New Japan’s 2022 World Tag League ran from November 21st to December 14th alongside the 2022 Super Jr. Tag League, a junior-heavyweight spinoff that asked the same question: what if the ten teams in this particular weight class competed against each other once, and the two teams with the most points advanced to the Finals? The final night included answers, and my thoughts are below.
1. Ryohei Oiwa & Kosei Fujita vs. Alex Zayne & El Lindaman
New Japan relies on more outside talent than usual for their juniors tournaments, so Alex Zayne and El Lindaman is just one of those teams you get sometimes. Lindaman screamed at the crowd to get them going, which is why he won 2022’s Tokyo Sports Technique Award. He also used his foot to pressure Oiwa’s knee joint to the mat and get him in place for a dropkick, which could be why too. **3/4
2. KUSHIDA & Kevin Knight vs. Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste
Kevin Knight graduated from young lion status mid-tour, going from black trunks to matching Marty McFly KUSHIDA gear. He showed off with a springboard dropkick and an extra high dropkick off a KUSHIDA electric chair, though most of the match was a vanilla beatdown by TMDK. Nicholls kind of looks like Roderick Strong with more forehead. Just a thought. **3/4
3. Tiger Mask IV, Robbie Eagles, Alex Coughlin & Gabriel Kidd vs. Great-O-Khan, Aaron Henare, TJP & Francesco Akira
Happy to report: between the ring gear and quadruple-teams and the general law of time, United Empire finally feels like a whole unit. Coughlin continued to be a unit too, a different kind, one that can deliver a deadlift suplex to TJP early then BLOCK a Mongolian chop from O-Khan later. Kidd continued to run his mouth like a fun pro wrestler too, especially after he out-wrestled Henare. ***
4. Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI vs. EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, SHO & Dick Togo
The tease before the show was a possible new Suzuki-gun member, and what ended up happening is Suzuki just disbanded Suzuki-gun. Aw. **
5. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toru Yano, Ryusuke Taguchi & Clark Connors vs. Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, BUSHI & Titan
Naito dropkicked Taguchi in the ass and Titan showed out but otherwise nothing really happened in this match, this New Japan undercard match that just got by. **3/4
6. Kazuchika Okada, Tama Tonga & Master Wato vs. Jay White, Taiji Ishimori & Gedo
Wato got a haircut! Okada got his ribs worked. White got beat up by Tama, then Wato almost pinned Gedo before Jay hit Switchblade and had Gedo pin Wato. Lively enough. ***
7. NEVER Openweight Title: Karl Anderson [c] vs. Hikuleo
Anderson won the NEVER Openweight Title a few months ago, then signed with WWE and showed up on RAW. It was a whole thing, but not as much of a thing as you’d think; even with the other layer or AEW’s Lance Archer on the undercard. He brawled in the crowd with Hikuleo, who yelled “two months!” and “you bitch!” – it was storytelling. Hikuleo has developed a nice lariat, otherwise the match wasn’t very good. Jado and Gedo got involved then Karl actually retained the title. *3/4
8. Super Jr. Tag League – Final: YOH & Lio Rush vs. Ace Austin & Chris Bey
The winners go to Wrestle Kingdom to challenge IWGP Jr. Tag Team Champions TJP & Francesco Akira, who beat YOH & Lio on the tournament’s first night but fell to (and were eliminated from the finals by) Austin & Bey on its’ last night. The first 10 minutes didn’t have much going for them other than an occasional neat double team or some weird thing like a Too Sweet back rake and Ace giving YOH a paper cut with a playing card. The last 10 were better though, starting with Lio Rush tagging in for a wild run that transitioned right into a wild — yet intelligently contained — finish.
Bey hit a tope con hilo on YOH, Rush hit Bey with a tope by diving through Ace’s legs and Ace followed with a backflip plancha. YOH monkey flipped Lio into Ace, Lio hit the springboard Stunner on YOH by mistake but Ace charged into a spear from Lio. YOH and Lio hit what I think is called the ABC-to-123-K (a 3D with a flatliner instead of a cutter) but Bey pulled the ref out at 2, flipped him off and got nailed with another tope. Lio screamed at the ref to get back in for a Lio frog splash and YOH’s Direct Drive DDT, which got the win. ***1/2
9. World Tag League – Final: Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher
Names ranging from Andre the Giant to Hulk Hogan to Wataru Inoue have won a New Japan heavyweight tag team tournament, and now here were Bishamon and Aussie Open to fight over who held the trophies next. The winners also get to go to Wrestle Kingdom and challenge FTR for the IWGP Tag Team Title.
Aussie Open are a talented and athletic team new to the scene, while Goto and YOSHI have had a lot of good tags — lots and lots of them. They’ve made a lot of seemingly pointless tags more compelling than you could ever imagine, but in the prime spot like this with a still-noise-restricted audience what ended up happening was a tag just about as good as any of their others ones.
That’s not a bad thing; it could be disappointing but it’s not bad because the match was still real good. It didn’t quite have enough meat to carry its’ first 20 minutes, but Bishamon finally putting together the last puzzle pieces in the last 10 to triumph in their babyface journey felt more validating than lots of other wrestling. ****
Happy Thoughts: The undercard was not good and the two tournament finals were not great, but they were good. So it wasn’t much of a wrestling card, but I did really like that main event. 2.75 / 5.0
