[2003-09-12-NOAH-Navigation Over The Date Line] Kenta Kobashi vs Yuji Nagata

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Superstar Sleeze]

GHC Heavyweight Champion Kenta Kobashi vs Yuji Nagata - Budokan 09/12/03

 

"Mr. IWGP" Yuji Nagata having just broken the title defense record as the IWGP champion (10 defenses, which would stand until Tanahashi's 2011-2012 reign) and defeating Akira Taue at the most recent Budokan show in June looks to wrest the top prize in NOAH from their ace, Kenta Kobashi. A victory here for either would cement the winner as the hottest star in puroresu. Both took part in New Japan's last ever sellout of the Egg Dome in May of 2003 where Nagata lost his IWGP title to Takayama while Kobashi successfully defended against Masa Chono. Kobashi was riding a tidal wave of success as the freshly minted ace of NOAH having defeated Misawa in March and was looking like the biggest star in Japan. However, a loss here and Nagata could easily claim the mantle of the hottest star in puroresu. This just had a big fight feel that the last three matches were lacking. The Budokan crowd was rocking from the outset and never let up. They were lapping up everything from the first chop exchange to the final BURNING LARIATO!

 

Early on, Kobashi asserts his dominance over Nagata with his chop. He suckers Nagata into his type of match: chop exchanges, tests of strength and and bombs. Nagata eventually realizes that is not a game he can win. He just gets tired of Kobashi chopping him and starts unloading with kicks to Kobashi's chopping arm. Nagata even pushes the ref away from him as he works over the arm and that gets the crowd on his case. The Nagatalock III is an armbar variation that has proven to be a death knell for all his opponents and the entire time in this segment Nagata works his darndest to apply the hold and Kobashi works equally hard to stay out of it. This sense of struggle lent itself to great drama and the best Nagata singles performance I have seen yet. Once Kobashi is able to score a bomb (half-nelson), Nagata seems to lose his sense of strategy. Kobashi is able to level the playing field with a lariat. Kobashi is still selling the arm allowing for Nagata to hit his own bombs including a wicked back body drop that only gets two. Kobashi is able to shift his weight on a suplex attempt and after a lot of struggle he hits a corner powerbomb (Im such a mark for that move). They are selling battle exhaustion really well here even if they dropped arm story prematurely. Surprisingly, Kobashi gives a lot of the home stretch to Nagata after Nagata hits a wild spin kick to press advantage. This ultimately helped the crowd dynamics as they are more predisposed to cheer for the underdog so after Kobashi survived the Nagata onslaught of a super exploder, a barrage of enziguiris and a back drop driver, the crowd exploded with a huge "KO-BASH-I" chant. Kobashi reversed an Irish Whip with a Lariat. I love the camera shot of a concerned female fan who is all of sudden ebullient then they cut back and Kobashi has that "This Fucker Bout To Die" expression. Brainbuster gets two and a BURNING LARIAT secures the win.

 

Budokan crowd loved this match and really was hanging on every nearfall. Nagata had been so well-built by NJPW and the win over Taue made him one of the better challengers from a booking standpoint. From a match standpoint, Nagata just is not an elite wrestler. He is missing the intangibles. He does not doing anything poorly, but he is not great at anything. I think they could have had a classic if they stuck with the arm work and told an interesting story. Instead they went with the bomb throwing match, which is something that Kobashi excels at. The match just felt very safe. They performed a match in Kobashi's wheelhouse and delivered satisfaction to those in attendance. The difference between a Nagata and a Hashimoto or a Mutoh would be they would have forced Kobashi out of his safety zone. In turn, Kobashi would have forced Hash and Mutoh out of their comfort zone. If Nagata forced Kobashi to work a little more NJPW style (read: more matwork) I think it could have been a more unique match. As it stands it is just another very good Kobashi match. ****

 

[Graham Crackers]

I thought this was one of the worst matches of Kobashi's reign. At this point in Kobashi's career the quality of his singles matches depended on the quality of his opponents and Nagata really didn't bring anything to the table. Other opponents bought strategies or used interesting transitions to make you believe that they could stand up to Kobashi but Nagata just threw more bombs. Yawn.

[fxnj]

Disappointing match. I think it would have been a lot better if they had played up the NOAH vs NJPW aspect more and the fact that Nagata was fighting in enemy territory. I thought that was where they were headed at the beginning with Nagata's slap, but that seemed quickly abandoned. Even then, they still had a pretty compelling match building with the arm work and Kobashi's power vs Nagata's technical wizardry, but they went the easy route for the stretch of just doing a generic bomb fest. I agree that by the end Nagata didn't come across as much more than just a guy trading bombs with Kobashi. It certainly worked for the crowd but it's not a match I'm in a hurry to rewatch.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

I really didn't enjoy this match. For me, the highlight happens only about a minute or so into the match. Following the initial lockup, Nagata slaps Kobashi hard in the face who then gives him one of the best looks I've ever seen which seems to say "oh, OK tough guy, you want to play do you? well have some of this". The crowd pops huge when they see it on the big screen and the camera captures it perfectly.

 

It's just unfortunate that things don't ever seem to progess from there, with little by way of a coherent story or strategy from either guy. There's bits of arm work from Nagata but nothing consistent and while I liked that his initial mat wrestling made it different from other Kobashi title matches, by the end they were just exchanging various suplexes on each other with little rhyme or reason. As fxnj highlights above, the NOAH vs NJPW aspect was one of the most intriguing elements to the whole package, and I also hoped that the slap would lead to Nagata feeling like an outside invader. Sadly he ends up just feeling like another challenger of the month to be ticked off, which is a shame.

[GOTNW]

Very surprised with both how much I enjoyed it and how many thoughts about the match I had whilst watching it. I watched it 4/5 years ago and found it good but not great and left it at that.

On another note this just reminded me of how much I prefer 2000s NOAH as a setting over 90s All Japan.

The heat for the entrances alone is inspiring-Kobashi gets entrance chants before he even steps foot on the ramp and Nagata is booed as loudly as an invader should be. I adored how the beginning was paced-Nagata taunting Kobashi with a slap was perfect and they let that big moment breathe but filled the time with gigantic and convincing facial expressions. Nagata's use of the Big Boot as a vicious cut-off during the match ruled. Kobashi used this amazing spot twice where he'd just push Nagata into the corner and start beating the shit out of him with neck chops and whatnot. It ruled. And watching this reminded of how amazing Kobashi's offence was in general. They kinda push each other with their shoulders and just stare in each other's eyes like they absolutely despise each other. And proceed to wrestle. Here I'd understadn the arguments it wasn't fitting, but it absolutely worked for me as they went into the test of strength which is a macho dick measuring spot and exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from two guys trying to prove their superiority. The wrestling itself is ok and peaks with Nagata doing a beautiful headscissors escape that got a reaction I can only compare to something out of Karl Gotch vs Inoki.

There was some limbowork. It wasn't consistently sold. I don't care. I really don't care. Consistent limb selling is the most stupid and overrated concept of all time anyway. That's a thread for the MIS for another time. I'm much more interested in how good the actual limbwork is and what is means in the context of the match than how much it was dropped. It didn't mean that much here. It was used as a method by Nagata to wear down Kobashi. It produced some engaging in the moment work but didn't last long enough to matter as much as it could've. That's my problem with this match more than any limb selling-they had a lot of ideas they teased me with but didn't bother to explore them beyond surface level which is what prevented this from ever becoming a great match. But there are a lot of great moments-Kobashi randomly busting out a bunch of Ikeda-esque headbutts and Nagata's cut-offs would be the highlights. And I was pretty surprised with how strong Nagata's cut-offs were here-there was a spot where I thought they were already in the Kobashi emperor destroyer finishing stretch when he just high kicked him in the face. Kobashi's selling reminiscent of a boxer falling down played as big of a role in it working as the brutality of the kick but it was a magic moment. And Kobashi firing himself up was very similar to a tecnico doing so in Arena Mexico while selling or on defence. There was a suplex no-sell sequence-not the best one, but it wasn't a *bad* one even-them blocking each other's moves and acting like they were actually trying to beat one another helped tremendously. And there was a pretty great nearfall I totally bit on if you're more about that kind of stuff. ***1/2

[Makai Club #1]

I was watching this and I was struggling to put my finger what was holding me back from loving this. However, while writing my thoughts down, my feelings towards the match grew and grew. This was a battle of the bulls. It was Nagata vs Kobashi. New Japan vs NOAH. Only the best was going to work. And that's what they went out and did. Nagata got heavily booed during his entrance. Kobashi got classic "Kobashi" chants. It was pretty much war. Loved Nagata giving Kobashi a slap. The disrespect from him was pretty great. Kobashi pushing him in the corner multiple times and choping the shit out of Nagata was awesome too. Inititally I thought they started to do the fighting spirit spots where Nagata would no sell Kobashi's suplexes too early, but upon relfection, I thought they really worked well into the story. He ain't going to lie down for Kobashi on his home turf easily. The roman knucklelock struggle was great for that as well. It was a real battle of strength. I liked the finishing stretch with the nearfalls and slowly, but surely erosion of Nagata's energy. But Nagata still fighting when the end is looking nigh was so engrossing. That koppu kick against the Kobashi lariat attempt and the final burning lariat after the 30 minute call stood out as the peaks of the closing stretch.  ***3/4

[ohtani's jacket]

This was really good. It's amazing how good Kobashi's matches are considering how slow they are and how immobile he is. The level of detail is amazing. What a happy crowd. I don't think I've see so many shots of smiley, happy people before. 

[BigVanCrush]

Nagata really does a great job here as the outsider prick coming in to fight the champion at his home venue and there's a real "this is some big time shit" vibe to the match during the entrances and introductions. One thing I really like is that Nagata doesn't wrestle this so much like a New Japan main event, he fits pretty perfectly into a big NOAH main event. He opts to meet Kobashi in the middle of the ring and goads the champion into the big bomb fest main events that Kobashi's reign kinda gets associated with. Kobashi's started to show the signs of being cooked physically here, but he's still great at selling, still has great fire and still has absolutely brutal offense and that's all you need. Nagata unloads the entire arsenal on Kobashi, including an avalanche exploder, but in the end Kobashi finishes him off with the brainbuster and then the burning lariat. I've always thought this was a great match, but on my most recent rewatch, it solidified this match as an all time favorite. Everything they do here is good, the crowd is hot, the finishing stretch is great. I'm not sure what more you could want from these two. ****1/2