Imagine for a second that you’re Minoru Suzuki. You’re celebrating your 30th anniversary in wrestling… so how do you mark it? With an outdoor show and a match in the driving rain!
Over 18,000 people watched on from the Red Brick Warehouse Event Plaza in Yokohama, for the first of two outdoor shows to mark Suzuki’s anniversary. If you don’t count a battle royal, his in-ring debut was on this day in 1988, in a losing effort to the future Takashi Iizuka… how things evolve, eh? Just look at this long shot of the crowd… absolutely drenched…
First, we have a live performance from Ayumi Nakamura, performing “I Have To Be A Lonely Warrior Tonight”. Better known around these parts as Minoru Suzuki’s theme, or “that song you daren’t talk over the chorus of”. Hey, Alan4L is right – this really does look like they held it outside the Turbinenhalle, right there in the pebbled car park! Right, onto the match…
Minoru Suzuki vs. Kazuchika Okada
Since we’re in the outdoors, in heavy rain, the camera shots are going to be full of water drops, which only add to the atmosphere I feel.
With the ring already soaking wet, they start with holds as Suzuki grabbed a hammerlock… only to get taken down as Okada goes for the waist, leaving a free arm trailing, allowing Suzuki to get free and take him down to the mat with a headlock. Eventually they get back up and part, if only to wipe the rain off of their bodies as the sodden Okada Bucks somehow managed to find their way into the ring.
The pair begin to exchange elbow strikes, which played into Suzuki’s wheelhouse, so Okada just snapmares him onto the mat with a wet thud as Suzuki headed outside. Like a madman, Okada teased a tombstone on the pavement, but of course that was never happening as the pair instead traded shots around the ringside area, before trapping Okada on the ring apron with a cross armbreaker. After letting go, Okada’s beaten around ringside some more as it looked like one of the guard rails had already buckled out of fear!
Eventually they return to the ring as Okada continued to take a kicking, with Suzuki this time going for the arm, taking him back down for a Fujiwara armbar. Another followed as Suzuki was hanging in the ropes, even grabbing the referee’s arm to prevent himself from being disqualified before dropping down to the outside so he could wrestle a chair from the timekeeper’s area. Returning to the ring, one of the ringside cameras is hard to see through as Suzuki throws an elbow at Okada’s arm, but the former IWGP champion is able to hit back with a neckbreaker as the rains continued to pour down. A slam looked to set up Okada for a top rope elbow, but Suzuki gets back up to take him down for a PK, getting a solid two-count out of it. From there, Suzuki quickly goes for a rear naked choke as he looked to set up for a Gotch piledriver, but Okada counters into a neckbreaker slam to buy himself some time.
Okada tries again for the slam and top rope elbow, clearing away water as he climbed up top… but Suzuki rolls away as the commentary saying “there’s no water in the pool” perhaps wasn’t quite as true as it otherwise would have been. It opens the match up for Suzuki once more as he goes back to the armbar, then into an Octopus hold as he tried to force a submission… but Okada clings on as somehow those rains intensified. Eventually Okada falls into the ropes as the break was called for, but Suzuki’s right back to the rear naked choke, only for the Gotch piledriver to be escaped as Okada counters with a tombstone.
With both men on their knees, they’re back to trading elbows like they’re going out of fashion… and Okada actually edges ahead for a brief moment, only for Suzuki to find a second wind and knock him down, before Okada sneaks in a Rainmaker. Apt.
He keeps hold of the wrist though, pulling Suzuki up into a second Rainmaker before dragging himself across towards him for a third one… but they counter each other as Okada ends up landing a dropkick to the back of the head. A second dropkick cracks into Suzuki, but Minoru fired back in kind, throwing in a barrage of body blows and palm strikes before eventually going back to the rear naked choke. You know what that eventually leads to, as once Okada hit the deck, he was pulled up into another Gotch piledriver attempt, but it’s again blocked as Okada tries to backdrop his way free, before going for another tombstone. Suzuki writhes, but can’t avoid the Gotch tombstone… he can block another Rainmaker though, as he managed to find another way back into the match.
Suzuki opted to go back to the arm from there, wrenching away in an armbar, pulling Okada back down to the mat in an Octopus as the timekeeper’s frantic cries suggested the clock was ticking away, and despite Suzuki wrenching away on the arm and neck of Okada he was unable to get a submission as the bell tolled… and time ran out. Well then! That was a match unlike just about any other I’ve ever seen, largely due to the conditions. I’d think that the downpour didn’t exactly change their original plans here, as the grappling and striking style of Suzuki plays well in just about any environment. This is worth going out of your way to see, but with this being a 30-minute draw, make sure you fence off a lot of time for it! ***¾