Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Shota Umino, Tetsuhiro Yagi & Ren Narita
Grumpy Liger and Tiger slapping the young lions around and wrecking their limbs is endlessly entertaining. With Young Lion Supernova Kawato out on excursion, Shota seems primed to make an impression. He gets crazy heat with his high-speed rope running and sweet reversal exchange with Taguchi. Taguchi takes him out with the Dodon for the pin. Really fun. **1/2
Manabu Nakanishi & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Hikuleo
Surprisingly fast-paced and efficient stuff considering the people involved. Oka doing the Yajin Dance with Manabu is awesome. Leo could be the best of all Haku Sons if he keeps improving at this rate. He’s a giant dude with really good mobility and he already seems to understand his role well. Oka gets in some big suplexes on the Bullet Club and Korakuen LOVES IT. He ends up going down to Yujiro’s Pimp Juice. Totally fine! **1/4
Katsuya Kitamura vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan – Trial Series Match #3
I will forever have a soft spot for Tenzan in my heart, but this is clearly the lesser match from the Kitamura trial series so far. Tenzan’s long runs of offense are just plodding and completely heatless. Obviously, Kitamura’s too green to do anything compelling to turn the match around. Dug some of the ring-side brawling and chop exchanges. Dug Tenzan teasing the elbow-pad removal lariat as a Kojima homage. Tenzan with the Anaconda Vice tapout. A wrestling match. **
Rocky Romero, SHO & YOH vs. Taichi, El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku
The cameraman is so obsessed with Miho Abe’s ass that even the announcers call him out on it. SHO has an injured back coming off the bonkers IWGP Jr tag match with the Young Bucks and it quickly becomes a target for Suzuki-Gun. This match is a reaaaal good time. SHO selling the beatdown and back-worklike DEATH, Suzuki-Gun being ultra-dickish, Rocky being an awesome hot tag recipient and YOH pulling off a spectacular slingshot double foot stomp to the back of someone. I’m pretty sure this is the first time the RP3K kids have worked the Suzuki-Gun juniors (at least on New Japan World) and it all clicks really well. Triple knee attack on TAKA followed by the 3K for the pin. Lotssa fun! ***
Juice Robinson & Toa Henare vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano
The Ishii/Henare blood feud continues and it’s a beautiful thing. Henare wants to prove his worth as tough guy but he’s got another thing coming with Ishii stone-walling him and being a giant pain in the neck. Meanwhile, Juice and Yano have natural chemistry since Juice is a total goofball is totally game to do silly shit like a very long Air-plane spin followed by drunken selling. The Ishii/Henare ending stretch it all kinds of awesome, Henare throws down with the Stone Pitbull and they go HARD: headbutts to the face, throat chops, big time lariats. Ishii trying to get the tap via Boston crab is the ultimate dick move. Stone Pitbull Brainbuster for the win. This was pretty rad and Ishii/Henare totally deserves a singles match blowoff. ***
Togi Makabe, Michael Elgin & KUSHIDA vs. Minoru Suzuki, Takashi Iizuka & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
This is all about drumming up interest in a Suzuki/Makabe title match and it does a pretty good job of doing just that. Suzuki and Makabe are basically two cartoon characters come to life, so all of their exchanges are super fun thanks to their whacked out facial expressions and larger than life personalities. You know Makabe’s got his working boots on when he actually HITS his Northern Lights suplex. Suzuki pulls him in the super stiff forearm battles like he did with Goto and I swear I could watch Minoru forearm people in the face all day long. Everyone else looked fine too: KUSHIDA and Kanemaru work well together. Well-paced match with no down time and a sweet King Kong kneedrop finish from Makabe. He officially challenges Suzuki for the IC title after the match. ***
Jay White vs. David Finlay
My boy Switchblade has clearly been spending some quality time on the NJPW SUB-REDDIT because he comes out with a HINT of facial hair, aka. the most frequent recommendation of THE INTERNET to make him look more badass. For all the shit I give him, Jay frankly looks like a god damn superstar standing next to David Finlay. I’m sure Finlay regrets hiring Kassius Ohno as his personal trainer. Anyway, these guys used to be young lion best friends, but now that Jay’s gone FULL GOTH, all bets are off. I don’t know if it’s the subtle goatee or the fact that these two are so used to working together, but this is easily Jay’s best NJPW performance so far. He hits hard, doesn’t fuck around and looks convincing controlling the action in the ring.
He also wants to make sure Finlay knows they’re no longer BBF’s by literally trying to kill him with all sorts of nasty-ass Backdrop suplexes, including one on the floor and one over the top-rope to the outside that looked absolutely WILD. Finlay playing the guy that is totally outclassed by his former best friend is a perfect fit and he comes off as a really sympathetic underdog. I really love the spot where a chair comes into play and Finlay decides to not use it because he’s too much of a good bro. Lots of cool reversals around the Bladerunner and Prima Nocta until Switchblade manages to connect with his move. The post-match bit with Jay teasing a reconciliation only to elbow Finlay to death is pretty awesome. A big step in the right direction for Jay. More solid 11 minute matches like this, less 30 minute epics. ***1/4
Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, Will Ospreay & Gedo vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, SANADA, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi – Special Elimination Match
Let’s be honest, my expectations were way too high going into this thing. I was craving some sort of 1996 Michinoku Pro Revival crossed with Jumbo’s Army/Team Misawa 6-star match, and what I got was another very-very-good LIJ/CHAOS tag sprint with elimination shenanigans. Like all of the LIJ/CHAOS tags, there’s a LOT to enjoy, but there just wasn’t anything really new, even with the added stipulation. The only clever elimination is Hiromu taking himself out of the picture just so he can try to hit his Sunset-slip Powerbomb on Ospreay, Will holding on to the ropes for dear life until Naito SPITS in his face to complete the elimination. Amazing!
The second best spot of the match is Naito flipping off Tenzan on commentary with good old Tenzan unable to hold back his laughter. The SANADA/Okada stuff is kind of subdued compared to what they were hinting at on the last two shows. Lots of super competent wrestling but not enough hatred. EVIL pulls off his Chair Decapitation spot on Goto, and that’s always cool. It comes down to everyone’s favorite King of Darkness and everyone’s least favorite LOOSE EXPLOSION, EVIL getting the win for LIJ with his STO. Lots of fun, but I thought they could’ve done something a lot more epic. ***1/2
Not a bad match on this card (although Tenzan/Kitamura is kind of on the line), my dudes. No 6-star MOTY’s either, but a top to bottom fun Korakuen show from the KING OF SPORTS. My fighting spirit-meter is refilled.
