What do we got over here?… a cuppa middling shows from an ordinary company with just enough legacy and occasional uptick to get by?
Was there still value in these puroresu spot shows, other than jobs created and a soft main event for midcard titles? Was there artistic value? New Japan’s undercards have rarely held a great reputation, but now the factions driving them felt less connected or inspired than ever. The wrestling wasn’t so much bad, but given how repetitive it could be it was remarkable how little effort there was in making improvements around it.
A few days after Jay White beat Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Title at Dominion, New Japan kicked off their next tour without Jay White. New Japan Road would have eight stops in all, two back-to-back at Korakuen Hall less than a week before some (like six) New Japan guys went to America for AEW’s Forbidden Door.
First up: the New Japan Road stopped at Korakuen Hall on June 20th.
1. Kosei Fujita vs. Aaron Henare
Kosei Fujita and Ryohei Oiwa are New Japan’s newest Young Lions, otherwise known as “rookies” or – sometimes, rarely but lately more often – “Noojies.” Henare emerged with a new coolness if not credibility gained from a couple trips to the States, and after humoring a hot start from Fujita he started bringing the punishment. The chops just hit harder in the Korakuen silence. *1/2
2. Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, Toru Yano & YOH vs. EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, SHO & Dick Togo
What an absolute cast of lifers this was. Remember YOH and SHO? They didn’t do much here, though YOH got something going as he smoothly dropkicked just about everybody. Then he lost when Dick Togo low-effort cheated or whatever. **
3. Kazuchika Okada, Yuto Nakashima & Ryohei Oiwa vs. Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi & SANADA
Look at these lil’ Noojies teaming with Okada. He yelled at one of them! ***
4. Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. Taiji Ishimori & Gedo
Hiromu, Best of the Super Jr. champion and challenger for Taiji’s IWGP Jr. Title tomorrow, began the match building to and delivering not one but two BUSHI-assisted beard-bull spots on Gedo. Besides the few minutes spent on Gedo wearing down BUSHI, this was fine. **1/4
5. Inaugural AEW All-Atlantic Title 4-Way Match Tournament – Semi Final: Tomoaki Honma vs. Clark Connors
The passive aggressive on-screen negotiation of the midcard qualifiers to qualify to be New Japan’s one-fourth of a four-way… this is how all good business partnerships start off like, right? Or is that just pro wrestling specifically? Clark Connors, New Japan LA Dojo-trained and fresh off a run in the BOSJ, has an Australian cowboy get-up but also carries a t-shirt promoting “Big Horn Energy.” Honma is Honma, and somehow despite wrestling at half-speed he was able to put something together – as he usually still does in these random 10-minute features he still gets sometimes. ***
6. Inaugural AEW All-Atlantic Title 4-Way Match Tournament – Semi Final: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru
Look at that, Tomohiro Ishii is selling the leg again. I mean – kind of. He’s less selling and more kind of just… dealing with it, not quite enough pain to be an underdog but enough to extend the runtime to 20-minutes. It sort of made sense, even 15-minutes deep when Ishii was selling a figure-four as the possible end.
Most of the match was Kanemaru being sneaky or getting his ass beat, which is an ideal setup for Kanemaru or any heel, really. Eventually he escaped a powerbomb and kicked Ishii’s hurt leg, only for Ishii to just ignore it – but in a way that re-enforced he was still kind of hurt. Not must-see, but once again – what a cast of lifers. ***1/2
7. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title: Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato [c] vs. Francesco Akira & TJP
Francesco Akira and New Japan legend Pinoi Boy began teaming and joined Will Ospreay’s United Empire about a month-and-a-half ago, so here they were becoming the new IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Taguchi and TJP started with holds and humor, Wato and Akira traded elbows, and soon Taguchi was taking a beating to setup a hot tag by Wato that was lifeless by even clap-crowd standards. Then Wato almost broke the back of his head on a tope con hilo. God damnit, Wato!
Soon, the double-teams and near falls were flowing but nothing really stood out besides Taguchi’s talents around ass-attacks and match structure. He seemed like the best guy in a match that had a bunch of technically proficient and occasionally impressive wrestling but couldn’t fully lock in until 20 minutes later. ***1/4
Happy Thoughts: Crap undercard, good Ishii match, decent main events. Will the next night (to be linked soon) be more of the same? Ehhh! 2.5 / 5.0
