The Gatoh Move roster has set their feet on the road to Korakuen Hall, a show that isn’t happening until August but has a lot of tickets to shift. To start that journey, we’ve got Mizuki popping into her old stomping ground to say hello, a new rookie making her debut and a main event in which three teams will try to take Best Bros’ tag titles from them. Will someone succeed? Let’s find out!
We opened with a performance of ‘Ri-Ri-Ringo’, which means it’s now firmly planted in my head. It wasn’t just Mei, though. Chie and Miya were backing her up on vocals and dancing as they are our new Gatoh Move idol unit, Ririringo. I wonder who came up with that name? It’s good news, though, as it means we get more Chie dancing, which I always find entertaining. She nailed most of it here, but her inner Chie-ness can’t help but bubble up and bring a slither of chaotic energy to the whole thing, making it ten times more fun than watching a non-Chie do the same moves.
Emi Sakura & Makoto defeated Sayaka & Erii Kanae
Word on the street (also known as Akki) is that while Mei trained Nonoka and Miya, Erii Kanae is an Emi Sakura project. Understandably, she looked incredibly nervous while making her entrance but quickly seemed to shrug it off once the action got going, indulging in a bit of over-celebrating when she got her mentor in a camel clutch. Not that things went her way for long. Neither Emi nor Makoto are known for taking it easy on people.
Whether she enjoyed it or not, Kanae acquitted herself nicely. You had some of that typical rookie awkwardness, as you could see her brain whirring away at times, but she emoted well and got to show a bit of personality. Also, when it came time to start throwing forearms, she didn’t look to be holding back, laying it on a bit thick. Not quite as thick as her partner, who seemed determined to cave one of her opponents’ chests in, but better than many rookies before her have as you can tell she’s an Emi project rather than a Mei one. There’s a physicality there that screams Sakura to me. It felt like the longer the match went on, the more she relaxed, and when she got the chance to start charging about the place, dishing out the spears that her exhibitions had already established as her signature move, the fans were firmly in her corner, shouting her on.
It means this goes down as a successful debut, even beyond my usual criteria of not crying, hiding under the ring or dropping anyone on their head. Even without the excitement of someone new, it was a fun match. Emi and Makoto haven’t teamed up in a long time, and it’s a joy to see them return to that trainer-and-rookie relationship all these years later. Throw in Sayaka thumping people, and you’d have to be a right miserable bugger not to have a good time, even before we get to the fresh face in Gatoh Move.
Verdict: Welcome To The Gang, Erii
CDK (Chris Brookes & Masa Takanashi) defeated Gaia Hox & Rekka
Watching this match gives you a good idea of why CDK are such an effective heel pairing, particularly in a company like Gatoh. Yes, you get all their usual grandstanding, and Brookes has always excelled at being a dick, but it’s also in the way they wrestle. They’re not afraid to ruin other people’s fun, always looking to cut off the more flashy and exciting offence of Rekka and Hox. Not to sound too much like an old man, but watching people exchange cool moves can get very tiring (more on that later), so having a team willing to step back, ditch all of that and work on slowing down the action is refreshing.
It also shouldn’t be read as me saying CDK are boring. They’re not. Masa and Brookes still managed to sneak some of that hard-hitting and fancy offence in there, but it always came at the right moment. They used it to cut off the babyfaces from building momentum, meaning even one of those brilliant Brookes’ dropkicks into the corner felt like it was denying us of something even bigger. Then, when Rekka and Hox found an inch of space, it felt so much more exciting to watch them let loose.
None of what I’m describing here is particularly complicated, and I don’t think this ten-minute match was a masterpiece, but it was good, solid wrestling that knew what it wanted to do. By controlling the action and holding off on those moments of excitement, Brookes and Masa made Rekka and Hox look good, as every time they sparked into life it felt earned. They stuck to the basics, but they did them well, and it made for a strong showing from all involved.
Verdict: Decent Tag Wrestling
MAO defeated Antonio Honda
Coming off the back of his fantastic match with Yuki Ishikawa on the last Gatoh Move ring show, where the big man forced Honda to take things seriously, Anton was up against an opponent who was a lot less likely to complain about a bit of silliness. MAO can wrestle with a straight face, but as Baka Gaijin watchers will know, his instincts often pull him towards the nonsense. On paper, this was all set to be a bit of midcard silliness, which, with no Black Comaneci match on this card, I would have been more than happy to indulge.
However, it quickly became clear that this wasn’t the match I expected. MAO and Honda opened by circling each other, Anton even throwing out a leg kick to test the waters. It appeared that they had their game faces on. Except that wasn’t entirely true, either. This was almost a comedy match masquerading as something more serious. Anton and MAO didn’t go for the easy laughs. There was no Gon story because, believe it or not, they were dancing with subtlety. Honda drew the laughs not by telling jokes but through his selling of a submission or the way he took a move. And as you watched him do that, you realised just how brilliantly expressive he is as a wrestler. Normally, that talent is reserved for stooging, but when he dials it all back, he’s able to both get the chuckles and draw you into the action, dragging you behind him as he ramped into the third act of this match and started going for the win, throwing some of those great punches as he did so.
Not that this was perfect. MAO indulged his worst instincts towards the end, popping back up after an awesome Tombstone variant from Honda on the apron, undercutting the power of what could have easily been the finish. However, for the bulk of this, Honda was able to rein that stuff in, selling the struggle and the jokes through the smaller gestures rather than the bigger ones. As I said when I wrote about that Ishikawa match, I don’t think Anton needs to get serious to be a great wrestler (he already is one), but stuff like this reminds you that when you need him to anchor something with a bit more heft, he’s more than capable of doing so.
Verdict: Anton Rocks
Mizuki defeated Miya Yotsuba
We often hear about wrestlers scouting their opponents, doing their homework and coming up with a game plan, but we rarely see it pay off in the ring. There are exceptions, obviously, but too often, they get caught by all the same old shit, no matter how many times they must have seen it before. Weirdly, relative rookie Miya Yotsuba is the exception to that rule. We’ve seen this talent previously with Antonio Honda, as she’s slowly worked out counters to all his usual antics, and we saw it again here with Mizuki, whose matches she watched on Gatoh Move’s YouTube channel ahead of this match (along with spending a lot of time talking about how delicious rabbit is). She came into this having done the work, which allowed her to catch the rabbit off-guard, countering her opening attacks and taking control of this match to an extent that I would have never predicted.
And it let them build this around a really cool little story as Miya zoned in on Mizuki’s back, working it over and setting her up for the Miya Hammer. For the bulk of the action, Yotsuba did everything right, hitting all her spots and recovering quickly from any brief flurries that Mizuki managed. Even after connecting with the Hammer and Mizuki kicking out, she was smart enough to go straight to a crab, putting all the pressure on the back and coming agonisingly close to winning. The problem? When Mizuki escaped that, Miya was done. Not literally, but that was the end of the plan, and when thrown into a situation where she had to improvise a new one, Mizuki was always going to come out on top. Suddenly, her experience rose to the surface, and the action untwisted, returning to what you’d expect as Mizupyon simply had more in the tank.
And that’s damn good wrestling. Like the CDK tag, it’s maybe not the most complicated thing in the world, but it makes perfect sense. Miya is at a stage in her career where she can come in with a plan and pull it off, but when that doesn’t work, she doesn’t have a plan B. Mizuki, with her years of experience and touch of evil, has plans B, C and D ready to go, and when she survived the best Yotsuba had to offer, it was inevitable that she’d go on to get the win. Still, while Miya didn’t get to feast on rabbit this time, she did put in a career-best performance, and she can walk away from this one incredibly proud of what she pulled off.
Verdict: Miya Smashed It
Best Bros (Mei Suruga & Baliyan Akki) defeated Do You Remember The Ninja Choke From That Day? And Then We Became Around 100 Years Old (Tokiko Kirihara & Shuichiro Katsumura), Kung Fu Panda (Yoneyamakao Lee & Choun Shiryu) & Obihiro Shokudo Sohonton (Sayaka Obihiro & Minoru Fujita) to retain the Asia Dream Tag Titles
After two perfectly plotted, tight matches, it was hard to shake the feeling that our main event was a bit of choreographed extravagance. I get it. You’ve got four teams in there, and to their credit, they tried to keep as many people involved in the action as possible. If you’re going to do that, you need to have a good chunk of the action laid out, setting you up to launch into these synchronised pieces of wrestling that pay off with fun little gags or cool moves. I don’t necessarily think it’s the end of the world, but in a showdown that had some of my favourite wrestling personalities, it did somewhat smush all of them together, turning them into a Rube Goldberg machine that did a whole lot, with very little tangible reward.
To be clear, I didn’t hate this. Far from it, in fact. I thought it was an enjoyable piece of fluff. There was a cool section in the middle, where the female sides of the teams clambered onto their partner’s shoulders, only to later all somehow find themselves perched on an entirely different pair. It was clever and had a touch of the physical comedy of someone like Buster Keaton (although nowhere near as likely to end in any of their deaths), which is about as lofty a compliment as I can grant. However, in this context, I wanted something more. The main event had been sold as a big match for the likes of Obihiro, who hasn’t held those titles in nearly eight years, and while I know she loves a bit of the nonsense, I wanted her to get a chance to show that emotion in the ring (and her tears afterwards suggested she would have been more than ready to do so). Instead, we got an entertaining fireworks display full of impressive spots without any emotional heft.
It means I came out of this respecting it rather than loving it. The way they brought all those moving parts together, making sure no one stumbled over each other in the process, was damn impressive and speaks to the talent of all involved. It also suggests that some people will like it more than I did. Sadly, I was looking for something a touch more grounded and rooted in the reality of these wrestlers, which maybe just isn’t possible when you have that many teams together. I came away from it feeling like something was missing, even if I could appreciate the difficulty of what they achieved.
Verdict: Good, But Not Great
Overall Show
Despite my issues with the main event, I think this was a great show. Korakuen Hall is still a speck in the distance, but time moves quickly, and the Gatoh Move roster seems determined to build as much momentum as possible between now and then. Shows like this are the perfect way to do it, and if you are someone who has fallen off on this wonderful little company in recent times, you’re looking at the perfect show to get you back in.
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