
Interesting start to the match as YASSHI grabs the mic to tell long-time TV personality, announcer, and event host Seiji Miyane, who is in attendance tonight, that Miyane is the “heel of announcers” and asks him to join Voodoo Murders. This sets up a couple of involvement spots with Miyane – YASSHI holds Nishimura and tries to get Miyane to hit him, but gets clocked in the head himself and later all of the Voodoo Murders hold him so his eats a dive from Kajiwara with them. Crowd seemed pretty into Miyane. There was a very midcard lucha-esque feeling to the match when the Voodoo Murders were on offense. YASHHI and TARU are old pros and don’t go out of their way to do anything special, but they heeled it up a bit and there was plenty of 3-on-1 and 2-on-1 offense, giving it that lucha rudo heat segment effect. Kengo looked a bit out of place with the other Voodoo Murders since he’s a more standard puro indy guy, but he is technically proficient and really young so I can see him going places if breaks away from the stable once he’s done establishing himself. Nishimura looked really good here in the little time he had. All his spots were here like the headstand out of the leg scissors and the top rope knee drop. Nishimura is at his best, though, when he’s in the ring with someone who can go toe-to-toe with him on the mat and I don’t think anyone on the other side of the ring had any interest in doing that on this night. Kajiwara is a guy I went into this match knowing nothing about and now that I have watched this match, I still don’t. Looking at my notes, I only wrote his name down once and that was the spot where Miyane sold his dive. Kitamiya, on the other hand, looked really good here. He sold everything really well, his offense was stiff and heavy (a deadlift suplex from the second rope to YASSHI being a highlight), and he displays fighting spirit pretty well. He’s definitely a guy to look for in the future. TARU got the win with a TARU Driller (Rikishi Driver) on Katamiya.
Meh. The only thing worth seeing here is Katamiya, but there is a Kitamiya/Kobashi vs. Sasaki/Akiyama match from 2012 that is a better exhibition of his skills and I am absolutely sure he’s going to have some more really fun matches than this in the future.
Katsuhiko Nakajima & Kota Ibushi vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki
Prematch hype is centered on all four guys wanting to prove themselves as heavyweights and not just juniors. That is what we get in the ring as this match was four juniors trying to work a heavyweight style and kind of succeeding. Everyone does me a big favor right away by drawing a clear line of worker quality in the first few minutes. Nakajima and Kanemaru start the match off by fighting over the simplest of moves, not being able to hit body slams or back suplex their way out of headlocks, then Ibushi and Suzuki tag in and start doing the whole “look at how equally matched we are as we mirror each other’s flippy stuff” spot. It’s one of the sole black spots in an otherwise good match. Of course, Ibushi does bring with him his fair share of negative points. He sells nothing. He no sells to go on offense, to move into position for the next spot, and to get out of the way of the other three guys. The lowlight of the match is probably when he no sells a high-angle German suplex by geting on all fours and crawling to the ropes to get out of the way of the next spot. I’m not sure why he couldn’t have just rolled like anyone else. Ibushi and Kanemaru try to do the “stereo fighting spirit head drop no sell” spot and it is markedly apparent how bad Ibushi is here. Kanemaru rises to his feet like a man fighting through a concussion while Ibushi just pops up and just waits for Kanemaru to finish selling so they can get to the next spot. Ibushi was also a bad apron guy, doing nothing but standing there waiting for his turn. Kanemaru tried to take a few shots at him to wake him up, but nothing ever came of it. To his credit, I do have to admit that Ibushi wasn’t always completely useless in the match. He does a nice spot early on where he grabs Kanemaru’s head in a head scissors and pounds it into the mat and he has a lot of good babyface charisma and super crisp offense. It’s easy to see why he’s so popular. I usually have many of the same issues with Suzuki’s work as I do with Ibushi, but he never found himself in most of the same situations that magnified Ibushi’s faults. He was allowed to spend more time on offense instead of selling and his offense is generally really good. Suzuki specifically looked really good targeting Nakajima’s knee, but of course that didn’t lead anywhere. It’s probably for the best, the knee work on Nakajima only lasted through a short heat segment so it wasn’t a big deal when Nakajima shakes his leg once later in the match and forgets it completely. The leg work peaked when Nakajima kicked the post anyway. Nakajima looked about as good as he normally does, working really well with both Kanemaru and Suzuki. The Kanemaru/Nakajima sections are easily the best parts of the match and seem to be the only time anyone really remembers this is supposed to be a heavyweight style match. Adversely, Nakajima and Suzuki focused more on hard strikes and a quick pace. Both match ups worked well.
Kanemaru is the star here, bringing all the personality and drama to the match, tagging Ibushi in the face when he’s just standing around, screaming at the top of his lungs when hitting a cross body, displaying proper fighting spirit no selling, and just keep people involved as much as he can. Kanemaru’s a guy I’ve never been impressed with before, but this is one of the better performances I’ve seen from him. Match ended with an excellent double KO spot between Suzuki and Nakajima for the finish.
Fun match that I would not go out of my way to see, but I am not in the least bit upset that I sat through. All four guys worked hard, but they looked to be aiming for the stars and fell short.
Kensuke Sasaki, Jun Akiyama, & Go Shiozaki vs. Suwama, Takao Omori, & Kento Miyahara
Pre match promos actually got me pretty hyped for the match when after the first few minutes are spent with Akiyama, Shiozaki, and Suwama stroking Sasaki’s ego, Miyahara brings up Akiyama’s negative comments regarding AJPW wrestlers in some wrestling magazines and asks just when exactly did Jun stop being a wrestler and start being a critic. Akiyama responds by saying he’s going to show Miyahara he’s the “Great Sensei” and that he’s got a lot to teach the young punk.
I am in love with Omori’s theme, Get Wild by TM Network. I just need to point that out. It is the best. Check it out. Match itself had plenty going for it. A lot of the ring time is spent building to an eventual Akiyama/Miyahara match and I went from not even being aware that matchup could be on the radar to excitement over seeing those two in the ring again with no one else in the way, so full respect to them for that. Every single thing Miyahara and Akiyama did in this match together worked, from the brawling in the crowd early to trading bombs near the end. One of my favorite spots between the two was when Miyahara went for a Northern Lights Suplex on Akiyama and got caught in a guillotine choke. His face wasn’t visible from the camera angle, but his body language told the whole story. He also did a swank deadlift German suplex on Sasaki at one point. The lone blight Miyahara brings to the match was the lariat from Sasaki he bumped for before Sasaki’s arm fully connected with him. He did make up for it by taking two more in the throat, though, so he’s still cool with me. Akiyama in general was really good here. He has really settled himself into his role as a grumpy asskicker. There was a disturbing lack of stuff between Suwama and Akiyama, but Akiyama’s work with Miyahara and Omori were so good I didn’t mind much.
Omori and Shiozaki start the match as sort of the odd men out. They aren’t the big stars like Akiyama, Sasaki, or even Suwama, nor do they have an easy angle to build off and it shows in the heatless section early between the two. Both guys work hard and do finally get the crowd behind them. Omori exhibited some really nice transitions like when he caught Akiyama’s flying knee and the European uppercut to a diving Shiozaki. Shiozaki didn’t exactly shine with Miyahara outside of some nice chops, but his sections with Suwama were some of my least favorite parts of the match. It seemed like they were shooting for a big “top stars hitting bombs” moment at one point, but void of all the heat and emotion. Go shined as the face in peril because he is pretty small and takes a beating well, but his heavy, heavy chops can turn the tables at any given moment and it adds a lot of drama to those sections.
Suwama’s work with Sasaki absolutely supplied the worst sections of this match. Sasaki seemed to be on auto-pilot for the whole match — chop, chop, chop, lariat, judo throw, chop. Suwama tried to bring a little fire to their exchanges, but Sasaki was having none of that tonight. Of course, Kensuke going through the motions is stiffer and more captivating than most wrestlers when they are going all out so it’s never outright bad. His involvement in the finish was good, though. Miyahara spends so much time worried about Akiyama he forgets his place on the pecking order and gets caught in the middle of the ring alone with the beast that is Sasaki and is quickly finished. Really good traditional heavyweight 6-man tag. Worth checking out, but not something I would go out of my way to see.
It’s hard to recommend this show. The main event is quality and the semi brings a lot to the table that fans of those four should really dig, but the rest of the show is heavily clipped and wouldn’t be particularly engaging in full anyway. If you follow AJPW, this show is worth checking out, as it continues story lines and characters featured there, and if you watch a lot of puro and have already seen most of the better shows from this year and are looking for something more to keep you busy before the next big NJPW PPV, you won’t exactly be going wrong here, either.
