December 4th 2002
Pro Wrestling NOAH
GHC Heavyweight Championship
NOAH Navigation, Uprising Spirit 2004
Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium Yokohama, Japan
After a messy departure from ECW, a stint in WCW during its dying days, and an unmemorable run in the WWF while recovering from knee surgery, Mike Awesome returned to Japan, working under the fan-favorite gimmick "The Gladiator" in Keiji Mutoh's All Japan in 2003. Over the next year, The Gladiator's role was primarily that of a large, meathead gatekeeper. The injury had really taken its toll, and every time he found himself in a prominent spot, there were questions regarding if he could pull off a good match or if the other guy could possibly carry him to one. Despite this, his size and whatever nostalgia remained from the FMW days were enough to keep his head above water.
I'm not entirely sure how the transition from All Japan to NOAH happened—most likely a contract running out and Mike moving on—but during this transition, we get a match with him versus Masato Tanaka for a new (now defunct) title in ZERO-ONE, plus a small dip of the toe into HUSTLE. Gladiator's role in NOAH was more of the same: tagging with foreigners and gatekeeping. The match we'll talk about soon enough is the main focus of his NOAH run and gets more properly set up at the 11/21 Sendai show, where Gladiator powerbombed Kobashi through a table after the main event tag match.
For Kenta Kobashi, this was towards the close of his 735-day GHC Heavyweight Championship run. If anyone were to tell me this was the greatest title run of all time, it'd be hard to disagree. That's why I'm telling anyone who reads this that this is the greatest title run in pro wrestling history. Okay, I'm not really going to claim it as such right now, but if that discussion were to take place, this run is one of the first that would need to be mentioned. Some of the holes in this reign lie around this period. The July 2004 Tokyo Dome show reared its head and put pressure on the top title, with original plans pointing towards a match between Kobashi and Bob Sapp. Plans change.
The past year saw Kobashi bulldozing through most of the major stars, all while putting more wear and tear on his knees. With the Sapp match not going forward (thankfully, in retrospect), the Dome main event ended up being against Jun Akiyama in a match they were hoping to hold off on. Now, this could lead into a whole discussion about the prospects of Akiyama around this time, who seemingly was going to be the guy to lead the promotion after Kobashi and Misawa, but we'll save that for now. A look was taken at what they wished they had with Akiyama and what they already had with Kobashi. Bad knees and all, Kobashi was going to hold onto that title, but after spending what was saved in the back pocket, where does a promotion go from there? To a heatless match against Akira Taue in September, of course.
This was followed by a bout against Akitoshi Saito, who had no chance of winning, in what was a solid match but didn’t really do much for anyone in the grand scheme of things. Now we're at the point where the large, imposing foreigner, The Gladiator, has his sights set on the GHC Champion. But... what is Kobashi looking at over there? Oh, of course, it’s a match against Minoru Suzuki in the Budokan. Yes, Gladiator will get his match, but in the back of everyone's mind, it's known that Kobashi has bigger fish to fry. The Suzuki match really does take priority over this match, as Kobashi invites Suzuki to sit ringside in Yokohama.
I think a reason Kobashi remained such a success in Japanese pro wrestling in the early 2000s is the fact that the guy stuck with working a classic pro wrestling style. Now, I'm not saying the sport can't evolve and everyone needs to work a 50 year old style, but Kobashi stuck with what makes pro wrestling work in a larger environment where MMA was taking over and many promotions were scrambling and altering their identities. There were even critics who bashed Kobashi for working an "unrealistic" style, merely based on him not conforming to a sweeping trend. Early 2000s NOAH is considered a bright spot during a time referred to as the Dark Ages, simply because the promotion and their top guy just did straightforward pro wrestling.
And that's truly what Kobashi did here: a match where he gets the stuffing beat out of him just before he musters up enough momentum to pull off the win. Just something to convey that the champion can take a beating and still stay on top. Really simple pro wrestling.
This was the second time these two met in a singles match, the first being in All Japan back in September 1999, where Kobashi was making his way to another shot at the Triple Crown. It's exciting to see two big guys get after it in the ring, but when not much is happening (like the early goings of this match), that excitement can just as easily lapse. The crowd was pretty dead when this started. Minoru Suzuki was, of course, sitting ringside, smiling and doing eyebrow shtick. Boy, was it hard not to daydream about the prospects of a Kobashi match against him.
There's a bit of plodding, some exchanges outside the ring, and then quickly back into the ring for more plodding. Things heat up when the Gladiator brings Kobashi outside the ring again and starts working the back. The crowd finally comes alive when he brings out a table to presumably give Kobashi another taste of what happened in Sendai. I like being teased in matches, where the idea of something really dangerous is about to happen but the wrestlers, after struggling, back out of it. Just getting the picture in my head of something devastating happening is just as effective when done right.
The Gladiator and Kobashi forgo the mental images and just do it. Kobashi goes through the table by way of an Awesome Bomb. We're now treated to Kobashi being put through the paces of whatever the Gladiator feels like doing to him. There's a cool sequence of Kobashi out on the entrance ramp eating a dive from the Gladiator and then being sent back into the ring by a Super Awesome Bomb. Gladiator is trying everything he can, including an Awesome Bomb from the top rope, but Kobashi stays alive.
And like magic, at the height of the crowd's enthusiasm, Kobashi finds the momentum through a suplex, a lariat, and a surprise moonsault to win the match. I mean, that's what they call working a match, right? Kobashi got the crowd exactly how he wanted before taking it home. Kobashi's attention quickly pivots to Suzuki, and the two exchange words. Kobashi would beat Suzuki and then drop the title to Takeshi Rikio in March 2005. And, of course, this wouldn't be too long before his cancer diagnosis in 2006.
Meanwhile, the Gladiator would do for one more tour in NOAH, just being a body in tag matches until his last show (the same one as the title change to Rikio). The Gladiator would be no more, but Mike Awesome would stick around just long enough for a hell of a one night stand.
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