The SmarK Rant for New Japan on AXS–07.19.19

The SmarK Rant for New Japan on AXS – 07.19.19

Taped from Kobe, Japan

Your hosts are Jim Ross & Josh Barnett

So this is not actually an up-to-date show. It happened that I have a free preview of Fight Network on my cable system right now, so I recorded a few things on Friday night for later review. This particular episode was from September 2015 (or at least the matches are from that date) and I was going to skip it but then LOOK AT THIS OPENER:

IWGP Junior tag team titles: reDRagon v. The Time Splitters

OKAY THEN. O’Reilly trades mat wrestling with Kushida to start and grabs a headlock, but Kushida throws him around with armdrags and goes to work on that. Alex Shelley comes in for the double team and throws some chops on O’Reilly, but Fish gets the cheapshot from the apron and then legsweeps him to the floor to take over. Back in, Fish with a high kick for two, and O’Reilly works on the arm with a top wristlock. Shelley tries a sunset flip, but O’Reilly sneers at him and blocks with a cross armbreaker in a slick reversal. Back to Fish for some forearms in the corner, but Shelley takes Fish into the turnbuckle with a downward spiral and makes the tag to Kushida. He hits Fish with a handspring elbow and snaps both of their arms on the top rope at the same time in a cute spot. He tries the Hoverboard lock on Fish, but O’Reilly guillotines him to break, so Shelley takes HIM down with a crossface. O’Reilly turns that into a suplex to escape and saves his partner again, but Kushida dumps him and goes back to Fish’s arm. He tries spinning into the Hoverboard again, but Fish kicks out of it and we take a break. Lemme tell you, you experience a whole different world of shitty commercials on wrestling shows taped at 1am EST. It’s like a ghetto of sexy chat lines and miracle As Seen on TV bullshit. Back with the TimeSplitters in control of O’Reilly as Shelley gets a blockbuster for two, but Fish makes the save. So they hit him with a series of double-teams, as Shelley gets a bridging facelock and Kushida dropkicks Fish in the face while he’s prone, and that gets two. Fish clobbers Kushida onto the floor while Shelley beats on O’Reilly with forearms and JR bitches about the lax refereeing of Red Shoes, but Kyle fires back with his own and finishes it off with a rebound lariat. Brainbuster gets two. He tries a cross armbreaker while Fish comes off the top with a diving headbutt to Shelley’s shoulder, but Alex rolls him over and Kushida moonsaults him for two. reDRagon with the double-team knees on Shelley in the corner and a Demolition Decapitation kneedrop, but that only gets two. O’Reilly tries another brainbuster, but Kushida makes the save and everyone bails to the floor. Kushida takes out Fish with a seated senton off the apron and everyone is out, but O’Reilly tosses Shelley in to break the count. This allows JR a chance to further complain about the refereeing of Red Shoes, as he notes that technically it’s only supposed to be break the count if BOTH sides are back in the ring. Kyle with a standing guillotine, but Kushida breaks it up with a springboard dropkick and they set up a double powerbomb in the corner until Fish saves. O’Reilly does a crazy rolling butterfly suplex on Kushida and finishes with a wheelbarrow suplex, but Shelley manages to fight them off and dumps Fish to the floor out of the corner. O’Reilly hits Shelley with a tornado DDT, however, and into the Chasing The Dragon, which finishes at 16:17 to retain. Oh yeah, I’m all about this. ****1/4 The teams do some nice sportsmanship afterwards, but then Roppongi Vice comes out lays out all four guys. “Turns out you don’t have to be part of the Bullet Club to be a douchebag”, notes Barnett. But it certainly helps.

Hiroshi Tanahashi v. Bad Luck Fale

Tanahashi lost to Fale in the G1 en route to winning in 2015, and this match is for the briefcase as a result. Fale escapes a headlock by pulling on Tana’s beautiful hair, and that’s seriously uncool. Fale goes to his own headlock, but Tanahashi stupidly tries a slam to escape and gets dumped to the floor. Tama Tonga beats on Tanahashi (complete with helpful graphic from AXS saying who he is!) and Tanahashi has now suffered a recurrence of his arm injury. Fale runs him into the railing while the announcers bust on the Japanese fans texting in the front row. And get off their damn lawn! We get the countout tease, but Tana beats the count and Fale chokes him out on the ropes and adds a slam. Tanahashi comes back with his own slam attempt again, but this time Fale falls on top for two. Fale goes the nerve pinch and adds a slam to set up the big splash, but that misses and Tanahashi makes the comeback. Flying foreams and we gets some air guitar and the jumping elbowdrop for two. Fale tosses him and Tanahashi skins the cat before taking Fale to the floor with a headscissors, then goes up and follows with a shooting star press to the floor! And we take a break, and return with Tanahashi pulling him back into the ring by the leg and setting up the cloverleaf, but Fale powers out of that. Fale follows with a vicious avalanche and big splash for two. Tanahashi jobbed to the splash in the G1, so every time he goes for it, it’s conceivably a finish. Tanahashi tries a sunset flip and Fale just crushes him with a sitdown splash for two off that. Fale with the Back Luck Fall, but Tanahashi escapes from that and makes another comeback with forearms. Fale just keeps hammering him and follows with a Fale-away slam, but misses a charge. Tanahashi tries another comeback, but Fale cuts him off with a spear and goes for another Bad Luck Fall, which Tanahashi escapes via face rake this time. He comes back with a sling blade for two and goes up for the High Fly Flow, but Fale catches him with a chokeslam on the way down and that gets two. Fale goes up and Tanahashi cuts him off with a superplex (Red Shoes LOSING HIS MIND is hilarious), then finally gets that slam to pay off that storyline, and then finishes with the High Fly Flow at 16:37. I can think we can safely call this one of the best matches of Fale’s career by far, doing the simple and awesome Sting-Vader storyline with Tanahashi fighting from underneath against the monster but finally outsmarting him. ****1/2 GODDAMN Tanahashi is a fantastic babyface.

This brings out Naito in the thick of his dickhead heel phase, as he takes a seat on a chair and Tanahashi notes “I’ll talk slow so you can understand me” before issuing a challenge for his briefcase. But Naito is far too tranquilo today and he just walks away. But we get the post-show press conference, and Naito does indeed accept the challenge.

Well this was a hell of a one hour show! Glad I took a shot with it. The entire Kobe show is obviously available on New Japan World, but I like getting the JR/Barnett commentary for something different.