This review was commissioned by Nicholas Anderson over on my Ko-fi account.
It’s worth saying that this activated a certain nostalgia that can’t help but color the way I see this match. With all the recent talk of a revitalization of New Japan and a return to more fundamentally-minded styles of wrestling, it’s always fascinating to go back to their last period of major success. Here in 2017, we are well into the Bushiroad era of New Japan’s success. The company is booming and becoming an increasingly globally-relevant force in pro wrestling, enough so to draw the eye of the WWE towards its talent pool, and creating enough of an alternative-based demand to help facilitate what would become AEW at the turn of the decade. While Kazuchika Okada stands firmly atop the company with the IWGP Title, Hiroshi Tanahashi still waves the flag with the Intercontinental Title, a belt significant enough to headline major events such as here at the 2017 Power Struggle. It’s a time for the company to ride their success and make the most of a beloved roster of main eventers at the top of the card.
It’s also a time when the most annoying after effects of maximalism and “epic” leaning main events were taking root and festering.
Oh yes, this match brought about nostalgia all right. Not any love or nostalgia for this match or the wrestlers involved, but the feeling of my forum days in the 2010s sharpening my taste for pro wrestling, digging around and finding that badness existed anywhere in the world whether or not it bore the prestigious lion mark or not. Nostalgia for when limbwork and longterm selling were some of the main pillars of critical discourse instead of drawing power and aura. And yes, while I’ve done my best to remember that limbwork and limb selling are for from the only markers of great wrestling, matches like this that do it so poorly remind me that it can be a real fucking bitch to see it so awfully mishandled.
Oh yes, sir, it’s that time again: I’m going to be annoying about limb selling! This is your warning, it’ll be The Thing I talk about!
Hiroshi Tanahashi spends about two thirds of this match trying to draw blood from a stone by working the leg of a man who has never really been interested in selling his leg. There’s a good faith reading of what’s presented here as Tanahashi’s leg work not sticking, failing to function in the way that he wants it because he’s dealing with a near supernatural athletic freak. Taken in that context, it can be satisfying to watch the meta narrative meld with the in-ring one: where Tanahashi keeps crashing against this wall of a man trying to make his goddamn leg buckle for once. His attempt here–both from the perspective of the performer and the in-ring character–is a doomed one. You’re not going to take that man’s knee away.
Fine, read it like that if you like. I still think Ibushi’s is just outright terrible in this match. He’ll gesture at his poor, ouchy leg while Tana’s working on it. He does well to cry out in pain every time Tana drops him with a dragon screw and he’ll even grab at the targeted limb throughout the match. But at any other point in this match, when Ibushi is on offense, it’s like the leg work just doesn’t matter in the slightest! It’s not just that Ibushi shrugs off the leg work here, I’ve praised many, many matches where limbwork fades into the background. It’s the specific actions Ibushi takes throughout the match that are just so outright obnoxious, so as to make it feel like he’s wrestling specifically to spite the work Tana’s doing.
And again, if that’s a read that fuels your enjoyment of this match, go right ahead. Me? I just roll my eyes.
Tana will spend minutes at a time going for Ibushi’s leg, always drawing this big, visceral reactions from Ibushi in the moment, only for Ibushi to literally leap back up at every juncture. Every single comeback the challenger makes in this specifically utilizes his leg strength! Whether that be kicking at Tana (WITH THE BAD LEG) or leaping up to hit a double stomp or just fully running at the corner turnbuckle, balancing beautifully on the top turnbuckle, and then nailing a picture perfect moonsault! Like it’s nothing! Like nothing hurts at all! All that perfect form and crisp action then I’m supposed to buy that his leg hurts only when he lands?
And before this becomes a big gotcha where you point to other matches I’ve praised where similar moments occur, man, I get it. I do. I really, really do. Limb selling is varied and imperfect and how many perfect examples do we really have in this world? But this performance, this specific one with Kota Ibushi, really reminded me of how truly bad it could get. The number of times he just does something so spectacular in direct opposition to the supposed damage in his leg, I would audibly groan.
I’ve harped on it long enough, but the main result of this poor performance is a weightless match. This feels free of consequence because when the challenger can’t convey the effects of the champion’s offense it just reads like moves done out of reflex and routine. To their credit, the match does take a turn away from all the leg work towards the bigger bombs as Tanahashi in-character realizes that he can’t finesse his way to a victory here and instead has to just bomb his way through. That manifests in Tana engaging in the strike exchange, triggering the Murder Ibushi flurry but then toughing it out and walking through to get his own back. That’s the stuff that clicks the most here because it looks like it hurts and the entire match does hinge upon that final gut check.
Imagine if there was a match where they emphasized that instead–the rawness of an aging hero trying to turn back this athletic and violent wunderkind.
Imagine.
As for this match from 2017 though? Best forgotten.
Rating: **1/2
