Ask literally anyone who I'm friends with or have talked to for more than 5 minutes at a wrestling show, they'll tell you I love Pro Wrestling Noah. I don't know why. Maybe I like the little guys. Maybe it's the fanatical fan-base. I got in just as Suzuki-Gun and New Japan's booking influence was heading out, so a lot of my opinions on the company are skewed compared to contemporary fans. I never knew KENTA in NOAH, or Morishima, Kobashi, or Akiyama. I call Takashi Sugiura and Naomichi Marufuji "Uncle". I consider Junta Miyawaki, Yosiki Inamura, and Kinya Okada my Young Boy class (and occasionally think of myself as being in that class. If you tell me you've never even briefly fantasized about being a wrestler, you're lying). So I'm hoping to use my new style to watch literally as much NOAH as I can, as well as some good 90s All Japan to kind of grasp where NOAH's roots came from.
So, Kaito. I...I don't know how I feel about Kaito. My emotions are mixed. There's something about him I don't like, but everyone else loves him so I find myself grudgingly biting my tongue. I guess I'm hoping to use this and future entries on my blog to suss out what it is I don't like about him. So thanks for coming with me on this journey, for the three of you who didn't violently close the tab to this blog.
Vs. Minoru Suzuki, Great Voyage in Yokohama Vol. 2,10.26.16
Look at Kaito here. So tiny, so full of hope.
Suzuki's gonna crush him like an orange.
This match is from the first whole NOAH show I ever watched, the same show where Katsuyori Shibata and Go Shiozaki went 20+ minutes and Katsuhiko Nakajima won the GHC Heavyweight championship (Put a Big Ol' pin in this match, we'll be coming back to it and the following title reign one day.) I remember liking the whole card, but besides the two above mentioned matches, Suzuki vs. Kaito was the match I remembered the most vividly. Probably because I love any time Minoru (rocking his old theme here) takes apart Young Boys on a whim. The same proved true in this match, but Kaito honestly got more offense in than most trainees usually do against Suzuki. After a flurry of offense and trying his hardest to stand up to The King, Suzuki brutalized him with strikes for a good 30 second stretch, which includes Kaito being stood back up to take more by Suzuki more than. A great mauling.
**1/2
Vs. Kenoh, Great Voyage in Fukushima, 6.25.17
I could have sworn that Kaito left for excursion after his match with Suzuki. But apparently, he stuck around for an additional eight months and joined forces with Takashi Sugiura? I have no memory of this, but alright. His final match in NOAH before his excursion was, against a rising star level Kenoh. I wanna take a minute and applaud NOAH's dedication to the aesthetic of the time.
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| BOATS |
**3/4
Kaito Kiyomiya went on excursion after this match. He went to the Toronto Area, working for various promotions up there (most notably SMASH and Impact! Wrestling, but not Empire State Wrestling which still bugs me). After seeing what excursions did for for some of my favorite wrestlers (Hiromu Takahashi and Roppongi 3K are the best examples I can think of), I was very excited to see what an excursion would do for Kaito.
Vs. Kenoh, Navigation for The Future 2018, Night 1, 1.6.18
The Excursion lasted less than six months...
I don't know what happened, but I'd like to find out. Was the plan always to have a short excursion? Was I spoiled with long goodbyes and major returns? Not that this isn't a major return, but I came out of this match wondering why NOAH's first excursion in a long time came home so soon.
In this match, Kaito introduced some of his new arsenal to the TV audience of the world; a swinging reverse DDT was used a few times, Kaito unleashed a fantastic top rope dropkick (from now on, assume that he does one in every match unless I say otherwise) and the Tiger Suplex was established as the move he would use to finish opponents if given the chance. This was all in vain, as Kenoh eventually clatters the fuck out of him with a roundhouse kick for the KO. I wish I had more to say but I'm really trying to spread my criticism out between the three Kenoh matches.
***1/2 (Funnily enough I reviewed this match once before and gave it ****. Time was slightly less favorable to this match than others.)
So, I'm a huge fan of Digimon. Adventure 2 and Tamers specifically. For those readers who aren't nerds and weren't kids in the early 2000s, Digimon come in various Levels, from "Fresh" to "Mega". If we look at most Young Boys, we can look at them for most of their training time as, quite rightly, In-Training, second from the lowest. Kaito, who I would argue was a Rookie (a stage above In-Training) when he left on excursion, came back...still a Rookie. But in this title match, he thought he was ready to be the Champion, which I'd consider an "Ultimate" Digimon (I know there's a Champion level Digimon but I've lost control of this analogy). But he wasn't ready, not nearly. The road's gonna be rough for this young man.
Vs. Kenoh, Navigation for The Future 2018, Night 1, 1.20.18
Kenoh's great, I don't know how many times I have to say it. He should be GHC Heavyweight Champion today, but the world isn't fair. In the first minute of this match he nailed Kaito with a Dragon Suplex, a PK, and a Double Foot Stomp. Through the whole match he refused to let his younger counterpart take any kind of control. Finally towards the end Kaito gained the advantage with some okay looking elbows. I realized in this match that one of the big reasons I don't like Kaito is because his striking game compared to his opponents never looks good. Then I realized that he's in a company with 5-6 of the best strikers in Professional Wrestling today and maybe I should give him some slack. High kick knocks Kaito down like last time but not out, a second Diving Foot Stomp ends the match in Kenoh's favor.
***1/4
Vs. Naomichi Marafuji, Navigation for The Future 2018, Night 9, 2.2.18
I hope you're ready for some kicking, Marufuji's got some great Kicky Shit going on. One of the things I love about Marufuji that I see in a lot of my favorite wrestlers is the...heaviness in their movement. If you look at wrestlers like The Great Muta (who might be doing it out of necessity I'm aware), Shinsuke Nakamura, or Arn Anderson, they don't waste any energy or motion in the ring. They move methodically, burst to catch an opponent, and grind back into methodical. Marufuji's the same way, every time I watch him he's never wasting energy. It's like he and the others I've mentioned have weights on their ankle that stop them from moving too much for too long.
The match was kind of there. There's a serious disadvantage to recapping these matches weeks after the fact of watching them. Making a note now to just review these as I watch. Kaito eventually goes for the Tiger Suplex, which Marufuji flips out of, then the murder began. Multiple kicks and knees that would knock me stiff, but to Kaito's credit he kicked out of all of them. Shiranui (Sliced Bread #2 for American fans) finishes Kiyomiya. This match was made much better being in Korakeun, who's familiarity, acoustics, and lit crowd make any show a good one.
**3/4
Vs. Go Shiozaki, Great Voyage 2018 in Yokohama, 3.11.18
Like two minutes into this match Shiozaki used the second greatest move in wrestling, the Gourdbuster, to drop Kaito out of the ring, onto the edge of the ring, right on his side. I screamed in horror before immediately rewinding three times. I know that the point of this review was to take a look at Kaito, I'll get to him more in a minute. But Shiozaki is something else, man. Most times when people chop someone, it comes out as either a resounding crack or a soul vibrating thud. Chris Benoit was able to once get both sounds at once, but a few people are able to get either sound at will. Shiozaki leans towards the crack side of the spectrum and leans into it hard. I love it. Kaito got some brief offense in and...oh honey, no. Kaito's strong point is not his striking. Nor is power moves....or technical wrestling...really the only thing he has is heart.
And then it hit me, halfway through this match.
He's not the best at anything physical. But he's got a lot of heart and refuses to give up. We've seen sparks of it in the matches he's had since he returned, but in this match he really showed how little he wants to fall in any match. I think this puts him in a whole new perspective for me. Maybe this was a turning point in how I feel about Kaito.
Anyway, Shiozaki blasts Kaito with, in order, the 2nd greatest Lariat of all time (Kaito Kicks out), the 3rd greatest Lariat of all time, and the Greatest Lariat of all time for the pin.
***1/4
I definitely came out of this experience liking Kaito more than I did going in. I learned to forgive him for not being the S-Class striker that most of his contemporaries in NOAH are and I finally figured out why I think people like him so much. He's even starting to grow in me, too. Next up, I'm planning to cover that two month stretch of Kaito and Go Shiozaki teaming up to take on the Global tag League. How's that turn out for him? Well...you can google it, but It might be more fun to wait and find out with me.
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