Go Shiozaki & KENTA vs Kensuke Office (Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima)
06/22/2009
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
(reviewed 03/09/2024) Before now, I’m not sure that I had ever seen any NOAH footage from this period immediately after Mitsuharu Misawa’s death. NOAH was already in a weird place before that tragedy; the steady decline from Kenta Kobashi’s cancer diagnosis (and later double elbow surgery) to the bizarrely long Misawa GHC title reign that led to an underwhelming Takeshi Morishima reign and then an underwhelming Kensuke Sasaki reign meant that the bloom was rapidly coming off the rose by the end of ‘08, even for Western puro fans desperately clinging to what they viewed as the only “real wrestling” left in the world. Less than a year had passed since that universally beloved K-Office/Burning tag and things could not have felt more different amid the message board smark set I came up in. By this date I probably hadn’t seen any 2009 NOAH aside from the Nakajima/KENTA junior title switch and Misawa’s sudden passing permanently dampened any desire to go back. It took years for me to start watching snippets of the promotion again and I didn’t do so regularly until this blog started up.
As much as things had soured for my dumb friends and I, these people in Korakuen are still thoroughly, almost bewilderingly invested in Pro Wrestling NOAH. With Go Shiozaki having won the top title literally one day after Misawa’s death, we have now firmly entered into a new youth-oriented era in the company’s history. (We’re gonna pretend Takashi Sugiura wasn’t almost 40 when he won the title at the end of this year, he definitely felt new in spite of his age.) Here GHC Heavyweight Champion Shiozaki and GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion KENTA defend their newly-won status as top dogs against an interpromotional superstar of the previous generation and a fellow youngster conspicuously absent from the upper ranks of NOAH’s youth movement.
Even beyond him being the obvious whipping boy in this matchup between big stars and current title-holders, there’s a distinct trend of disrespect shown towards Katsuhiko Nakajima in this match. When KENTA first tags in he repeatedly ignores the kid to take swipes at Sasaki instead. When Nakajima rushes over and grabs Go’s leg to cut off some top rope move on his mentor, Go shakes his head in unmistakable “oh brother” fashion. Time and again in this match Nakajima is rendered unremarkable by opponents hardly any older than him and he fails to do much about it, reflecting how in this new young era of NOAH history he could prove that he belongs in the limelight (Get it? Because it’s green?) and simply doesn’t. Whereas a guy like KENTA has, for ages now, convincingly carried himself like a smaller star who could become a main eventer, Nakajima wanders unmoored through the NOAH undercard until they run out of better heavyweights to give the title to years down the line. Some of it’s his offense—his kicks don’t feel nearly so ferocious here as they have been lately, with these repeated superkick spots he does being especially bad—but it’s a general vibe as much as anything else. The dude just doesn’t bring it in this match. Maybe I’m being too hard on this 21 year old barely five years into his career but for someone who was a can’t-miss prodigy with tons of big match experience by this point, Nakajima sure has plateaued as he’s entered adulthood, perhaps even declined.
The Korakuen crowd agrees for what it’s worth. After being shockingly enthusiastic (given what happened barely a week ago) for the fiery exchanges between the heavyweights, the audience is often stone silent for Nakajima’s sequences with KENTA. They certainly come alive at points but only for KENTA’s comebacks and nearfalls, never for how Nakajima factors into anything. He’s merely the obstacle to be overcome by our heroes, never anyone worth rooting for. Likewise the crowd doesn’t really react when he trades some slaps with Shiozaki after the match, setting up their Kensuke Office singles showdown a week later, and it’s like yeah man, why would you care? This kid isn’t trying particularly hard even after all the opportunities he was immediately given in his young career. If he doesn’t care, why should I?
Brock Hates Wrestling 