KAI-GO GO NOAH Rangers (Kaito Kiyomiya, Volume 2)

[Hi! This is the second of a three part series of my look at Pro Wrestling NOAH's current Heavyweight Champion and all around good boy Kaito Kiyomiya. The first part is here, it focuses on some of the matches he had when he was still a Young Boy, along with the first big singles matches he had upon his return from his learning excursion. Definitely suggest you read that article first, checking out the matches you want to, before coming back to this entry. Thanks!]

Where we last left our hero, he was...well Kaito was getting his ass kicked. Coming back from excursion didn't bode well for Kaito, even with a handful of multi man victories and one singles victory against Andrew Everett. But, now under the tutelage of Go Shiozaki, a man some guy on Cagematch says "has an air of royal arrogance about him and in that sense he reminds me of Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z" which is fucking poetic, maybe the young man will finally find his way and do better for himself. But the Global Tag League is no play-date for soft men, the competition is tough, a title shot awaits at the end of this road. Will the newly forged team of KAI-GO make it to the finals?


With Go Shiozaki vs. Akitoshi Saito and Masao Inoue, NOAH Global Tag League Night 1, 3.18.18
I had to look up what a "Dark Agents" was finally. I now have a...vaguely general idea. The answer is "It's Akitoshi and the lads defending Christmas". If anyone who works for or with Pro Wrestling NOAH somehow reads this, first off why? Secondly, Bring back the Great Happy Christmas Championship.

Anyway, Kaito and Go took the majority of the offense in this contest. I hate to say it, but they didn't seem to sweat their opponents here. Kaito started off handily out wrestling Saito, before letting Go come in to chop a motherfucker or two. Barring the laziest Total Elimination I've ever seen, nothing special actually came out of the Dark Agent camp (Note: I'm not trying to be overly critical of the Dark Agents here, but it was a clothesline and a calf kick. Saito may as well have been giving Inoue emotional support for all his kick did to bring Kiyomiya down). A few minutes later, Kiyomiya rolled up Masao with an O'Connor with a Bridge for the pin.
**1/2 (Despite how low I'm rating this, it was a pretty fun watch. If you only have 10 minutes on your hands I would actually recommend this.)

Kaito, The Agumon (Kaito Kiyomiya, Volume 1)

So I really like Pro Wrestling, but I haven't been watching a lot for it lately. Blame Grad School, blame work, blame the pit of despair and self loathing depression's sunken me into (but mostly that last one), but I just kinda stopped after the G1 this year. So I want to try and kick my ass into watching it again. So instead of trying and failing to cover big shows...I'm just gonna watch wrestling. Sometimes it'll be a single wrestler, other times a string of title defenses, and sometimes I'm just gonna watch random matches during the week. Fuck it, I don't have a format anymore.

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

A Summary of what I've been reading on DC Universe the Past Few Weeks

I just wanted to read more Tim Drake material and somehow I got swept up in multiple multi-run arcs.

That's the gist of what happened a few weeks ago. After I immediately binged the first two seasons of Young Justice (And got my heart fucking shattered for my trouble) on DC Universe, I started planning on what I wanted to read from their immense catalogue of comics. After a brief foray into the original Suicide Squad run, recommended to me by a friend (thanks Brian! Watching the Squad fight white nationalists in the 1980s was fucking great), I turned to the part of DC I wanted to know the most.

 I fucking love the Bat Family. Not Bruce, really. No offense to him, but I like his kids more.

Dick I love cause he's the eldest, the acrobat, the Titan's leader

Barbara I love cause she's intelligent, has er hands in the system at all times

Jason I love because of his riteous fury and his deep core desire to just be wanted

Damian

And then there was Tim. I knew like...next to nothing about Tim a few weeks ago. I knew he was the third Robin...aaaaand really that's all. He was partially the driving force behind my project to read as much Bat Family stuff as possible.

(Fun aside. In my research for this post and the project in general, the "Bat Family" consists of anyone who works in a semi-regular occurrence with the Batman, not just the Robins and Batgirls/women)

I needed to figure out where I was starting. There's 80 years of Batman to cover and my knowledge of the Bat only reaches about as far as the original DCAU goes. Tim Drake starred in his own series that started in 1993 and ran until 2009 so I figured that'd be a good backbone to start with. I figured I'd pick up Nightwing and Birds of Prey as I went along. I never planned to actually read any Batman this whole time if we're being honest. I just wanted to read the stories of the people around him...

The 90s weren't gonna let me do that. Not by a long shot.

Apparently the taste du jour of the 90s Batman was that everything needs to be part of a goddamn crossover event. From Robin Issue one to where I've stopped today on issue 32, I've read four separate multi-comic run arcs that had me darting all across the fucking website trying to follow the story. I only really stopped cause my friend Brian of Suicide Squad fame wanted to possibly catch up to me and join me in my escapades. So I wanted to take the respite in my crossover journeys to start logging exactly what I've read and continue to talk about what I'm reading. So, this is definitely gonna be a more informal rant than my future posts cause I'm going real quick off the top of my head, but...I hope you enjoy my ramblings here? This is more posterity than me thinking anyone will read this. But in case you're reading this in the future, this is where I started.

G1 Climax 29, B Block Session 2: The Middle Nights

We're two thirds of the way there, and I'm starting to feel the heat. Reviewing 5 really good singles matches every other odd day sounds really great at first, until you try putting that shit in practice. While I don't think it's gonna burn me out like the effort to watch every G1 match last year did, I'm definitely going to need a week or so away from wrestling after this year's tournament wraps up. If you wanna read my thoughts on the first three nights, you can find them here. But, for now, let's get going or I'll never get finished.

G1 Climax Night 8, 7.24.19

Juice Robinson vs. Toru Yano (CHAOS)
Juice Robinson had, at the time, the best match with Yano in the G1 (this wouldn't last). Yano tried to ply his usual tricks, but Juice countered most by just bull rushing through. Pulp Friction put Yano away.
**1/4

Hirooki Goto (CHAOS) vs. Taichi (Suzuki-Gun)


Easily the best match these two have had, out of the three. Taichi tried getting into Goto's mind early by attacking one of the LA Dojo Young Lions, which Goto did not appreciate. The last minute was very good, with Taichi trying to use his mic stand, Goto thwarting it, then landing a Mexican Foul and a Gedo Clutch for the pin. Wish I had more to say, but this was better than I'm making it sound.
 ***1/2

G1 Climax 29, B Block Session 1: The First Three Nights

We are one third of the way through the tournament and it's been...really solid?

I've heard people call it the best tournament of all time. Which is a stretch, especially since last year's G1 was so amazing. I think a lot of people are using last year's G1 as the benchmark to make this claim so...that's a victory for 2018. Anyway, I decided there was no way that I was reviewing both blocks. So I picked B-block due to who was in it and the matches that excited me. I did a preview to the Block you can find here, but now we have to start looking at the tournament itself. Which is below. Let's fucking start this good shit.

G1 Climax Night 2, 7.13.19

Juice Robinson vs. Shingo Takagi (Los Ingobernables de Japon)
This was a weird pick to open the B Block, but in the end it turned out to be a really good, back and forth match. These two have never had a singles match together as far as I know, but what they got from a cold open was actually above anything I could have expected. The crowd was wild and getting really into both men at the finish. Juice picks up the surprise win here with the Pulp Friction after the Left Hand of God.
***1/4

G1 Climax 29: B Block Preview!

Like Andy Williams said, 'It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year'...

Fuck, man. It's the G1 Climax! It's basically the reason I haven't watched any wrestling in a month, and why I probably won't be watching much for the month after it's over. Can't let yourself get burned out. I'm covering the B Block alone here because it's the block that I'll be following in it's entirely this year. If you want to see someone's opinions on A Block, go check out my co-blogger Justin's A Block preview here. Probably 5 people will read this blog and I'm loaded on craft beer. Let's fucking break this down.

"Death Rider"
Jon Moxely
Age: 33
Pro Debut:2004
G1s: 1
Title History: 1x IWGP US heavyweight Champion (Current), 1x WWE Champion, 3x WWE Intercontinental Champion, 1x WWE US Champion, 2x WWE RAW Tag Team Champion, 2x CZW World Heavyweight Champion
Adopted Shota Umino as his son at Dominion this year.
Man, Jon's doing fucking great for himself. I hope he makes it through this tournament unscathed, With Ishii and Cobb in this block, I'm hoping Mox doesn't get dumped on his pretty face too much. As much as I'm looking forward to the singles matches he'll be in, I'm just as excited to see him in the opening tag matches with his new son Shota Umino. Hopefull he can give Shota the edge he needs to one day fight Kaito Kiyomiya and beat him.

"The Flamboyant"
Juice Robinson
Age: 30
Pro Debut:2008
G1s: 3
Title History: 2x IWGP US Heavyweight Champion
Somehow went from too much dread to not enough dread in like two years
Well, Juice has certainly been loose since the last G1. After a run that could be considered "meh" he lost and regained and lost his US title again. I wish I could be more excited for him, but if this year isn't a shot in his arm via major pickups over Naito, Moxley, or Ishii, I don't know what to tell you about him.

Pro Wrestling NOAH Presents: Global Junior Tag League, Night One

Well, it's been a while. Don't really have an excuse, but I'm here now, and I'm gonna be reviewing what I can. So, starting off this fourth(?) run of trying to review wrestling is the first night of Pro Wrestling NOAH's Global Junior Tag League. The downside is that the actual tournament matches on the card tonight were outdone by the semi-main and main event 6-mans that followed them. There is an upside, though, in that this was a perfect show that a non-fan of NOAH could jump in on. What do I mean by that? Hopefully once you've heard me talk about this card you'll see why.

Akitoshi Saito, Masao Inoue and Shuhei Taniguchi vs. Mitsuya Nagai and 50 Funky Powers (Mohammed Yone and Quiet Storm)
I think the best thing I can say about this match is that it was inoffensive. There was nothing in this match that would cause someone to not keep watching the show, but I also wouldn't highly recommend it to anyone. It's the opener, what're you gonna do. Taniguchi eventually got the submission on Quiet Storm with some kind of Hammerlock Camel Clutch.
**

Tadasuke (RATELS) vs. Yoshiki Inamura (Kongoh)
Yoshiki is, or was, one of the local Young Boys in NOAHand he's only been here for less than a year. Although he's now in Kongoh (more on these glorious bastards later) I don't know whether his graduation was official or not. Here he squared off against Tadasuke of RATELS, who I've always subconciously classified as "the other RATEL" between him and his three stablemates. Inamura had a really fun match with Yuji Hino at the finals of the Tag League in early MAy I suggest you try and find, but this match turned out to be alright. Yoshiki landed an Oklahoma Stampede, getting brownie points from me, and went for what looked like a copy of Yuji Hino's FUCKING BOMB, which I will henceforth refer to as the GODDAMN BOMB if it becomes a regular thing. Tadasuke got out of the attempted plagiarism and after some quick pin attempts he nailed the rookie in the back with an elbow and got the pin with some kind of clutch. A neat match that did a good job at showcasing Inamura, even in loss.
**1/2