Joe Doering © vs Go Shiozaki – AJPW
Triple Crown Heavyweight Title Match
01/03/2015
A little under ten years prior to this contest, Go Shiozaki had amazed many wrestling fans with his role in a tag match involving Kenta Kobashi, and their opponents, Kensuke Sasaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima. Alongside their more established peers, Shiozaki and Nakajima more than held their own, seeming to offer a glimpse of the Puro future; a landscape dominated by both men.
Whilst this felt like it might be the case at the time, it could be argued that Shiozaki hadn’t quite reached as high up the wrestling tree as had been expected. Sure, he won the GHC Heavyweight Title in NOAH, but with NOAH an entity on the slide, a run atop a resurgent AJPW or even a tilt at the upper card in NJPW never followed. Though the politics of Japanese wrestling sometimes makes this type of movement difficult, if not completely impossible, as more wrestlers moved across promotions, Shiozaki finally had the chance to earn a chance at one of the biggest titles in Puro; the Triple Crown.
In his way? Joe Doering. The sixth non-Japanese wrestler to hold the Triple Crown, he had already defeated Go Shiozaki two months earlier. Though both men had a similar length of in-ring career to date, Doering had fought his way to the top the hard way, with Doering a gaijin in All Japan since 2007 (with a brief stop in the WWE in 2010). Not only that, but Doering clearly had the power and size advantaged, an idea often established throughout the match.
This match felt like it was a computer game boss fight… and was all the better for it. Shiozaki, the plucky protagonist, chipped away at Doering, though often ended up getting splatted by shoulder blocks, clotheslines and chops with relative ease. Doering even no-sold three DDT attempts, getting wider eyed after every impact. However, like in practically every boss fight, they have a weakness, and for Doering it was the Shiozaki lariat.
The match turned on a reversal of an attempted Irish whip into a short arm clothesline by Shiozaki, stealing a move from the Doering playbook. Two more lariats quickly followed; one left Doering draped on the middle rope, the other sent him over the top rope and to the floor. With his shield breached, Doering felt the full force of everything Shiozaki could fire at him, even landing the Go Flasher (a suplex into a sitout powerbomb) for a two count. Eventually, it would take a Doering spinebuster to stop the onslaught, but a lot of damage had been done and Shiozaki was sensing the kill.
Doering managed to twice land a crossbody attack, the setup for his finisher, but both attempts for the Revolution Bomb failed; one turned into a DDT, one seeing an exhausted Doering collapse. Three spinning chops to the side of Doering’s neck left him out on his feet. Cocking his arm like a shotgun, Shiozaki blasted Doering with one more lariat for the three count. Finally, Shiozaki had won the Triple Crown, joining a list of some of the best men to ever step into a wrestling ring.
Unfortunately for Shiozaki, the title reign only saw him defend the title twice before losing to Akebono. His time in AJPW wasn’t to last. Having decided to return to his home promotion, he left for NOAH, a return that coincided with the NOAH run of Minoru Suzuki, and the start of a NOAH vs Suzuki-Gun feud. Having spent time testing the waters elsewhere, Shiozaki’s return has allowed him to continue to build his reputation as a NOAH legend, and a defender of his home promotion.
