The new NJPW on AXS intro is pretty cool but wow is the JR & Josh Barnett voiceover bad.
1. Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks vs. Jay White, SHO & YOH
JIP. This is a fun bunch of stuff from a fun bunch of wrestlers – everybody can move, the action keeps coming, and the talent and precision to hit this stuff goes unnoticed by no one. It is very cool how quickly YOH and SOH have ascended to reliable great wrestlers. An Elite Indytaker wraps it up and the visual of Kenny Omega, this slob who wore a t-shirt because it wasn’t a main event match, cockily pinning YOH is epic. ***
After seeing Jay White try to recruit Roppongi 3K, and saying Omega wouldn’t change the world but he will… I think I get it. I get the Jay White thing. He’s here to cause rifts and sow chao (!) in New Japan, and he’s not here to be your favorite wrestler either – he’s just desperate to succeed and a little bit crazy and a little bit jealous. It is also very cool that New Japan Pro Wrestling has began 2018 with a Jericho/Omega match, a very angle-driven New Year’s Dash Show, and this English language storyline.
But – I don’t know why they had Jay White do it.
I still think it’ll work. It is already starting to work. He’s at his Jason Jordan in August 2017 phase, you know?
2. IWGP Intercontinental Title: Hiroshi Tanahashi [c] vs. Minoru Suzuki
Big Match Suzuki is my favorite thing, a man who wrestles unlike any wrestler in the world and at the same time derives his style from a type of wrestling that most of wrestling devolves from, but tweaks that style by not making it about the competition but about the PAIN. Plus he’s a really mean psychopath. Hiroshi Tanhashi meanwhile is all bandaged up and still trying to prove he can go.
This is 32 minutes of professional wrestling. It takes a special couple wrestlers to really make hold-trading feel like they are actually battling for control, but these guys do it. It takes a special couple of wrestlers to have a crowd eating out of their hands with holds and selling, but these guys do it. And it takes a special couple of wrestlers to pull off this type of match, a match with some real meat to it – there was Tanahashi looking so accomplished after he manages a running elbow at the end of both guys just throwing intense shots. There was Suzuki being an amused dickhead until Tanahashi took him down with a dragon screw. There was Suzuki’s head shake after Tanahashi takes him down with that dragon screw, unable to accept Tanahashi can hurt him. Plus there was Suzuki slamming a chair down on Tanahashi with no regard for anyone’s well-being.
The Minoru Suzuki blazing hot dropick to the face is special too.
The match really gets special once Tanahashi hurts his knee off a crossbody and Suzuki goes for the kill. Suzuki locks in a kneebar for a while, a figure-four for a while, a sleeper hold and a stampede of slaps, and Tanahashi’s selling is Emmy-worthy. Meanwhile, the crowd is SO into it. Tanahashi fights out of a Gotch piledriver and manages a Texas Cloverleaf, and I just love the old school wrestler Tanahashi has become, that he will go back to a Texas Cloverleaf hold as his method to take down this monster.
Suzuki is a vicious piece of garbage towards the end – Tanahashi tries to run but can’t, and Suzuki dropkicks his knee out. He fires off kicks to Tanahashi’s leg, tees off with unanswered slaps, and drops him on his head with a nasty Gotch piledriver. Tanahashi just looks wrecked. Suzuki applies a kneebar/ANKLEbar that Tanahashi sells like complete absolute death. I LOVED how Tanahashi barely even tried to escape – he just tried to endure the pain and kept telling the ref he wouldn’t quit. Tanahashi does almost finally get to the ropes, but Suzuki pulls him back in and you can hear the hearts of the crowd simultaneously sink. Suzuki lets go and applies ANOTHER nasty kneebar and Tanahashi just screams in agony until the ref CALLS THE MATCH.
That crowd was going absolutely nuts for a match based around holds and reactions. Professional wrestling might evolve, but it will never leave us. ****1/2
The post-match here is great too – what an excellent episode of NJPW on AXS. Minoru god damn Suzuki cuts a promo on Tanahashi as he is loaded onto a stretcher. SO many great lines –
“If you’re injured all over, how dare you think you can beat me?”
“Hey Sapporo, what the hell are you clapping about? Look at these dopes sitting ringside.”
“Your other treasure, Hiroshi Tanahashi, will never stand in the ring again.”
“Why don’t you tell everyone how much it hurts?”
“Your knee and ankle made the most delightful sound a moment ago. Snap, crackle, pop!”
