It’s a New Beginning in Hiroshima. Spare me your ordinary HUMOR.
1. Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura & Gabriel Kidd
The kids went after the crew early on, then took a few beatings while anybody not tagged in spent more time on the floor than the apron. Uemura blocks a Gotch piledriver and puts Suzuki in a crab hold, the mad lad, then wildly throws elbows and slaps at him in a hopeless pursuit of youthful courage and dumbassery. I’ll take a lot more of that, please.
The young lions earn experience and credibility fighting those who came before them, but those who came before them continue to stay healthy and employed working opening matches with them. Co-exist. Collaborate. Crab hold. **1/2
2. Master Wato vs. BUSHI
This is a match of two guys who you’re just like, bless their hearts. The lights turn blue and we’ve got a Wato, Tenzan (sans Mongolian chop) at his side. BUSHI will show up when he has to but he rarely has to, while Wato is still kind of figuring his whole thing out but so far we’ve got somewhere between Wataru Inoue and Ryusuke Taguchi. Instead of meme, it ranges from “fine” to the lamest bluest Karate Kid.
Wato goes right at BUSHI to start, but I think BUSHI’s tope towards the end has more pop. BUSHI keeps him down with chops and leg work, a reliable method as any. Wato grimaces, crowd claps, nothing feels. He has glimpses of energy in his comebacks but not actual energy, and then he does a… Zig Zag? They move around impressively towards the end, but claps be damned the work just doesn’t hit – I know a fake clap when I hear one! Just when hope seems near, Wato gets caught with a particularly brutal MX and loses. A sad, solid wrestling match. **1/4
3. Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano, Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Jay White, EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo
This 10-man tag was brought to you by CHAOS and the Bullet Club, and let me tell you this right now: CHAOS will put together a triple-team maneuver, man. The Bullet Club? I don’t know. Makai Club had more identity. Jay White is clearly the star, which makes the whole EVIL journey even stranger and makes Okada look like a punk by proxy. YOSHI takes heat before Okada and EVIL pair off, then Ishii and White, then whoever was left. **1/4
4. Kota Ibushi & Tomoaki Honma vs. Tetsuya Naito & SANADA
Look. I don’t need these guys to punch each other in the face or anything but considering they are having a match for the championship tomorrow — sorry, BOTH championships — I’m not sure what anybody was going for here. There was no spark and the wrestling was sloppy. They’re like some dubstep song that someone is going to tell me is for somebody else but I am going to tell you right now that sometimes — rarely, but sometimes — something is just bad. *3/4
5. IWGP Tag Team Title: Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa [c] vs. Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.
Gimmick boxes, stomping, chinlocks, Jado, and the Iron Claw all in a tight 30-minute package that ended in a DQ — if that sounds like your cup of tea, why? There were moments here, mostly around Taichi but sometimes around Tanga Loa, but the NJPW tag team division continues to aggressively cement itself as nothing worth seeking out ever. What do Tama Tonga and Zack Sabre Jr. even talk about? *1/4
6. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Hiromu Takahashi [c] vs. SHO
I regret to inform you that this match was bad. Well, not bad. But decent. So frustratingly and fundamentally decent, an attempt at something that I sat and watched and was bored to numbness by. They approached it like a main event, but in a boring New Japan heavyweight way and not an exciting heated junior heavyweight way ala Hiromu/Desperado.
They also went 35 long minutes, which on top of the previous 30-minute match was a bummer but also exposed two guys I really like as just not having enough to keep such a long stretch interesting — or at least enough to keep a COVID era crowd enthralled. There were a couple big time kickouts at the end, but at some point something has to be said for everything having that now. Go watch the BOSJ 2018 match and forget this ever happened. **
Happy Thoughts: Even for them, New Japan is playing it conservative during COVID — but this was just the output of a stubborn company. One or two things you can chalk up to a whoopsie, but there were frustrating approaches in almost every match here and more than anything it’s just causing boring wrestling. 2/10
