Did a writeup over his match with Narita at the Tokyo Dome that Im actually a touch proud of. Gonna post a lot of this on my Medium page
vs. Ren Narita @ NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 (TV Title, 1/4/2024) – Every undercard match on a one-night Tokyo Dome show is going to get trimmed down a bit, but these guys have enough sense of the moment to make ten minutes meaty, but concise. They could have a very indulgent 33 minute match that would score a nine+ rating on Cagematch or a seventeen minute, genuine four and three-fourths classic. Instead, it's ten minutes of simplicity. Zack works the arm with brutal kicks. Kicks to the shoulder, bicep, forearm, lower body, and a few trusty PKs show up from both. As soon as the armbreaker is locked in, its over. Unlike the typical TV title match from NJPW, the urgency isn't elongated. They're working fast, but this could still reasonably find itself at twenty long minutes. Instead, the urgency sinks in slowly until the ten minute call rings out. It becomes a blur after that. At this point, Narita was likely the most complete worker of his crop of young lions. In retrospect, changing his gimmick feels reactionary. Shibata never needed a strong gimmick, just a solid story and 13 minutes. Narita could've reasonably followed that up, likely with success. He understands the in-betweens of a match and at no point does it feel like ZSJ is leading or carrying a young man to a good match. It's even ground. In the story, one shot could take ZSJ down; just like Shibata. It almost happens, but Zack is far too tenured to not get back up. In an ideal world, Ren Narita is chasing Zack for a few years instead of running around with comedy acts with far less potential or that are far past their disappointing primes. A good opener for Karl Anderson vs. Tama Tonga. * * * *¼.
Thanks for reading!
by CauseSimple6875
