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NJPW, 2/6/03 (SXW) (Buy)
Dream Messe Miyagi 2,500 Fans - Super No Vacancy
1. Ryusuke Taguchi beat Naofumi Yamamoto (6:44) with a cross armbreaker.
New Japan christened Dream Messe Miyagi with it's first pro wrestling show in front of what looked to be a packed house, in the unique-looking building. While the hosts were doing their regular intro, Kantaro "BISSHI BISHI!" Hoshino intruded and gave a propaganda speech to the cameras. He then turned his attention to former tag partner, Kotetsu Yamamoto, and despite Hoshino's anti-New Japan stance, the two laughed and shook hands, remaining good friends. Opening match was, like the last two tapings, Yamamoto vs. Taguchi. They did a cool and long session of mat wrestling, where they rolled around and traded holds continuously, before standing off. Kengo & Samurai vs. Hiro & Goto was a battle of veterans, and the quiet crowd rose for Kengo's Inazuma leg lariats. Hiro treated the assembled to not one, but two diving sentons to finish off Sammy. The final "opening stage" match was Wolf & Yano vs. Makai #1 & Makai #2. Wolf & Yano are so much fun as a team! Wolf is looking more like a peer and less like a young lion every time I see him. He was totally authoritive here, and led his team well in a long match against the original masked Makais, which got good after a while. The first of two junior matches was Liger, Jado & Gedo vs. Tiger Mask, Super Crazy & Curry Man. Although minor on the day because of a big title match coming up, this was excellent. Jado & Gedo continued to "sprint" instead of "slow down", and are looking great right now. Liger showed his brilliant versatility, tearing it up with Crazy right away with some awesome lucha-style exchanges. Crazy is looking fantastic in New Japan, hitting all his moves with great precision. From the 10 minutes shown, this was all action, and fast paced. The fans were elated when the popular Curry Man pinned Gedo with his Spicy Drop, genuinely happy for the King of Spice. The final IWGP Tag Team Title #1 Contender Tournament first round match was a rematch from the Tokyo Dome, with Iizuka & Kakihara taking on Harimao'z. This wasn't as good as their Tokyo Dome meeting, but was still fun. Harimao'z are a vicious team, who strike really hard. Iizuka was mellow at first, but later on snapped again, and when he got the sleeper hold on Makai #4 it was all over. But when #4 passed out and the referee had to stop the match, Iizuka wouldn't let go, and it took an attack to get him off. Ironically enough, Iizuka has been acting in a similar way to the man announced as his 5/2 opponent yesterday, Ken Shamrock. That is to say, whenever he snaps, he's hard to control. Maybe Shamrock and Iizuka will go into "THE ZONE" at the same time. :) Nakanishi & Heat vs. Barnett & Saturn rocked! It was mostly Barnett in there, and he worked very well with both opponents. With Heat, he did the UWF style, lots of kneebars and armbars, plus some vicious strikes. Although you wouldn't give him much of a chance against a former UFC Heavyweight Champion, Heat held his own in there, and troubled Barnett with some submissions. Nakanishi vs. Barnett was very interesting, two men of different styles, but they worked well together. Nakanishi introduced Barnett to HIS style of wrestling, with friggin' BRUTAL chops that literally sent Josh shooting across the ring! Barnett retaliated with hard kicks, and it was an intense exchange. There was a great spot late on. Nakanishi had Saturn in an Argentine backbreaker, but Barnett got Mr. Unbelievable in a waistlock and hit a release German suplex. Barnett and Heat finished it off with good ground work, leading to Josh's deadly cross heel hold getting the instant tap out. Barnett is looking better with each show as he adapts to pro wrestling. Dream Messe Miyagi was treated to an IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title match, as Kanemoto made his V5 defense against Minoru Fujita. Sadly, they cut about five minutes out of this, but what was shown was choice. It was very technical, but also had plenty of high impact moves, including a beautiful tope suicida by Fujita and Tiger suplex hold by Kanemoto. At one point, Kanemoto missed his rolling senton from the second turnbuckle, and Fujita followed with his own. They repeated the counter technique from 2/2, where Fujita hits a sliding dropkick while Kanemoto is hanging upside-down in the corner, but Kanemoto keeps hold of the foot and applies his dreaded ankle hold. Although Fujita has used more of a brawling rudo style since returning from America and Puerto Rico, he was a more New Japan style junior heavyweight here, stellar on the mat, and with good moves off the ground. No one really gave Fujita much of a chance, but there was some ooh'ing later on for near falls. Kanemoto's ankle hold is so deadly and feared now, he has created ways of applying it from nearly any situation, and that was the case here as he'd seemingly hook it on out of nowhere. Fujita survived it a few times, but eventually had to tap out, and Kanemoto's dominance of the junior division continued. One thing is for sure, whenever someone dethrones Kanemoto, it's going to mean a LOT. Kanemoto checked on Fujita after the match, and although they didn't show it on SXW, recruited the punk into his and Liger's army. As I said in my 2/2 account, Fujita looks like he could be the perfect disciple for Kanemoto, and it showed even more here, especially when Fujita mirrored some of Kanemoto's patented moves. After becoming a laughing stock last year when he challenged super heavyweights and got mauled, Fujita has become a very respectable junior now, and his performance in this stellar match will only boost his value more. Two six man tags finished off the show, both of different styles. The first one was that pro wrestling/shoot style/brawling hybrid Makai Club type match, and the quality of these seems to have improved since last year. This one had Nagata, Yoshie & Nakamura against the Makai Club's "big three", Yasuda, Murakami & Yanagisawa. Nakamura was irate, going after Murakami right away, and having to be pulled back. Murakami attacked Nagata, and they did some similar wild fighting to their epic December bout. Nagata is looking different these days, he seems taller and more noble, which is only a good thing. He may have trimmed down a little, something is certainly different (besides his ring attire). When Shinsuke got in there, we finally saw some of his offense, after he mostly took beatings in his previous matches. He threw a nice dropkick, then used a beautiful ground Cobra Twist into cross kneelock combination. Soon enough though, he was on the defense again, and a very aggressive and vicious Yoshie was tagged. It came down to Yoshie and Yanagisawa, who was wearing open finger fighting gloves in preparation for his match with Takayama on 2/16. He stunned Yoshie with a flurry of punches, then decked him with a right high kick. Yoshie wasn't moving, and Yanagisawa rolled him over, then covered for the sudden win. Fun match overall, wild and energetic. The main event was a lot different to the last match, as this was a total traditional pro wrestling style match. Chono, Tenzan & Nishimura faced the outsider trio of Takayama, Barton & Steele. Takayama is no stranger to Barton & Steele, as he fought against them in All Japan, and the three formed an imposing team because of their height. Like most New Japan six man tags, this had no sustained slow patches, and kept moving from start to finish. The action was good and continuous, and it was a satisfying main event for a secondary show. Also, it was always unclear which team was going down, because there wasn't an easy-to-pick loser in the match. It was probably always going to be Nishimura or Steele, but with the scheduled IWGP Tag Team Title match coming up, Chono and Tenzan might have been prone to a loss. In the end, it was Nishimura (who again worked exceptionally well with Takayama) who fell, Takayama's "Everest" German suplex hold finishing things off. Good main event. Another fun show overall. SXW doesn't usually have as many big matches as WPW, but in recent times New Japan has put a lot more effort into making it a feature, and it's become the perfect compliment to WPW. This broadcast had a big singles match (Kanemoto vs. Fujita), which it was built around even though the bout wasn't the main event. It had a range of tags, and most of them were good, especially the junior one from early in the show.
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beat Jushin Thunder Liger, Jado & Gedo (14:02) when Curry used the Spicy Drop on Gedo.
(17:06) with an ankle hold (5th defense).