Is Jake Lee…. good?
That was a real thought that went through my head after his eminently uninteresting match with Kohei Sato on Day 8 of this year’s AJPW Champion Carnival.
Of course, I know Jake Lee is good, if not great, if not one of the very best Japan has to offer and a worthy 1b to Kento Miyahara’s 1a. I’ve seen him put in countless excellent performances, usually against Miyahara himself.
But after the thrilling heel turn and formation of Total Eclipse earlier this year, a familiar unease set in once we saw Lee wrestle again. It’s not uncommon for wrestlers to change their style once they turn heel, but Lee’s change seemed to accentuate some of his flaws without really adding much to the table other than “we’re finally doing something with this guy.”
Lee was always a methodical worker, but he really started to walk the line between methodical and straight-up slow. I was enjoying his Carnival matches plenty, sure, but it felt like that was more due to the work and comeback potential of phenomenally gifted opponents like Suwama, Yuma Aoyagi, and Zeus than any one specific thing Lee was doing. Headed into these finals, Lee, Shotaro Ashino, and Koji Doi were the only Carnival competitors to not have a match rated (****) or above by me in this year’s tournament.
And then the pandemic reared its ugly head once more and what was supposed to be a raucous Korakuen crowd (which AJPW has had particular success with recently) turned into a barren empty arena show for the final night of block action. The deck was stacked against Lee and his opponent, Miyahara, in terms of living up to last year’s unreal Miyahara-Zeus final.
Against all odds, these two motherfuckers did it. Like, holy shit! Was this not the very best pandemic-forced empty arena match yet?
Lee just killed promotion ace Miyahara in this one. Wrestlers boringly “target the midsection” all the time, but this was something else. We got gutbusters and backbreakers and these awesome forearms right into Miyahara’s breadbasket that the latter sold like he couldn’t breathe. There was a great moment where Miyahara got a brief reprieve from the assault, instinctively climbed the top rope, and was summarily booted off the top all the way to the floor and repeatedly tossed into the barricade.
It was not until Miyahara was able to pull out an apron piledriver that the match began to turn a corner into something more competitive. Miyahara’s first Blackout knee soon followed, signaling that this match was on.
Some people say Miyahara is corny and ridiculous and that he relies too much on his signature schtick. That’s fine if you think that way, but I wholly disagree, because there is nobody in wrestling who comes across like this moment, the one you’re watching with Miyahara in the ring, means the world to everyone involved. He’s all facial contortions and manic energy, doing the work of Korakuen Hall’s 2,000+ capacity crowds by himself. (Special shoutout to the staff and wrestlers at ringside, going crazy like they paid their way into the show out of pocket.)
Having destroyed Miyahara’s torso, Lee turned his attention to his opponent’s head with repeated knees, breaking the ace down even further. A roll-up from Miyahara bought him enough time to land the ultra-protected Shutdown German suplex, leading to one of the better near falls you’ll ever see.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this match is that Lee turned a contrived, overused spot that I feel like I see once a month now – the "bite the ropes to break a hold because your arms are trapped” spot – into something thrilling. I could hardly believe my eyes.
Lee won this match with a D4C brainbuster clean as a whistle. That’s it. No Total Eclipse interference, no Wada stuff, no nothing. He’s gonna win the Triple Crown from Suwama.
…At least, I think. One thing I want to note about this match before I end this review is how AJPW finally just, you know, did the conventional thing as far as booking their biggest tournament. The only wrestler to win the Triple Crown for the first time in the last five years is Shuji Ishikawa; AJPW simply has not made building new stars a priority.
And that added to the drama here! I hate to say it, but if this had been a G1 Climax, I wouldn’t have had any real doubt in my mind that Lee was walking out as the victor.
This year’s Carnival was a resounding success, with Suwama continuing to prove why his title run wasn’t a mistake, the continued ascent of Aoyagi, Zeus’s unrelenting flexible consistency, Miyahara being Miyahara, and a restorative performance from the legendary Shinjiro Otani. Despite all that, these finals were the clear pinnacle.
(****½)