La Zona Muerta

I had a startling revelation around about the third time I sat down to try to align my thoughts about the combined Wrestle Kingdom and Wrestle Dynasty shows into a coherent narrative (keeping in mind that I have not yet seen or read results for New Year’s Dash): this wasn’t going to be a review. I was writing *gasp! choke!*… a THINKPIECE ABOUT NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING.

Ugh.

My apologies in advance. I suppose to the handful of you who actively seek out these things that I vomit out of my brain and onto the screen for you that writing like this is probably not an issue, but I never thought I would be THINKPIECE GUY.

Yet, despite and nevertheless. Thinkpiece it is, for whatever that’s worth.

I suppose, from a critical standpoint, Wrestle Kingdom and more specifically Wrestle Dynasty were mostly successful as in ring product. Financially? Who knows. I ASSUME night one’s estimate of around 24,000 people drawn was accurate, and you’d have to guess night two was probably down from there around 15 to 20 percent just simply because it was a Sunday evening and the card was slightly less defined than that of night one until the last minute. Since that’s in the neighborhood of 44,000 paid over two nights, the math probably works out okay… not a home run, obviously, but not a flop, either. However, if I were any member of the brass in New Japan, I don’t think I would be patting myself on the back. If anything, I’d be a bit concerned.

New Japan has placed considerable time, both in booking effort and promotional effort, behind a young wrestler who hasn’t clicked with the audience and who failed to deliver over both nights in fairly spectacular fashion. They put less promotional effort but perhaps more booking effort behind another young wrestler and perhaps have created themselves a star… but it also appears that was a very specific, special situation where it would not have worked without AEW’s help.

The powers that be in New Japan should not be happy with either of these things.

Shota Umino is a failure. Is he a cut bait, see you later, ALL THE BEST IN YOUR FUTURE ENDEAVOURS failure? No, of course not. But nor is he an undeniable talent like Tetsuya Naito was when their places were somewhat similar, and the crowds felt like Naito was artificially earmarked to be the next “ace” of the company. Naito eventually went on a second excursion and found… something… that changed him completely, much as Shinsuke Nakamura did before him. The Naito that came back the second time wasn’t the dorky, desperate to impress Stardust Genius… he was a bitter man, a troll thumbing his nose at both the fans AND the company who allowed him to flounder and flop. He came back as something altogether ungovernable and became (and remains) the most popular wrestler in Japan.

With Umino… it’s been somewhere around five years since he was linked to popular foreigner Jon Moxley, went on excursion to England with stops in America and Mexico and a little over two years since his return, coming back with many varying degrees of push, many different looks, many attempts to emulate others. Despite a generally warm reception in America where his connection to Moxley was / is played up, none of these various attempts to cement Umino as the next “ace” have truly clicked.

It’s clear New Japan had BIG hopes for the man, christening him as one of the Reiwa Three Musketeers (along with Ren Narita and Yota Tsuji, a moniker all three men and more importantly, the fans, rejected). Recently, Andy Quildan, in something that should have become a bigger deal when he said it, in so many words, indicted Umino (after Umino made some complaints about his excursion to Revolution Pro in England) as not trying as hard or making the most of his time on excursion as his contemporaries like Tomoyaki Oka (the Great O’Khan) or Yota Tsuji did. If you haven’t heard these comments, they were made on my friend Trish’s podcast (please see https://open.spotify.com/show/6wnp6UMuWvyat9gZMJZWHi for the wonderful Trish and Sarah Wrestling Podcast, one of like maybe three shows I would recommend to anyone who reads the tripe I publish here on a regular basis). These comments should have received a bit more play as they encapsulated a lot of the feelings people seem to have about Shota… is he trying hard enough? Is he using his time to best effect? Umino often times looks like he doesn’t want to be there in ring and talks openly about not connecting with the crowds at large, pointing out that kids like him, so it’s okay. The crowds recently have FINALLY flat out turned on him, rejecting his presence in the main event of the Tokyo Dome and he lived up to that rejection by turning in a perhaps solidly wrestled (your mileage may vary) but creatively backward performance against popular gaijin champion Zack Sabre Jr. and then a NOTHING performance against another gaijin, Claudio Castagnoli (a man so talented, he could wring a decent match out of me by me simply feeding for his offense if I were willing to get the shit kicked out of me) the next night, a match no one will ever remember or even talk about unless it’s to point out Umino’s mediocrity.

The really telling thing is that, if Umino was being booed out of the building every night, maybe the company could turn him heel and capitalize, but he’s not even receiving deafening boos any more than he’s receiving raucous applause. He’s the recipient of APATHY, which was ESPECIALLY noticeable on Dynasty, and is the worst possible thing for a wrestler or any performer. I recall going to a concert and the poor opening act was a talented gal who received pure apathy as the crowd waited not so patiently for the main event. The apathy affected her so much, it spurned her to say “Gee, I hope you enjoy the rest of the show,” as she left the stage, and I remember my cold, black heart breaking for her just a tiny bit. Over two years of NJ telling you this is the new guy and the man is out there getting crickets for his efforts. Some of it is New Japan’s fault, sure, for placing him into a tough position and maybe placing too many of their eggs in his particular basket too soon, but at some point we have to talk about Umino’s culpability and how much responsibility he bears for some or even most of what’s happening.

He’s emulated others. He’s tried being himself (I guess). What’s left? Fans are sensitive to inauthentic performers. There are no easy answers and I don’t claim to have them, but his inadequacies were very much on display for everyone to see on the weekend. If his performance on the 4th was… divisive… to fans of our ilk, his performance on the 5th didn’t seem to garner much in the way of sympathy for him or his position at all, especially in the light of matches like Konosuke Takeshita vs. Tomohiro Ishii and Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd. He was exposed, utterly, like a grub in the sunlight fleeing for the safety of the underside of a rock. By way of segue…

The second part of this diatribe was largely scheduled and indeed drafted to be a rant about AEW not utilizing Takeshita to his fullest and how New Japan needed to make a “backdoor” deal for him since they desperately need someone of his caliber inserted into their main event scene… but Saturday afternoon I heard some dark web rumblings and Saturday night / Sunday morning it was revealed that somehow, New Japan had INDEED signed Takeshita while he maintains both his AEW AND DDT contracts. I really don’t know how this works or will work and I’m nervous but excited. NJPW NEEDS Takeshita. I mean AEW does, as well, but they don’t need him the way NJ does. I just hope that they do something MEANINGFUL with Takeshita. There is kinda sorta precedent in the way New Japan eventually signed Kota Ibushi and incorporated him into their product, but they didn’t TRULY get behind Ibushi until he signed with NJ EXCLUSIVELY, so I’m a little concerned that politics will stand in the way of Takeshita’s greatness. Still, to me, Takeshita is the literal best wrestler in the world and I think his talent is undeniable.

That brings us to the thing I’m going to find the most difficult to talk about by far: Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd.

One man’s match(es) moved President Ace to apathy. Another’s moved him to actual tears

When I say I don’t like Gabe Kidd, I’m not talking about Gabriel McMenamin the man. I don’t know him, I don’t know anyone who knows him (I don’t think) and frankly, I don’t know much about him other than what we all know, which is he had to take time away from wrestling for the betterment of his mental health. He must be a conscientious, hard worker or he would have flamed out of the New Japan system, especially as a gaijin not afforded chance after chance unlike others.

I find his ringwork to be (mostly) competent but unmoving and his gimmick to be downright loathsome. “Ugly foreigner mad at the office” worked to some degree with the original Bullet Club, but this 3rd or 4th generation version of same is largely just men shouting profanities all the time with no tongue in cheek humor behind it. There’s a WORLD of difference between Fergal Devitt (my diseased brain almost wrote “Feargal Sharkey”) saying “Who the fuck is Captain New Japan?” and whatever it is that Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors, Drilla Maloney and the rest do. That “fuck you” attitude turned me from a fan of Alex Coughlin to someone who did not want to see him perform any longer when he suddenly became Andrew Dice Clay during a G1 presser, talking with a thick New York accent about how the fucking office had wronged him OHHHHWWWWWWW. That “fuck you” attitude turned me from whatever I saw in Kidd before he had to take time away for his well being. Longtime readers or friends of mine know I have no problem with profanity, certainly, but there is a time where it’s only sound and fury signifying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL. It actively detracts from War Dogs matches for me, the profanity, and with Connors especially, since his gimmick has a hint of the Chippendale dancer about it, the vulgarity of it as well. IS IT GOOD HEAT, BROTHER? IT MUST BE. No, not if it leads to me not wanting to see them get beat up. It leads to me not watching New Japan.

In regards to the big Kidd / Omega match, it was absolutely impossible for me to buy Gabe Kidd, who has done nothing but run down New Japan up to and including the moment when he CAME OUT TO THE RING, SHOUTING AT HIROSHI TANAHASHI as suddenly being the defender of the realm. He takes off his sweatpants and suddenly everything is forgiven because he bears the LION MARK?

Was this a good match, a great match? I don’t know, I really don’t. I found the premise behind it (New Japan homer defends against a big, bad invader) SO INTRINSICALLY FLAWED that I couldn’t accept it for what it was. New Japan guy defends against an outsider is literally what the company was founded upon… I just didn’t buy that Kidd was suddenly this stalwart defender of the Lion Mark, of the cerulean blue mat. The crowd certainly did. Another egg on my face moment; I mocked someone on a discord I belong to behind their back for saying that the crowd might turn on Kenny. I have to wear that one… I WAS WRONG. It’s not really that they turned on Kenny (they still oohed and ahhed for his offense and bought him as the eventual victor) so much as they liked Gabe.

None of what I’m about to say is to take away from Kenny Omega. Kenny looked great, didn’t do the thing last time where he acted as though he had ring rust and gradually got better. No, he just came in and reclaimed the “Best Bout Machine” moniker. We’ll talk about Kenny and his comments after the match in a bit.

So you had Kidd with Connors and Maloney in his corner screaming “fuck that motherfucker” over and over while Kidd cheated, used nasty tactics, did his typical outside brawl stuff, brought many chairs into the ring and it was like… was this what Bret Hart fans felt like when he fought Stone Cold Steve Austin in the infamous double turn? If someone in New Japan is sitting there, let’s say a Gedo or a Dick Togo, with their arms folded, nodding sagely saying that turning Gabe babyface was the goal, that was the effect they were looking for, I would call them a goddamned liar (see, I can swear, too). If GAABU comes out at NYD with the MOTHER of all mea culpas, I guess MAYBE I could buy it but he has been so odious, well beyond ringwork and comments and “heat” that I would probably have to have my nipples clamped to a car battery to accept him as a babyface.

The bottom line was that I couldn’t get into the match and I think a lot of it was simply due to the crowd reaction running counter to the story being told in ring. I didn’t listen to the English commentary (which apparently there has been some controversy over) but I’m told there was a LOT of anti AEW sentiment thrown around… meanwhile New Japan should be kissing Tony Khan’s ass that he allowed this accidental crowning of a new foreigner babyface and Tony Khan should also be kicked in the ass for not utilizing Kenny to his fullest, despite injuries and such. The fact that Kenny isn’t in the main event picture in AEW is akin to promotional malpractice. How much time does Kenny have left on his life clock before he ascends to that great Logan’s Run-esque bug zapper in the sky as we chant “RENEW! RENEW!”? AEW need to pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and get to stepping. Kenny is COMPELLING, in ring and out. I find Kidd to be one dimensional, boring and, worst of all, a channel changer.

Speaking of Kenny, obviously the man is a worker, and therefore trained to LIE to his audience… but did his post match comments seem like the words of Kenny Omega the performer or Tyson Smith the man, disappointed with the New Japan fans and their reaction to him and, more troublingly, the barring of the ONLY PERSON HE CARES ABOUT FROM THE BUILDING? Is this all some masterful work? If so, and yes, I know that’s the first thing every semi-smart fan says to prove they CAN’T BE FOOLED, to what end? He’s not currently slated to work with NJ again. His AEW program appears to be with Kazuchika Okada, a man not exactly champing at the bit to reestablish ties with his former home promotion. Kota Ibushi will CERTAINLY never wrestle with New Japan again and that’s probably for the best on both sides of the equation, so why would that even be brought up? Kenny is almost too cerebral for pro wrestling or at least our modern interpretation of it. Is it unreasonable to think he was genuinely disappointed by the fan reaction to him, a man who has meant FAR more than Gabe Kidd ever will to NJ? Is it unreasonable to think that he was genuinely upset that Ibushi was apparently barred from the building (something he mentioned TWICE and plays into NOTHING and something the reporters there failed SPECTACULARLY to follow up on? I almost thought Kenny had teleported to America and was being asked questions by Wr*st*J*y for a moment)?

In the end, this weekend was not a creative reset for NJPW or even a particularly good resolution or endpoint to the previous year. Nothing has really changed. Zack Sabre Jr. is great but I’m worried he will be held responsible for Shota Umino’s LACK. His first opponent coming out of WK will be the reliable and redoubtable but impossible to take seriously in the main event Hiroki Goto. Tetsuya Naito DESPERATELY needs time away to rest, to heal, and is probably best served hidden away in tags and multi mans. Tanahashi is on his last ride. El Desperado is fun, a good champion but faces a wasteland in the junior division, a division that needs to be propped up by New Japan’s partners and, frankly, we’ve seen Despe on top for a long time already. The Bullet Club and House of Torture both remain as foils who actively detract from the fun of watching the rest of the show. We did get the positive news of El Phantasmo returning from his cancer scare (and winning the NJPW TV title, a belt designed to showcase sub fifteen minute sprint type matches) and as aforementioned, the signing of Takeshita… but where will he fit? They did strap up Yota Tsuji, probably the man who should be given Umino’s push, and he did have good outings this weekend. His stock is probably a touch higher coming out of the weekend. They do have kids like Ryuhei Oiwa and, to a lesser extent, Yuya Uemura that they can try pushing harder… but the specter of Umino, both in his continued failure and his presence looms large. How do you shuffle him away and give the rocket to someone else without turning off the crowd?

I love New Japan. It’s my favorite promotion; I just don’t talk about it as much as I used to because they’ve given me so little to buy into this year. I wouldn’t have just spent 3,000 words talking about it if I didn’t love it… but it’s so gut shot, so self owned, so slow to react right now that I’m legitimately worried about it’s continued existence. They are living off past glories, the goodwill of the remaining fans and the charity of their partners. I want a healthy, vibrant New Japan because that means the Japanese scene is healthy and vibrant and that also means the WORLD scene is healthy and vibrant, too.