Not sure for how long I’ll be able to keep up with these New Japan Cup full show reviews, but HERE’S ONE MORE!
Yuji Nagata & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Tetsuhiro Yagi & Ren Narita
An okay opener with a few hiccups here and there. Nagata kicking the crap out of young lions will never not be entertaining, but everything else was fairly through the motions. **
El Desperado vs. Shota Umino
This was a cool opportunity for Shota to try some stuff outside of the usual young lion format and he clicked pretty well with Despy. Desperado played a fun heel, going after Shota’s knee injury and Red Shoes Jr sold his ass off. Seriously impressive limb selling for a young lion – kid is a future Internet Darling. Must reiterate that Despy’s open-mouth mask is the way to go for him: much more expressive and charismatic that way. **1/2
Michael Elgin, Juice Robinson, David Finlay & Toa Henare vs. Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi, Chase Owens & Tonga Loa
Short and sweet house show tag wrestling with everyone getting one or two spots in. Dug Juice and Finlay going all ROCK N’ ROLL EXPRESS for a minute. Also dug Owens stealing the Juice Punches. Chase’s best spot is always when he steals his opponent’s shtick, isn’t it? Sorry Chase. **1/4
Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Lance Archer, Davey Boy Smith Jr & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
Oh man, I enjoyed this one way more than I expected. The Ishii/Archer David vs. Goliath showdown was brilliant and the subsequent Pitbull-in-peril heel beatdown was super well done. Monster pops for Ishii’s comeback and the Goto hot tag. The rest of the match had some fun Yano comedy spots and that’s about it. Never knew I wanted an Archer vs. Ishii singles match until now, but sign me up for that shit. **1/2
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Takashi Iizuka & Taichi
A bit of harmless fun here with Taguchi Japan comedy, Iizuka biting action, Tana saving the day and Suzuki-Gun cheating 2 win. Heavyweight Taichi picks up the win, proving that the Heavyweight Taichi Dream is still alive despite being eliminated from the Cup. His post-match exit is worthy of a true superstar: shoving Taguchi out of the ring, doing the Tanahashi Kamen Rider pose right in Tana’s face and then bashing Oka in the head with his mic stand. Get this man in the G1 Climax. **1/4
Kazuchika Okada & Chuckie T vs. SANADA & BUSHI
This was a good time! Everyone here has solid chemistry with each other and Okada seemed particularly fired up, even doing a pescado dive at some point. Chuckie T keeps improving everytime I see him and the crowd was responding well to him in this one. His exchanges with SANADA were super smooth and gave me hope for their Cup match tomorrow. I love how Okada is insisting on making the cobra clutch A THING. Back in the day, top Japanese guys would keep coming up with new, more powerful finishers. Okada’s going the other way, building up a lower-tier ‘’house show finisher’’ so that the Rainmaker remains a big deal. Smart dude. ***
Kota Ibushi vs. YOSHI-HASHI – New Japan Cup (Round 1)
Well, here we are. The Taco Redemption Tour 2018 has been leading up to this. After the awesome matches with SANADA and Naito, YOSHI and Ibushi have this completely bonkers G1 Climax-on-crack slobberknocker and it is a total blast. The big story here is perpetual underachiever YOSHI-HASHI proving he can hang with a world class talent like Ibushi and work his kind of high-end match.
There is a lot of crazy shit in this thing: a freaking Balcony Moonsault, Ibushi flipping out of a Headhunter to hit Kenny’s V-Trigger, YOSHI-HASHI pulling off a god damn Canadian Destroyer out of nowhere. The spots are great, but most importantly, this is a match where YOSHI-HASHI carries himself like a top guy and convinces YOU, the New Japan Pro-Wrestling fan, that he can put Kota Ibushi in his place by slapping the taste out of his mouth. This is no small feat considering the guy’s track record as blandest man alive.
Big shoutout to YOSHI-HASHI countering the Kamigoye with a straight-up headbutt to the face. My only beef is that they go a little overboard with the near-falls during the ending stretch: YOSHI-HASHI literally unloads every possible move in his arsenal on Ibushi and dude kicks out of everything, which ends up destroying any notion that YOSHI could pick up an upset. Faults and all, this was still a hell of a match and another strong performance from YOSHI-HASHI, a guy who was literally blending with the wallpaper until these last few months’ resurgence. ***3/4
Tetsuya Naito vs. Zack Sabre Jr – New Japan Cup (Round 1)
Is ZSJ the most underrated part-time gaijin in New Japan? This match is a strong argument in his favor. Not to take anything from Naito, and we’ll get to him in a minute, but what an incredible showcase of ZACKU this match was. About 70% of the match is Zack in control of the action, twisting Naito like a pretzel, outsmarting him at every corner and basically coming off like the most Dangerous Swimmer walking the face of the Earth. The guy could use to eat a sandwich or two, but still, as TAKA rightfully points out in his brand new pre-match promos, this dude will make you TAP OUT.
Sabre first goes after the arm for the early portions of the contest, then switches gear and targets the leg when Naito shows (very subtle) signs of knee pain after one of his reverse DDT/neckbreaker spots. The submission counters he uses are absolutely mind-boggling and had me losing my shit several times: turning a flying forearm into an Octopus hold, slapping on a cross-legged STF out of a Koppou kick, the whole European clutch into Penalty Kick into heel hook sequence. He is the only guy in NJPW working this sort of crafty submission style and it’s such a refreshing change of pace.
Of course, none of this would have worked so well without Naito turning in such a class-act performance, making ZSJ look like a force of nature and selling his ass off for the whole thing. There’s something very unsettling about seeing Naito, aka. Mr. Tranquilo aka. the Chillest Bro, screaming for his life and getting torn apart by Stu Hart/Volk Han level death holds. The ending came off as a total shocker and the crowd was in complete disbelief when Naito tapped to Zack’s ridiculously painful-looking double leglock counter to the Destino. Kind of hoping ZSJ wins the New Japan Cup now, because I have to see him against Okada. ****
These last two Cup matches and Tanahashi/Taichi from the last show were some high-end G1 Climax-level stuff. After an initially baffling lineup announcement, this little tournament is kicking ass and taking names. As for the whole show, you know the drill by now: you can skip the undercard (unless you have a bunch of free time) and go right for the tournament matches.
