NOAH
vs. Suzuki-gun: Minoru Suzuki vs. Kaito Kiyomiya
I
love when Suzuki toys with the young boys. Let them think they’re getting
somewhere then quickly shut them down and out when they overstep their
boundaries and piss him off. Same reason I love the other Suzuki (Hideki). Give
them an inch and when they take a mile, kill them. This is exactly what
happened here with poor Kiyomiya. He comes out red hot with elbows but Suzuki
doesn’t let it spiral out of control and hits back even harder with his own
elbow shots. We get the expected rope-hung submission spot from Suzuki before
he introduces Kiyomiya to some chairs. Kiyomiya sells Suzuki’s offense well
enough and mounts a little bit of a comeback as he tries to wear Suzuki down
with dropkicks and crab holds. But this only pushes Suzuki to the breaking
point, and he unloads on Kiyomiya. Loved Suzuki picking Kiyomiya back up
whenever he collapses from exhaustion only to keep paintbrushing him with slaps
before ultimately ending his misery with the Gotch-style piledriver. Fun little
rookie punishment match with Kiyomiya getting a bit of control time in before
dying at the hands of Suzuki.
NOAH
vs. NJPW Special Singles Match: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Go Shiozaki
This
is a match that’s been built-up nicely since Shibata’s violent interactions
with the NOAH boys and Shiozaki’s NEVER Title challenge fake out. I admit, my
expectations were high going into this and maybe I was left a tad bit
disappointed by the end of it but following the awesome post-match shenanigans,
I’m certain this is only the first of several interactions between Shibata and
Shiozaki, possibly leading to Shiozaki challenging for the NEVER Title at
Wrestle Kingdom. As an introduction, though, this was a pretty fun Shibata
formula match with some blatant no selling, awkward German backdrops, tons of
elbows, tons of chops from Shiozaki that left Shibata’s chest raw meat red.
Go’s offense can often be underwhelming but I thought everything was executed
well, from the fisherman buster to that gnarly lariat -- hell, even the Go
Flasher looked as devastating as it can. I thought the busted nose only added
to the match, with Shiozaki sniffing back the blood. The sleeper hold into the
sleeper suplex was also a neat, fitting spot given the environment and set up the
finish nicely. I didn’t love this like some of Shibata’s NJ matches from
earlier in the year but it was good and I’m certain they’ll deliver much more
come January.
GHC
Heavyweight Title: Takashi Sugiura (c) vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima
I may
be in the minority here but I enjoyed this more than the Shibata/Shiozaki match
and in my opinion, it was a definite improvement upon their match from earlier
in the year. Nakajima’s just so good playing the baby-faced, underdog burning
spirit and his selling of the injured back and selling those elbows like death
really added something special to the narrative. It’s a slow burn, no doubt,
and could’ve benefitted with a few minutes trimmed off the total runtime but it
didn’t feel like a chore to sit through like with Sugiura’s previously
defenses. Loved Nakajima almost KO’ing Sugiura early on after Sugiura tries to
cheap shot him against the ropes, a nice callback to his match with Suzuki and
Suzuki trying to punk him like he’s still Kensuke’s towel boy. None of that
bullshit, sir. After Sugiura hits an overhead suplex on the walkway, he starts
working over that injured back, at one point using a chair. Shuichi Nishinaga
is one of my favorite officials to watch because he ain’t scared to get in
there and cut out the nonsense. Nakajima took some nasty elbows from Sugiura
but kept asking for more and eventually fired back with some of his hard kicks,
building to a PK and a brainbuster for two. I feel like Nakajima’s brainbuster
should be reserved as the nail in the coffin but it didn’t take away too much
here and Sugiura got to hit one of his own. When the Olympic Slam isn’t enough,
Sugiura tries for the top rope variation only for Nakajima to blast him with a
big fat headbutt to knock him off. So great. After a couple of quick thrust
kicks, Nakajima hits a smooth-as-silk deadlift German for two before connecting
with back-to-front PKs, a thrust kick to the head and the brainbuster for the
biggest win of his career. Let’s hope he gets a proper reign to cement his
status as the ACE of NOAH. Probably the “best” NOAH show of the year from what
I saw
