The long Road to Power Struggle has finally led us to… POWER STRUGGLE. That’s right, people. We’ve got 4 title matches and a stacked undercard that includes the finals of the Super Junior tag tournament, so let’s dig in.
Katsuya Kitamura vs. David Finlay
My favourite young lion roid monster getting in on that sweet dark match action. This match is a total ideological battle of wrestling bodies. Kitamura, the body-building orange muscle freak, taking on Finlay, the pale and flabby Chris Hero-type indie wrestler with bad tattoos. It is also a match that confirms my complete disinterest for Finlay. For a guy in his spot (still pretty much a young lion gaijin), he doesn’t show that he CARES nearly enough. Comes out with that bored smug look and then does a lot of stomping and chinlocks. Meh. He is the Anti-Juice Robinson. Props to the announcers for calling Kitamura an ‘’OLD LION’’. Very accurate statement. The fun parts of this match are all Kitamura and he eventually eats Finlay’s Prima Nocta for the pin. **
Dragon Lee & Titan vs. Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson
Exactly what you’d want from a Young Bucks vs. Team Lucha tag match: non-stop high flying action with truly elaborate high spots and perfect execution from everyone involved. Dragon Lee and Titan are total lucha babyfaces, capping off their double-team moves by screaming ‘’VIVA MEXICO’’ or ‘’I LOVE YOU NIPPON’’. The Bucks are their usual douchey selves and keep trying to get Titan in the Indytaker. There’s an insane sequence where Dragon Lee very casually pulls off a flying rana to the floor, Matt follows with an incomprehensible leaping DDT to the outside and Titan wraps it up with a huuuuge top-rope Quebrada. The Bucks eventually get Titan in the Indytaker and trap him with a Sharpshooter/Crossface combo to get the tapout win. Loads of fun. **3/4
Juice Robinson, Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask, KUSHIDA & Hirai Kawato vs. Zack Sabre Jr, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi, El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku
Another perfectly laid out junior sprint with everyone going all out and working the crowd into a frenzy. Desperado/Kanemaru and Liger/Tiger continue their blood feud for a bit but the whole thing quickly turns into a crowd-pleasing spot-fest. Juice and Zack show off some great chemistry, what with Sabre BEAUTIFULLY countering the Pulp Friction with an Octopus hold. The babyfaces go dive-crazy near the end, which leads to an amazing sequence where Juice grabs Kawato, screams at him to ‘’WAKE THE FUCK UP!’’ and Lil Kawato obliges by busting out the YOUNG LION TOPE CON HILO! Juice clocks TAKA with the BIG PUNCH and KUSHIDA slaps on the Hoverboard lock for the submission. This undercard is KILLING IT so far. ***
Togi Makabe, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Cody, Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens
Guess I spoke too soon. This one really takes a while to get going as the Bullet Club guys are just the most generic heels imaginable and ploddingly work over Tenzan. Most of the match is a slog to get through until the babyface comeback where the action starts picking up slightly. Kojima takes it home for the good guys with a lariat on Owens. Meh. **
SHO & YOH vs. Ryusuke Taguchi & ACH – Super Junior Tag Tournament – FINALS
Reigning junior tag champs SHO n’ YOH survived a tough match with Hiromu and BUSHI to make it to the finals of this tournament, and now look at them have a pretty darn good wrestling match with the always capable Taguchi Japan duo. Taguchi gets the comedy shtick out of the way early and the match becomes all about Roppongi 3K wrecking ACH’s injured ribs. SHO is so committed to his gimmick that he throws up the 3K GANG SIGN while putting an abdominal stretch on ACH. I’m still a little less convinced by YOH’s conversion to cocky Dragon Gate tweener, but he does try his best in this match. Anyway, the real star here is ACH who pulls off a masterful selling job of the injured ribs and injects a truckload of great drama in the match.
Taguchi’s big hot tag moment is a thing of beauty as he PLANCHA’s over a freaking cameraman. Him and SHO work really well together and I feel like they probably have a rock-solid BOSJ singles match in them. Epic moment courtesy of ACH as he fights through his injury, climbs up the top-rope, rips off the rib tape and pulls off a massive 450 Splash for a HUGE near-fall. There’s actually a surprising amount of believable near-falls in the ending stretch until Roppongi wipe out both Taguchi and ACH with their 3K combo finisher for the win. Very, very good stuff. Glad to see NJPW are all in with SHO and YOH, as the junior division was in desperate need of new blood. Young Bucks come out to challenge for the belts after the match and it looks like we have our junior tag title match for Wrestle Kingdom. ***1/2
Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI & Gedo vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, SANADA, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI
Hiromu comes out applying chaptick and winks at the camera. He then applies some to Naito as he walks in the ring. Best dude. This is the high-end version of the Dragon Gate-inspired multi-man tag match LIJ and CHAOS have been perfecting over the Road to Power Struggle tour and it’s pretty awesome. The pace is fast and furious, all ten guys are completely fired up and the whole thing just clicks beautifully. Even freaking Hirooki Goto breaks out some new shit in this match. Osaka must be the last place in Japan where Naito still gets heel heat rather than cool heel tweener cheers, so he goes FULL HEEL and it gels perfectly with Okada who works this as the babyface champion/ace. The Naito/Osaka segments were kept to a minimum in all of the previous lead-up tags, but their rivalry takes center stage here and they trade some impressive reversals showing off their increasing familiarity. The champ convincingly takes out both Naito and BUSHI for the finish and then kneels on top of BUSHI while doing Naito’s own ‘’eye-opening’’ pose. Shit’s getting real. ***1/4
Minoru Suzuki © vs. Toru Yano – Bull Rope Death-Match – IWGP NEVER Openweight Title
Listen guys, I love Minoru Suzuki but this feud has been a total drag, and this match is more of the same. The whole thing’s an extended squash with the usual Suzuki-Gun run-in shenanigans and it never feels like Yano has any chance to pull the upset. They only start doing interesting stuff with the bull rope during the last 5 minutes and then Minoru just ends it with a the Gotch-style Piledriver. Suzuki’s entire NEVER title run is looking more and more like a colossal wasted opportunity and I really hope they find a more suitable challenger for him for the Tokyo Dome and don’t bury the whole thing with a hopeless gimmick. **1/2
Will Ospreay © vs. Marty Scurll – IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title
I was legit dreading this match, but to be perfectly honest, it turned out to be better than I expected. Yes, they do all of the expected flippy non-sense, but they actually slow down once in a while to do some character-driven wrestling and it works better than I anticipated. Ospreay is carrying himself more and more like an actual champion rather than a dorky goofball and it helps his matches a lot. Scurll heels it up with his finger-breaking shtick and they both bring the hatred through various parts of this thing, including a surprisingly effective slap-fest. Scurll also fires off some NASTY freaking THROAT CHOPS, shades of Ishii, and Ospreay sells them like absolute death. As the match progresses, some of the acrobatics look great, others look so utterly rehearsed and cooperative that they completely take me out of the match. Like in the previous title match with KUSHIDA, there’s a few spots where it’s impossible to say which of the two wrestlers is taking the move. It comes down to a battle between Scurll’s chickenwing and Ospreay’s Oscutter, Marty eventually pulling a huge upset via a rollup counter. Welp, I did not see that one coming. Some of the indie dream match flip-floppiness was too much for me, but I still liked a lot of stuff in this. ***1/4
Hiromu and KUSHIDA come out post-match and we have a Fatal 4-Way match on our hands for Wrestle Kingdom.
Kenny Omega © vs. Beretta – IWGP US Heavyweight Title
This is Trent Beretta’s heavyweight graduation and it’s also very much a Big Kenny Omega Match. The main plot thread of the match is Beretta not being on Kenny’s level and having to prove himself, which makes perfect sense considering he was still hanging in the junior heavyweight division a few months ago and Kenny’s now a Wrestle Kingdom-headlining superstar. They play with this for the first portion of the match with Kenny just wrecking Trent with big table spots and ruthlessly going to work on his lower back. Beretta’s selling is ON POINT and he puts over the whole storyline big time. Kenny treats him like shit and Beretta starts sneaking in a few comebacks when Omega gets too cocky. Really well laid out, logical wrestling.
The logic takes a dip in the second half of the match when Kenny decides to throw out ALL OF HIS MOVE-SET AND HIGH SPOTS, because this is a Big Kenny Omega match and he just has to. The fact that Kenny has to use all of his crazy moves (the same kind of stuff that he had to pull to defeat top-tier guys like Okada and Naito) to put away TRENT BERETTA makes absolutely no sense to me. We get the table spots, 4 Dragon suplexes, the double-arm Piledriver and all the V-Triggers you can dream of. All of it looks great and to his credit, Beretta’s selling is excellent considering the amount overkill, but Kenny seriously needs to learn to save some spots and not unload his entire arsenal in all of his title matches.
I’m being hard on this match but they do some really good stuff too. What with Beretta’s desperate Dude Buster near-fall, or Kenny cutting off his comeback by going back to trashing his lower back with brutal kicks. I just wish Kenny would work smarter because he has the potential for greatness. Omega takes it home with the One Winged Angel after the aforementioned craziness. Kind of like the last match (but better), a lot of good stuff mixed in with perplexing shit. ***3/4
Big surprise post-match as Kenny’s challenged by CHRIS JERICHO! It’s all happening at Wrestle Kingdom, man. Genuinely curious to see how this match will go down. As old as he is, Jericho could actually be the right guy to reign in Omega and get something new out of him.
Hiroshi Tanahashi © vs. Kota Ibushi – IWGP Intercontinental Title
This has been in the works since the G1 Climax, where Ibushi scored a major hometown upset on Tanahashi. The crowd is buzzing for this one and the whole thing has an epic Big New Japan Match atmosphere. They start things off very methodically, showing how evenly matched they are on the mat, and then Tanahashi firmly seizes control of the match by avoiding Ibushi’s dive attempt and dropkicking his leg off the apron. Tana goes after that leg like a god damn SHARK and he’s just relentless. He doesn’t heel it up as much as he did in their last match, but there’s a serious mean streak to his limb work. They do a lot of really clever shit with Tanahashi using the damaged leg to stay one step ahead of Ibushi. Considering Ibushi’s never been the best guy at putting over leg injuries, his selling in this match is shockingly consistent. Yeah, he keeps using the leg, but you can tell it’s always nagging at him every time he goes on offense.
The middle of the match has all sorts brilliant stuff: Ibushi using one of Shinsuke Nakamura’s moves to spite his old rival, the fighting over the Kamigoye knee (which has been established as instant death in their last match), a freaking vicious Texas Cloverheaf from Tana that bends Ibushi like a pretzel. Things get absolutely crazy when Tanahashi starts slapping the daylights out of Ibushi and both guys take it upon themselves to recreate the legendary Ibushi/Shinsuke FIGHT TO THE DEATH from Wrestle Kingdom 9… except even MORE violent. The whole sequence is even more surreal considering how rarely Tanahashi goes for all-out stiffness (the one exception being his series with Shibata), and man does he go for it in this one. Ibushi busts out his Big Match offense: the Shinsuke-killing springboard German suplex, huge Last-Ride Powerbomb, etc. They slightly muck-up a Phoenix-plex reversal, but make up for it with a fantastic sequence where Tana Sling Blades his way out of the Kamigoye.
Tanahashi connects with a picture-perfect Dragon suplex and the DOUBLE HIGH FLY FLOW to retain the IC title. Considering his age and injuries, I have no idea how Tanahashi can keep having these matches. The man is a legend. Super dramatic, smart wrestling, on the level of Tana’s matches with Naito from this year. Post-match stuff with Ibushi hugging Tana is super emotional. YOU WANT ALL OF THIS. ****1/2
After Tanahashi’s show-closing air guitar celebration, out comes THE SWITCHBLADE, who turns out to be Jay White cosplaying as Kenny Omega..? He talks some shit to Tana and takes him out with a Shellshock thingy. The whole thing falls flat and I am truly puzzled at the prospect of Jay White getting the Tanahashi Dome match. They took a similar approach with Kenny and Prince Devitt, but even those guys were never thrown in a Tokyo Dome match right off the bat.
So despite the off-putting ending, Power Struggle really delivered the goods. Amazing main event, a flawed but always entertaining Kenny Omega title match and a bunch of fun stuff on the undercard with the junior heavyweights working their asses off. Plus, lots of wild crazy stuff to look forward to. NEW JAPAN IS JERICHO!
