Go Shiozaki & Shuhei Taniguchi vs Naomichi Marufuji & Atsushi Aoki (NOAH 27/03/11)

Not to take anything away from Taniguchi and Aoki who strated the match, but the real fun begins once Marufuji (clearly on a good mood) was tagged in, and requested to face Shiozaki! Shiozaki attemps several chops but Marufuji either gets out of the way or blocks them. The same way, Marufuji attempts several dropkicks and Shiozaki avoids them! The crowd is really into these two. How could you not be? Marufuji is such an amazing athlete and so is Shiozaki and they’re clearly having fun with these back and forth attack games.

Next between these two is some mat wrestling where Shiozaki attempts an armbreaker that Marufuji counters with a leg hook. They quickly seperate, and Taniguchi tags himself. I already miss Shiozaki lol. And apparently Marufuji does too, because he quickly tags Aoki! 

P.S: The girl who keeps yelling “Marufuji” every 5 seconds is highly annoying!

Next is some interesting tag team action between Shiozaki & Taniguchi. One can’t help but wonder why some good talent like this has been so screwed by bad booking, especially on Shiozaki’s case. *sigh*

Marufuji still wants a piece of Shiozaki and finally tags himself in! He does a good job of superkicking Go, but gets a huge Lariat for all his trouble! Again, we can witness some great tag action between Shiozaki & Taniguchi, eventually leading to Taniguchi locking Aoki on a sleeper hold then German suplexing him, while Shiozki plays the watchdog who prevents Marufuji from getting in the ring to save his team partner!

Very fun match essentially for how comfortable Shiozaki & Marufuji are with each other, and how fun, albeit short, their interactions are.

Sadly, on the 16th of April, Marufuji suffered an injury that will sideline him for who knows how long. Such a talented guy he is, and the one who has done it all in all three major promotions. The hardest working man out there! 

Shiozaki is still lost in the shuffle of bad booking that NOAH is going through these last years. He has a shot at the GHC Hvwgt Title, if he can beat Morishima first. Hopefully they’ll get some sense into that company and rebuild him better, seeing that he’s supposed to be the “ace” of NOAH.

THE BEST Go Shiozaki tribute around! Please check it out!!

Triple team work on poor Go Shiozaki, where he’s held by KENTA and Honda, for Kobashi to knife chop him! Ouuuch!

Shinsuke Nakamura vs Go Shiozaki @ Wrestle Kingdom 04/01/2011

Way better than the previous two, in every perspective. Better psychology, better sequences, more aggressiveness from both, and the public was very responsive (Wrestle Kingdom folks!). I rather found the finish to be a bit weak, since Nakamura was the one that took all that beating, and the fact that he had to only rely on the Boma Ye alone, wasn’t very convincing for me. But that’s just me, and it doen’t take anything away from the solid performances these two put on. It was very much predictable that Nakamura would win this one, seeing the results of the previous two.

Nonetheless, that was the best match out of the three imo, and it could have been longer if it wasn’t for that failure of a match before this one, aka Jeff Hardy (clearly high) vs Tetsuya Naito, which was only salvaged by the fact that Naito is a professianal and good wrestler, and managed to look as good as he could, given the situation. 

Anyway, very solid match from both men! Better than the previous two! Must see!!

Shinsuke Nakamura vs Go Shiozaki (NJPW G1 Climax 08/15/2010)

This is the 1st match of their trilogy, and Shiozaki’s first participation on the G1 CLIMAX tournament. The NOAH guy is in NJPW territory, so expect a LOT of booing! It starts with a lot of mat based wrestling, and slowly picks up when they exchange elbows, chops and kicks and the crowd starts getting behind both of them. Then Shiozaki brings his A game, and the more booing he gets, the better he is! Look out for one picture perfect dropkick from him at the beginning of the match!

Shiozaki centers his attacks on Nakamura’s leg (as most wrestlers do) with some vicious chops to it! WONDERFUL selling from Nakamura even after he starts getting some momentum, he continues selling his leg injury while hitting his famous moves like the Boma Ye! The match was quite long. They went toe to toe, with some great sequences only seperated by a few seconds of rest, which helps imo to not kill the mood of the match. Nothing worse that a long and slowmo bout.

Seriously, as a first experience bringing a NOAH guy to the G1 Climax, this was a complete success. It filled out the arena, they crowd was very excited, getting behind both guys (the Shiozaki chops are about the only things that got him some strong cheering lol), and the two delivered very strong performances, eventhough they never faced one another before, and the styles of NOAH and NJPW diverge a little bit. But they still managed to pull off a great match, and the ending left the suspense going as to who will have the upper hand in their upcoming matches…

Let’s see if their NOAH & Wrestle Kingdom matches will be as good as this one.

Misawa & Marufuji vs Kobashi & Shiozaki (21/06/2008 NOAH UK show)

I randomly asked about this match, and it turned out that it actually happened. How awesome is that? =P Two legends teaming up with their respective protégés.

Starting out with Kobashi & Misawa getting most of the crowd chants, Marufuji and Shiozaki to a lesser extent. Marufuji rocking a new gear and trying to interact a lot with the crowd who seems to love him. (His luggage was stuck in Paris, that explains the gear LOL)

Wannabe chops from Marufuji to Kobashi which serve no purpose other than angering the man!

Loving the Go go go go go go chants :D

Really fun match throughout. Gives the UK audience a live insight of what japanese wrestling is about, with a grain of humor!

I LOVE this picture. Makes me sad & happy at the same time. Sad because we lost Misawa, happy because Shiozaki would have made him proud…

R.I.P Misawa! ありがとう!

Hirooki Goto receiving a GO Flasher from Shiozaki Go, and getting pinned afterwards!

Hirooki Goto vs Go Shiozaki (G1 CLIMAX 2010)

Interesting match up here. Thing is, it picks up REALLY slowly, (not until the 13:00 mark) but once it does, oh boy, it DELIVERS! None of them spares the other, and you can see with each kick or lariat the sweat just pour off their bodies! 

I’m interested in seeing Shiozaki face Goto again in the future, or face Naito!

Rating: 8.5 Very physical match to say the least!