Best of the Soup Junes

Going into The War Of The Worlds night 2 taping, I was aware that my pro wrestling viewing was going to take a drastic decline going into the summer, from the very next day even. But I've been finding ways to sneak it in. Not ideal viewing conditions and definitely not conducive to detailed reports, but enough to throw together some thoughts on recent New Japan Pro Wrestling programs. First, it is super cool that the New Japan World online streaming service has provided access to all of the Best Of The Super Juniors bouts, with big shows broadcast live and smaller road shows being chopped up so that only each match in the tournament itself are made available.

While I usually bang the koto drums for NJPW loud and hard over almost everything I take in, I was lukewarm about the tournament going into it and remained that way throughout most of it, until a fantastic final 2 shows, particularly the last day, which had incredible action from start to finish. I guess I associate Super Juniors, otherwise known as cruiserweights, with high levels of acrobatic ability. While not everyone needs to have an aerial based assault, it should be a prominent feature of the bulk of the matches. This distinguishes the division from the Heavyweights, in my view, rather than just putting them in one category for being 'smaller guys.'  KUSHIDA and Alex Shelley definitely count as two who can bring the high flying and grounded assault styles, but in an unfortunate turn, Shelley was injured in day 1, round 1 of the tournament, taking away a lot of the intrigue from the event on the whole.

Chase Owens represented NWA with his presence, and though lacking charisma, he did bring some interesting maneuvers. Though I can't say there was all that much variation throughout his matches. Ryusuke Taguchi seems a stalwart on the current NJPW 'Juniors scene. While he's had some impressive matches in the past, his recent comedy based oeuvre has failed to excite me all that much. David Finley and Yohei Komatsu represented rookies in the match who would not score any wins. In the case of Komatsu, it was a bit hard to perceive him as a Junior as he has been holding his own in the Heavyweight style of combat with young boy peer Sho Tanaka. Gedo was entered into the tournament after spending more time on the sidelines of Okada and behind the scenes of NJPW booking, perhaps feeling reinvigorated by his recent stint at the North American East Coast ROH shows, but his flexibility is limited, giving us spots involving sneaky tactics and punches and kicks, but few feats of agility. The Lucha style, probably the element I would consider most crucial to shaping a strong Super Junior competition, was represented by recent NJPW homestayer Mascara Dorada and visitor Barbaro Carvenario. Dorada's been solid throughout his stay but Cavernario's chemistry with others in the tournament was hit or miss.

Then there is the masked superhero veteran contingent - Liger and Tiger Mask, whose place in NJPW in general I am increasingly questioning. I am not sure what I see them adding to mix, as their abilities in the ring are diminishing and they really don't gel with stories being built around hip, modern characters in CHAOS or The Bullet Club. Liger is a legend and gets a pass to appear as long as he is able, but Tiger Mask...this being an incarnation of the original, and one who does not put much apparent effort into selling the staged combat between himself and who he is in the ring with, I don't see what he is adding to the promotion, and definitely did not see him bring any value to this tournament.  

Finally there were members of tag teams: RPG's Rocky Romero and Baretta, reDRagon's Fish and O'Reilly, and one Young Buck Nick Jackson. While all are very capable in the ring as a singles or tag team wrestler, being associated with a tag team would seem to automatically place one on a lower run than singles wrestlers. This in effect made the matches these guys were involved with feel as though they had far lesser stakes, even though these wrestlers were the one who, in many cases, led the way to entertaining matches. In the case of reDRagon, there was a break from this unwritten rule, as Kyle O'Reilly ended up being in the finals against shoe-in KUSHIDA. This came as a bit of a surprise, as many would've expected established singles wrestler Ryusuke Taguchi to be the other fighter in the finals. It was definitely the right move by many a fan's estimation, as O'Reilly is a lot more technically sound and can take the physicality of a match to the outer limits. Overall, reDRagon's involvement in the tournament was a huge boon. Fish also has a dynamic, versatile style that makes him a credible threat to anyone he is in the ring with. I very much hope the pair's performance in the 2015 BOSJ pushes them to bigger things.

As stated before, the final day of the tournament brought about the best in all of the combatants and seemed to be where the best potential matches were booked among the pack. Chase Owens generated some better than average heel heat by attacking Tiger Mask after their match. Cabernerio and Mascara Dorada seemed at complete ease with each other working a Lucha style match that had no lack in aggression whatsoever. Rocky Romero had a great match with Nick Jackson, which served to advance both an RPG-Young Bucks feud as well as a CHAOS-Bullet Club program. There is a spot where Romero hits Sliced Bread on Nick outside of the ring that needs to be witnessed.

The finale between KUSHIDA and O'Reilly, which KUSHIDA emerged from victorious, is instant end of the year top 10 New Japan match material. They had a lengthy battle in which limbs were put through the wringer. KUSHIDA executed a top rope maneuver to damage O'Reilly's arm, which seemed impossible to walk away from unscathed. O'Reilly dished out an onslaught that made KUSHIDA's victory seem like a distant possibility til he returned fire toward the end of the match. Only toward the end did Fish make his presence a factor, yelling at the referee over numerous calls in support of his tag team partner. The stage is set for KUSHIDA to bring a lot of momentum into his bout with Kenny Omega for the Junior Heavyweight Championship at Dominion on July 5th.

Another component of the big shows along the Best Of circuit was the continued battle between the NJPW brigade and CHAOS. On this run, the matches had a pretty consistent roster of  Goto, Makabe, Shibata, Tanahashi and Captain New Japan on one side against Nakamura, Ishii, Sakuraba, Yano, and YOSHI-HASHI on the other. The one twist on these bouts since the last go around was the shift in titles, and in a sense power, to team NJPW with both Goto and Makabe holding the Intercontinental and Never titles respectively. Captain New Japan's inclusion in the matches added a bit of levity to the mix and also gave an easy out for a fall guy, leading to CHAOS dominating for the most part.

While the other takeaway from this is that this continual booking of the same basic match is wearing its welcome rather thin, it looks to be inching toward a conclusion with each of the feuds contained within getting its own singles match on the extremely impressive looking Dominion card.

More to come with a preview of Dominion and an outlook on how things may very well shape up coming out of that and heading all the way into next January's Tokyo Dome soon.

twitter: @mondocurrymark