This is Yuji Nagata’s big 25th debut anniversary extravaganza, right in his hometown of Togane. The man gave his god damned soul in the name of STRONG STYLE for the last 25 years. From rising star to MMA jobber, before finally settling down as a respected veteran and trainer/tormentor of young lions. Let’s watch some New Japan Pro-Wrestling to celebrate The Yuj.
Yujiro Takahashi & Leo Tonga vs. Tomoyuki Oka & Katsuya Kitamura
Kitamura is FIRED UP. Match hasn’t even started and he’s already screaming his roided head off. He actually ends up on the receiving end of a Bullet Club beatdown for most of this and he sells huge for Leo Tonga. Yujiro gets in all his offense for the ending stretch: sliding dropkick, Fisherman’s buster and finally the Pimp Juice to put Oka away. Forgettable match, but I’m a mark for the Oka/Kitamura team. Monster Rage in the World Tag League: book it, Gedo. **
Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado vs. Shota Umino, Tetsuhiro Yagi & Ren Narita
Taichi comes out from the crowd with his valet to lipsync to his own theme song. You have to admire the man’s commitment to his own ridiculousness. Young lions with a triple dropkick right at the bell! This is actually pretty fun as the youngsters end up paying for their early assault when Suzuki-Gun decide to lay in a hellish beating on Yagi. Taichi works particularly stiff with the kid and Desperado tries to carve him up with a PENCIL! Umino ends up getting the hot tag and he does a great house cleaning job. Super energetic, quick and once again nailed that Tenryu-style falling elbowdrop. The young lions UNITE and survive for a while until Desperado catches Narita with a Spinebuster and slaps on a HURTY-looking Numero Dos for the tapout. Everyone played their role perfectly in this. **1/4
Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask, Dragon Lee & Titan vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, KUSHIDA, ACH & Hirai Kawato
A little baby KUSHIDA fan starts crying when his hero brings him his dogtag. Poor kid. So, this is a little all over the place. For most of the match, no one seems to be fully clicking and there’s a lot of hesitation and flubbed spots. It’s basically a mix of awkwardness and Taguchi butt comedy. Props to ACH, who came off as a more charismatic version of Ricochet, and little Kawato who was totally game to go all out with Dragon Lee (and almost died on a botched Powerbomb reversal thing). Dragon Lee takes out Kawato with a hellacious Desnucadora. Not a very good match but I can’t wait to see Kawato mix it up again with the luchadores in the upcoming junior tag tournament. **
Hirooki Goto, Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Minoru Suzuki, Takashi Iizuka & TAKA Michinoku
Previously in NJPW: Yano stole Suzuki’s NEVER title belt at King of Pro-Wrestling. Now Suzuki is royally pissed and wants to hang him. This is the Suzuki show for most part as he goes on his super heel rampage right off the bat. He SHOOT PUNCHES young lion Yagi square in the face during crowd brawling and later on catches both YOSHI-HASHI and Yano with a double kneebar. Love this man. Yano is weird foil for him because all of his comebacks are comedy-based, which isn’t very satisfying. Minoru gets DQ’ed when he brings in the bull rope to choke out Yano and takes out the ref. Decent-ish midcard wrestling with Suzuki being awesome. **
After intermission, we get happy birthday messages for Nagata from JUN AKIYAMA~! and a female TV personality of some kind that seems to be crushing on Nagata’s demon eyes, as any reasonable woman would.
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Ibushi Kota, Juice Robinson & David Finlay
Aaaaand we’re finally getting somewhere with this one. Very fun wrestling with everyone putting in an inspired performance. The Tanahashi/Ibushi chemistry is getting tighter each time they face off in one of these multiman tags, which gives me hope for their upcoming title match. During one of their chain wrestling bits, Tana pulls off a ridiculously old-school flying headscissors and the announcers start talking about ‘’BACK TO WRESTLING’’. I wonder if a back to basics approach is Tanahashi’s strategy against Ibushi’s flashy style, or just his new direction going forward into his 40’s. Either way, I’m down. All of these guys are total pros at working the crowd and turning throw-away matches into a fun experience. Kojima picks up the victory for his team by beheading Finlay with a big lariat. **3/4
Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Gedo, SHO & YOH vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, SANADA, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi
Super fast-paced near-Dragon Gate type sprint with everyone getting their time under the sun. Roppongi 3K looked perfectly comfortable mixing it up with the LIJ guys and the crowd was really into them. They’re really selling the new swaggy persona. Lots of Miley Cyrus tongue-sticking and gang signs. That’s what the kids are into, man. There’s a really fun sequence where Okada gets massively put over as the super human ace, taking out all of the LIJ members by stringing his trademark spots together effortlessly. Hiromu gets INSANE AIR-TIME bumping for the champ’s flapjack. Speaking of the Ticking Time Bomb, I was rather intrigued by an Hiromu/Ishii interaction where Hiromu’s dickishness seemed to be a great foil for Ishii’s bursts of violence. Could make for a fun singles match. Gedo eats a bunch of Ingobernables offense for the finish and eventually goes down to BUSHI’s MX. Fuuuun! ***
Yuji Nagata vs. Manabu Nakanishi
I wrote this whole bit about Nagata’s debut anniversary earlier on, but it’s ALSO Manabu’s debut anniversary, so this match is extra special. These guys have a lot of history, coming up together in the New Japan dojo and now RUNNING IT 25 years later. They were tag-team champs, fought in a 60 minute IWGP title match and somehow survived the dark ages of NJPW in the early 2000’s. So this match is basically the old men Nagata/Nakanishi version of an Epic New Japan Main Event, and it’s kind of awesome? Despite both being 50 now, they hold nothing back and work ridiculously stiff. Nagata reaaaaally lays in the kicks and Manabu responds in kind with his monster chops. Interesting bit of trivia from the announcers: Nagata considers Nakanishi’s chops to be more painful than Kenta Kobashi’s and Kensuke Sasaki’s. That’s some choppin’.
Manabu’s been phased out of main events for a very long time, so he takes this opportunity to do all sorts of crazy shit. In the first half of the match, we get a brutal spear on the floor, a top-rope SUPERPLEX and then it’s full-on HIGH-FLYING MANABU with a pescado and missile dropkick. GOD. DAMN. Considering the ballsiness of both guys and the fact that this is Nagata’s big homecoming party, the crowd response is surprisingly tame and the match suffers for it. If this was Korakuen, the crowd would be going freaking ballistic at the completely irresponsible Manabu Nakanishi high spots and nasty strike exchanges. The stiff strikes and huge bumps start taking their toll on both guys as the exchanges get a little less fluid over time, but the sheer effort that they put in is still hugely impressive.
The crowd wakes up a bit when Nagata starts getting in his big spots, namely the DEMON ARMBAR and a 2nd-rope Exploder that damn near ends Nakanishi’s life. The whole ending stretch is just a series of vicious strikes and career-ending bumps from Nakanishi. He takes a full force kick to the face, a scaaaary Brainbuster and a cringey wrist-clutch Exploder for the finish. Like I said, a better crowd would have bumped this to a million stars, but even as is, it was still a mind blowing performance from Nakanishi and a very satisfying match between two tough old dudes that gave their life for New Japan. Known Nagata super-fan Announcer Nogami is quite misty-eyed during the post-match handshake. RESPECT! ***1/2
Mixed bag of a show with an actively average undercard and then three super fun matches. Any die-hard Manabu Nakanishi fan needs to get a hold of the main event. I know you guys are out there.
