By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

GLOBAL IMPACT HITS

Special Event Feel: TNA did a great job of making this show in the Tokyo Dome feel like a very special event. I enjoyed seeing the wrestlers talking about wrestling in Japan out of character. They talked about their histories in Japan, ranging from no to little experience like Petey Williams, to a fair amount of experience but not in the Tokyo Dome like Team 3D, to a great deal of experience including in the Tokyo Dome like the Steiner Brothers. They did a good job of explaining the importance of this event for TNA as a company. The 30,000 fans were the largest audience for a TNA show ever, and they did a good job of emphasizing how important that was. Mike Tenay and Don West did a good job in talking about the history of the Tokyo Dome and naming some of the huge names in professional wrestling to perform there. All in all, you got the feeling that this was a very special event.

Press Conferences: Part of that special event feel came from the press conferences that were shown during the broadcast. The first was the big pre-event press conference featuring both the TNA and New Japan wrestlers. This seemed fairly standard. But, I was particularly intrigued by the post-match press conferences. They only showed clips from them, but they were very interesting. I am curious to know whether they were just because of the special event, or if they are fairly common in Japan. In addition to reinforcing the special feel of the event, they also gave glimpses into the personalities of the wrestlers themselves. Some stayed in character, some were just themselves. I enjoyed seeing them.

Angle vs. Nagata: The only match shown in its entirety (minus a commercial) was a very good 20 minute match. It reminded me of some of the Angle vs. Benoit classics. Yuji Nagata reminded me a lot of Chris Benoit. Not only did he also do the Crippler Crossface, but he had a similar size, did multiple suplexes, and had that same intensity. The reversals between the Ankle Lock and Crossface was another point of comparison between this match and those many great matches we saw in the past. There was a lot of mat wrestling and submission holds, but also some high impact offense and brawling aspects. It had a good mix of those styles. The early use of rest holds wasn’t great, and Nagata never really sold the effects of the Figure Four or the Ankle Lock which brought the quality down a bit. But, it was still a very good match. Angle and Nagata worked very well together and complimented each other very nicely in the ring.

GLOBAL IMPACT MISSES

Defining Japanese Style: During the various talking head moments, many of TNA’s wrestlers talked about the difference between the American style and the Japanese style. For fans who are not familiar with Japanese wrestling, they did a singularly poor job of defining the Japanese style and differentiating it from the American style. Tomko called it a “strong style.” What does that mean? I’m inferring that in Japan there is less soap opera and more of a focus on the actual in ring wrestling, but I’m not totally sure on that. If there is a big difference in ring styles, it certainly wasn’t on display. They talked about how it would be an interesting mix of the two styles, but everything we saw reminded me of what I am used to seeing in America. They only showed brief clips of the under card, but those clips did nothing to help show the Japanese style. The one match we saw was a very good match that looked like something we would see at an American PPV.

New Japan Politics: I could have done without the talk about the back stage issues in New Japan Pro Wrestling. It is a promotion that I (and the majority of American fans out there) don’t care about. There was a lot of talk about whether Kurt Angle was the true New Japan World Champion or not. Angle said that he is, Nagata said that he isn’t. The talk about this being the New Japan Third Title was just confusing. I had no idea what that was all about, and if you are trying to portray Angle being the New Japan Champion as a big deal, then why even call attention to any controversy? They even mentioned that in the mean time there was an interim Champion. I’m not sure what that means either. Why are there so many different World Titles in New Japan? They talked about Angle winning the Title from Brock Lesnar, then said that Lesnar had been striped of the title for training for mma. So, why was he then put into a match where he could win the title again? History was talked about in a confusing way that did not add to the broadcast in any significant way. Without the full back story, the brief discussions about the situation were not sufficient for an American audience. So, why bring it up at all?

Long Commercial: In the end, Global Impact was a one hour commercial for the dvd release of the event from Tokyo. After watching most of the show, they had an announcement about the dvd where you can see all of the matches from the show, not just the brief clips that we got to see. The dvd also has more of the behind the scenes footage that we didn’t get to see. So basically, instead of showing a real event, or even a full documentary about the event (either of which would be fine), they showed a long advertisement for the dvd that has both the event and the documentary in one.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hitlist Specialist, providing his point of view in the Torch's hitlist format for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

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