Featured image by @bonkura264
The reality is that there’s a romance to it being the last time. Even where I am in 2024, I can’t help but feel a twinge of nostalgia for what these two had. I’ve done my share of criticizing New Japan and where they’ve gone in recent years, but Okada and Tanahashi really do earn most of that hype they receive for their feud. I caught just enough of it, right at the very end of its best years (2018 being the first time I followed the rivalry in real time) to have good feelings about what these two represent for the company and what they represent to each other.
Of course, they’re not going to live up to that standard. And in some ways, this match has an understanding of that and reinforces the futility of it. You get that from the go with President Tana himself coming out to his old theme song, “High Energy,” only to have it muted and dubbed over on the broadcast with his current theme. Reality imposes itself on the past. Once the action gets going too, it’s very much about capturing a moment in time, only for the truth of things to really settle in. It’s nice, for example, for Okada to reveal his true colors. All these years trying so hard to be the man for these people to believe in, but he can’t help but be smug in the face of Tanahashi, goading him with a free shot. He’s enough of a prick through the early goings it’s enough for this Osaka crowd to boo him.
Tana tries so hard to recapture the magic, and it’s the charm of that selling this thing more than any of those attempts being successful. I feel the struggle when Okada has that deadly wrist clutch on and Tana tries to break it with his slaps. When Okada finally goes for that Rainmaker and Tana turns it into a small package, I think there’s some hope. But time waits for no man, and the Rainmaker is inevitable, no longer a shock.
Rating: ****
