David Finlay, Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa & Leo Tonga
By-the-numbers opening match wrestling. Kitamura works a funny test of strength spot with Tanga Loa, Finlay does the hot tag run of offense and Oka takes Loa’s Apeshit for the finish. Not much stood out in this one. **
Michael Elgin, Jeff Cobb, Raymond Rowe & Hanson vs. Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano, Beretta & Chuckie T
Oh boy, this match sort of plays off the MIKE ELGIN TWITTER SEX SCANDAL and I am weirdly fascinated by it. They work in the Elgin/War Machine tension, building off the Leaked DM Drama where it was revealed that Elgin resents Cobb for hanging out with War Machine too much. Of course, Elgin/Cobb and War Machine have a match against each other the next day, so you can look at things in a strictly pro-wrestling way, but I prefer to analyze all of this through the Post-Mike Elgin-Twitter-Sex-Scandal lense. Other than this insane meta-drama, there’s actually some good wrestling going on here. Ishii and Rowe have beefy forearm exchanges, Best Friends bump like crazy and manage to get their hugging spots way over, Cobb suplexes dudes all over the place. Big Jeff takes it home with the Tour of the Islands, a crazy-ass spinning slam thing. Pretty fun. **3/4
Togi Makabe, Henare & Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Lance Archer, Davey Boy Smith Jr & El Desperado
Liger gets a hero’s welcome in this venue, as he should. So Suzuki-Gun isolate him for the first half of this and Liger gets to play a great babyface in peril, generating mass crowd sympathy. KES act like pure bullies and Desperado goes full rudo, trying to unmask the legend. It all works really well. Second half of the match is a little more flat as the crowd doesn’t seem to care about Henare, even if he tries his best. Archer dumps him with a Choke slam and Davey Boy finishes him off with the Bulldog bomb. Solid enough multiman tag wrestling. **1/4
Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay & Gedo vs. Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi
Naito’s in full babyface mode for his entrance, coming out with a local baseball team jersey and fist-bumping children. This is the third time we get this exact 6-man tag on the World Tag League tour and it still works like a charm. Like in the previous matches, LIJ work over Gedo’s beard, which he sells like WHITE DEATH. He also sells a Hiromu chop by screaming ‘’OH MY NIPPLE!’’. This man is a treasure. Ospreay has the whole place in the palm of his hands with his mind-boggling acrobatics and as usual, Hiromu is totally game to partake in the high-speed nuttiness. Okada once again unleashes his new cobra clutch secret weapon, using it to choke out both Naito and BUSHI, which allows Ospreay to catch Hiromu with the Oscutter for the finish. As usual, this was a blast. ***
Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi vs. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens – World Tag League (Block A)
Most of this was pretty tepid. Nakanishi and Fale working together felt like there was some sort of slow motion glitch with the New Japan World streaming. Like in his matches with Tenkoji, Owens does a decent job trolling the old guys by stealing their signature spots, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. Nagata and Manabu pull off a comical top-rope Karate chop/enzuigiri combo and then Nakanishi taps Owens via Argentine backbreaker. **
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka – World Tag League (Block A)
This goes on for too long but the interactions between Kojima and Suzuki are quite good. A pure-hearted do-gooder like Kojima is the perfect foil for Suzuki’s unpredictable heelishness. Suzuki nearly kills him outside the ring by throwing at least 20 GUARDRAILS at him, then tears his arm apart once they get back in the ring. Minoru’s reaction when Kojima does the corner machinegun chops on him is absolutely PRICELESS. Someone please make a GIF out of this shit. Sadly, both Tenzan and Iizuka suck the life out of the match whenever they step in and we eventually get a screwy DQ finish once the IRON FINGER OF DOOM comes into play. Good stuff when Minoru and Kojima were working together, otherwise not so much. **1/4
Juice Robinson & Sami Callihan vs. Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi – World Tag League (Block A)
Page and Yujiro have been coasting on Bullet Club comedy shenanigans for a lot of the tag league, but they’ve got their working boots on for this one and they work Death Juice’s type of match: high-speed, high-impact US indie spot-fest type situation. The whole thing is surprisingly fun and I was shocked to see Yujiro holding his own in this type of match. He busts out some spots that he barely uses even once a year, like a freaking tope suicida and the MIAMI SHINE, his big match secret death move. Once again, Callihan puts in a really impressive performance and goes out of this way to take the match beyond New Japan House Show Wrestling-level. Juice is an absolute EXPERT at working the crowd here with a picture perfect hot tag run of offense, constantly calling for crowd support and looking like a million bucks. Page also pops the crowd with his Shooting Star-based offense and that cool slingshot flipping lariat. Callihan wastes him with a nasty Death Valley Bomb on the ring-apron, then hits the double-arm shoulderbreaker on Yujiro before sending him right into Juice’s Pulp Friction for the pin. A lot to like here. ***1/4
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. EVIL & SANADA – World Tag League (Block A)
New Japan need to put the IWGP tag straps on EVIL and SANADA at the Dome and this match is my main argument. What starts out as a fairly standard tag affair quickly escalates into G1 Climax-level awesomeness with some insane false finishes and Milano Collection AT absolutely LOSING HIS MIND on commentary. All four guys are completely fired up and work at a very high level throughout. Even freaking YOSHI-HASHI, aka. the blandest man on Earth, puts in a solid performance and gets the crowd firmly behind him. The main story is that all of these guys know each other really well, so we get a truckload of intricate counters and new twists on well-worn signature spots. SANADA actually makes YOSHI-HASHI’s silly rope-draped dropkick almost believable by visibly struggling on the ropes instead of just waiting for the dropkick, which is something that not enough guys do and that I hugely appreciate.
Meanwhile, EVIL manages to one-up is partner by taking the NASTIEST neck bump I have seen in a long time for a Goto lariat. I’m not kidding, EVIL basically gives himself a Tiger Driver ’91 in the name of making Goto’s lariat look rad. The whole ending stretch is balls to the wall craziness with perfectly timed near-falls and nuclear crowd heat. The place goes NUTS when Goto kicks out of the Darkness Falls and Milano nearly has a heart attack on commentary. I also kind of love SANADA using his impeccable dropkicks and a sweet Back suplex as totally legit-looking late-match offense. After a bunch of dramatic reversals, Team LIJ manage to take out both of their opponents with Magic Killers and secure themselves a spot in the tournament finals. What an awesome match. Give me a whole EVIL/SANADA tag run with matches like this, ideally with Milano Collection AT on commentary for all of it. ***3/4
The main event joins the ranks of Best Friends vs. Elgin/Cobb and Death Juice vs. LIJ as one of the best matches of the tournament. If you’re crushing as hard as I am on EVIL/SANADA, you should definitely try to catch it. The rest of the show is mostly non-essential.
