The wrestling was good. It was also four hours, but the wrestling was good.
Is it possible to find a commentator without either JR/Barnett’s old fuck shit (“We thank you for welcoming us into your home, folks!” ain’t going over with the kids) or Mauro’s over-compensating, but also sounds new and knows both the product and the world around them?
1. Jushin Thunder Liger, KUSHIDA & David Finlay vs. Yoshitatsu & The Tempura Boyz
Yoshi Tatsu is a guy who went to America, made it to WWE, returned home, broke his neck, made a harrowing recovery, and now enters to silence in New Japan’s USA debut. This match was an opening contest. The ref doing the yay/boo shtick early on was tremendous. Finlay chain wrestles and is all fired up, Liger gets beat up, Liger throws shotei’s, KUSHIDA hot tag. Tanaka’s catch of a handspring into a German suplex was pretty wild. The folks got to see Liger!!! **1/2
2. IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title Tournament – Semi Final: Kenny Omega vs. Jay Lethal
High energy feel right from the start, everything made sense, both guys sold big, crowd was loving it – this ruled. Lethal’s ribs were taped, so Omega feigns a clean break then kicks him HARD in the ribs, knocking him outside. Liked Lethal desperately trying to fight out of the One-Winged Angel early, and his counter of the leaping Fameasser with a Blue Thunder Bomb towards the end. Absolutely wild last 5, I mean jesus – Lethal goes for Lethal Injection, Omega gives him a five-star and drops a Dragon suplex, then the cross-legged fishermans buster, Omega runs into a knee, Lethal runs into a crazier knee, Omega runs into a couple elbows, Lethal tries a rolling elbow and gets a knee to the face, then another for a big near fall. God damn is that V-Trigger buck wild – if Omega can hit those so brutally without hurting his opponent then he is special. A One-Winged Angel is countered with a rana, then Omega LIFTS LETHAL INTO THE OWA and hits it for 3. Not sure anybody ever bought Lethal winning but fantastic match. ****
3. IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title Tournament – Semi Final: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Everything Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr. was ever supposed to be – Zack’s painful limb contorting vs. Ishii’s painful ass-kicking. Liked Ishii establishing himself as a bad man who will knock you down early, Zack as a fella who’s all skinny and weird-looking but knows British fung-fu and can break your arm. Ishii’s sell on the bodyscissors armbar towards the end was SO good, had the crowd biting. Only part of this I wasn’t digging was the headbutts – there’s really no happy medium with wrestling headbutts, either they connect and you feel terrible or they look weak and you’re disappointed – here they looked weak. High-impact finish, ZSJ just running into a lariat then getting dropped with a brainbuster was awesome. ***3/4
4. Jay White, Juice Robinson, Dragon Lee, Volador Jr. & Titan vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, SANADA, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI
Now I get JR and Josh got some names wrong, but counterpoint: I’m a total wrestling nerd and couldn’t tell you the Luchadores apart. This match was FAST. Liked Naito and Volador tearing it up early, the Lucha fellas flying all over the place, Naito being an ass, the Takahashi/Dragon Lee pairing. Finish came a little fast but this was very fun non-stop 10-man stuff. ***
5. Michael Elgin & War Machine vs. Guerillas of Destiny & Hangman Page w/ Haku
HAKU!!!!!! Another New Japan multi-man match that gets guys in front of the crowd and lets them pick their spots but it’s just super inter-changeable. This went a little long and wasn’t very fun. Haku’s tucked-in Bullet Club Dad look was the best part. **1/2
6. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title: The Young Bucks [c] vs. Roppongi Vice
A rollercoaster of a wrestling match, tons of crazy stuff with an epic start, wild spots, and epic finish. One thing I’m usually not into with a Bucks match is when they have to slow it down, yeah you need to but find more interesting ways to kill time. Their heat on Trent? was more FUN!!! than legit compelling, guess it depends what you want out of you professional wrestling. Otherwise, had a blast with a lot of this. The precision and timing on the opening 2-on-2 exchange was amazing, Trent took that running powerbomb on the ramp like a nut, liked Rocky’s headscissors out of the Meltzer Driver setup. The springboard asai by one of the Bucks was INSANE. A wild match. ***3/4
7. Kazuchika Okada, The Briscoe Brothers & Will Ospreay vs. “The American Nightmare” Cody, Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi & Marty Scurll
This was a very long House Show Match. I’m sure it was fun live, some classic ways of killing time. It was fine. **1/2
8. IWGP Intercontinental Title: Hiroshi Tanahashi [c] vs. Billy Gunn
I appreciated them trying something different, but it was Old Billy Gunn vs. Broken Down Tanahashi. Gunn shows he’s a big boy, Tanahashi works headlocks, Gunn goes after bandaged the arm. Big bump by Tana for the Cobra Clutch Slam. Thought the Fameasser near fall was kinda amazing. No good now, but in the future, we’ll appreciate that this happened. **1/2
9. IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title: Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii
For a guy so stoic, Ishii milks the fuck out of his intro. God was this a nutty match. Ishii is just the most fun wrestler to watch, guy is this old grizzled short fuck who is super pissed off that he’s short and gets dropped on his head a lot and beats the shit out of people and you just want to HUG HIM! Omega meanwhile is a guy on a mission, this was the canvas to show what you can expect from New Japan Professional Wrestling and Omega is as fine a guy to show that off as any.
They went right at it with strikes – Ishii selling the arm from ZSJ, avoiding V-Triggers. Omega kicks at Ishii’s spine and Ishii calls for more, and Barnett references a dominatrix because we can’t have nice things. Kenny pulls off an INCREDIBLE tope con hilo, in 2017 for your tope con hilo stand out it really has to be an amazing thing. The build to the table spot was good stuff – Ishii bit the rope!! And then they did a Dragon suplex through the table because the people need something to talk about it. Love that they brought over the Japanese tables, the break on that thing was insane. Wild, wild, wild finish, and when talking New Japan/Omega you might hear that a lot so I mean it’s got to be REALLY wild, like three times wild, to stand out, and this was. Loved the Tornado DDT counter of the One-Winged Angel, the escalating headbutts/elbows/V-Triggers towards the end, Omega’s crazy bump off the lariat. The backslide into V-Trigger made me make a sound that had my dog wake up from a nap and look at me like WTF. Omega is a guy who just wills you into flipping out for finishes, you think you’ve seen it all and he’s like naw man I’m gonna run at this guy full speed and knee him in the nose. Excellent tourney finals.****1/4
Great show – the U.S. Title tournament had 3 great matches, the Jr. Tag Titles match was great, and the fluff was a little bit better than the first night. Some of those multi-mans went too long and didn’t have much of note, but the peaks were high-end, baby. Welcome to America.
