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NJPW, 3/6/03 (SXW) (Buy)
Tokyo Korakuen Hall 1,603 Fans - Super No Vacancy
1. Ryusuke Taguchi beat Naofumi Yamamoto (6:15) with a dropkick.
"HYPER BATTLE 2003" began, like the last tour, with a stack show at the mecca of pro wrestling, Korakuen Hall. Ten matches is almost unheard of for New Japan on a regular tour show, but a mixture of young wrestlers, outsiders, and the Makai Club meant New Japan had more wrestlers to book than it had for a long time. It's funny saying this, a year after New Japan had problems filling shows following the jumps. The opening match was clipped down. The big notable was the finish, because Taguchi already has one of the best dropkicks in the business. He doesn't have many moves yet, but if he can put such effort into every move he develops as his dropkick, the results could be amazing. The second match was quite a surprise. The Makai Club undercard matches featuring the masked men usually turn out to be solid, but forgettable affairs. This was really cool though, with Makai #1 (Hirata) & Makai #4 (Shibata) making for a good team. #4 was especially skillful, wrestling a slick ground game and throwing good strikes. #1 was more the traditional old style wrestler, and Super Strong Makai continues to work hard. On the other team was the always consistent El Samurai and the very promising Yano. This turned into a good, old school formula tag match, and ended when #1 pinned Sammy. The third match was best bout on the night, as the juniors continued to steal the show. Hot off a tremendous Elimination Match at the old Sumo Hall on 2/16, this was a standard trios match featuring the awesome team of Kanemoto, Liger & Fujita against the new team of Tiger Mask, American Dragon & Stampede Kid. The gaijins were returning to New Japan after a while away, and both seemed much less nervous this time. Dragon especially looked transformed, as he failed to leave a great impression in his original stay. However, he was totally different this time, working like his name was Wild Pegasus II, with nice European uppercuts and aggressive stomps. He varied his attacks too, and at one point hit an excellent tope suicida out of the ring. The action was always good, and everyone starred in a strong 14+ minute outing. Fujita continues to impress, he is finding his old form and is a great coup for New Japan. He picked up the win too, pinning Kid after a Fujita Driver (Michinoku Driver II). Kakihara vs. Makai #5 was a match I was looking forward to, because it pitted Team Strongs, the former All Asia Tag Team Champions against each other. The fans didn't seem to realize this, and surprisingly this had the least heat out of any match on the show. The action was good however, a nice blend of strikes and submissions, UWF style most of the way. It wasn't an easy win for Nagai, but he showed that he has surpassed the man he used to serve as a #2 for, submitting him suddenly with a Makai sleeper (a front sleeper/chickenwing armlock combination). AKIRA & Heat vs. Jado & Gedo was the disappointment of the night. That isn't to say it was a poor match, but just a letdown for one big reason. Jado & Gedo, after showing good form on the last tour, returned to that drawn out beatdown formula that made their matches so uninteresting for much of last year. They beat up AKIRA and Heat forever, after a good start. Jado & Gedo are definitely more effective in shorter matches or multi-person tags. One thing they are great at in any match though, regardless at the length, is wrestling hot, dramatic closing stretches in their bouts. This was no exception, as they were part of a really good finish to this one with lots of heat. AKIRA was the star of the show, as always looking great no matter what position he was in. Thankfully, the new team of AKIRA & Heat won to set up a mouth-watering clash with Kanemoto & Liger on 3/9 for the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Title. The U-30 started next with Makabe vs. Tanahashi, two of the favourites. The name of this concept can be misleading: under-30. For the most part that's right, but the tournament had two 30-year-olds (Makabe and Kakihara) in it. I guess calling it "under-and-exactly 30" would be a little strange though :). This was a very good match between two of New Japan's upcoming stars. Makabe was a real punk in this one, yelling "EH?" whenever the referee would question him. The referee got angry eventually, and was shoved out of the way by problem child Makabe. The action got fast and frantic in this, the fans behind Tanahashi, but not shunning the fiery Makabe. They traded German suplexes at the end, and were very, very equal. Makabe suddenly hit a Fisherman buster (much stiffer than the one Heat did earlier in the night) for the win, a big "ahhh!" of disappointment ringing out. A bad start to the U-30 for Tanahashi, the man who proposed this concept, but these two would meet on a much higher stage later on. Really good match, Tanahashi ruled as always, and Makabe continues to get better and develop his personality. Takayama vs. Makai #2. Not really much to say, #2 attacked, and regretted it. After absorbing a bit of offense, Takayama squashed the young masked Makai with a German suplex hold and that was it. The next match was even shorter, another inconclusive Crazy Dogs vs. Makai Club scrap. This was really entertaining though, especially with Ohara trash-talking on the microphone, then beating up Murakami with a chairshot and chokeslam! Crowd loved this, the feud definitely has a similar midcard charm to the old regular army vs. Heisei Ishingun stuff. Chono & Tenzan vs. Norton & Devine was pretty uninspiring and forgettable. Norton was fired up at first, hitting many signatures, and it was surprisingly the returning Devine who seemed a little off. It was pretty easy for Tenzan in the end, and he TTD'd Devine for the win. Then came the main event, the match I was most looking forward to. Since the New Japan vs. Makai Club feud started, we've seen less all-Shinnichi main events. Each one is a treat and usually delivers good action, even if they aren't as wild and heated as Makai matches tend to be. This one pitted Nagata, Iizuka & Wolf against Triathlon Survivors, Nakanishi, Nishimura & Yoshie. The opening was cool, because we saw two totally different style confrontations. The power fighting of Yoshie and Wolf started, and the elaborate technical wrestling of Iizuka and Nishimura followed. When Nakanishi was tagged, everyone was expecting Nagata. Nakanishi kicked Iizuka over to his corner, and waited for Nagata. Furious at being disrespected, Iizuka refused to tag out and wouldn't until he had Nakanishi down. Then came Nagata, and the first preliminary skirmish for Nagata vs. Nakanishi on 3/9 was on. The action was continuous for the 17 minutes, and was pretty much all good as you would expect from these six. It came down to Nagata and Nishimura, and the finishing stretch was really cool. Nishimura went cradle crazy, and the fans were HOT for each near fall, believing an upset could happen. Nagata got Nishimura on the mat though, and went for the Nagata Lock III. Everyone expected Nagata's new finisher to get the win, but Nishimura prevented full application, so Nagata quickly switched to his Nagata Lock II for the tap out. This showed how deadly Nagata can be on the ground, and how he can perfectly and effectively transition between his second and third Nagata Locks. Nakanishi and Nagata went face to face after the match, a lot of tension existing before their big singles clash in Nagoya. Very good show to begin the tour. Ten matches, and the best-looking matches got enough time and delivered. The two trios matches stole the show, the junior six man tag and the main event, with the junior match taking honours as best bout. Matches #2, #3, #4, #6, and #10 were the highlights of another good night of wrestling by New Japan at Korakuen.
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beat Tiger Mask, American Dragon & Stampede Kid (14:10) when Fujita used the Fujita Driver on Kid.