Prince Bálor's NJPW Journey
Destination: Destruction In Okayama
Date: 9/23/15
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Shibata, Nagata, Komatsu & Tanaka vs Naito, Nakanishi, White & Little Finlay was a solid show opener. **½
It was a basic multi-man tag opener, but turned up a notch 'cause of Katsuyori 'I'LL KILL YOU DEAD' Shibata and Tetsuya 'ZERO FUCKS GIVEN' Naito.
Naito was born to be a heel and continues to give zero fucks, which led to his team losing, and a brawl with Shibata post-match.
This is all part of the build to their match at Destruction In Kobe on the 27th. It shall be a lotta fun.
The young lions and vets got to shine a bit, also.
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reDRagon vs Jushin 'Thunder' Liger & Mascara Dorada was a rock solid match. **¾
This was a fun non-title match, for sure.
reDRagon won, of course, as this was an obvious tune-up match for their title defense against Time Splitters on Sunday.
With KUSHIDA dropping the IWGP Jr. title, I'm afraid reDRagon's titles are in jeopardy, too. They need to stop playing hot potatoes with the Jr. tag belts, seriously.
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Tiger Mask IV vs Steve Anthony was decent. **
This was a slow-paced match, which TM IV, thankfully, won with a Scissored Armbar to become the new NWA Jr. Heavyweight champion, so yay!
Bruce Tharpe's reaction when his man lost was hilarious...ly bad.
Also, this sets up a TM IV/Liger match down the line, so I look forward to that.
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Tanahashi & Matt Sydal vs Fale & Tonga was good. ***
Matto was paired with the ace in his debut NJPW match, which is cool. Getting the Tana rub is good for Sydal, as he is a newcomer.
I've no complaints, everyone got to shine here and delivered a good match. The crowd was into it, too.
Ace Tana and Matt-O won with a Shooting Star Press followed by High Fly Flow on Tonga.
I already feel like Sydal could be a player in NJPW, and a good addition to the Juniors division, but first things first, its booking has to be fixed.
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Karru & Doc vs TenKoji was very good and the best match on the card so far. ***½
Before the match started, I was like "Oh, boy!". I didn't expect this to be good, but damn, was I wrong! This was damn, damn good!
These four know how to work with each other and they made me care. The homestretch was a lotta fun, I was on the edge of my seat for all those near-falls. Ultimately, Machine Gun and Doc retain the IWGP tag team titles by hitting Magic Killer on Kojima.
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Nakamura, Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI & RPG Vice vs Goto, Honma, Shelley, Taguchi & Captain New Japan was a solid post-intermission match. **½
Again, basic multi-man tag match. Everyone got to do their trademark stuff and while this wasn't bad, with the abundance of tag matches on the show, they get old quick, no matter who you stick in these type of things. Anyways, CHAOS won when Ishii hit a Brainbustaaah on CNJ.
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Okada & YTR vs AJ Styles & Cody Hall was entertaining as hell for the time given. ***
This was more about Yano and Hall, in the same vein as the Tanahashi/BLF tag. Plus, they didn't wanna give away Okada/AJ too much.
Okada and AJ didn't work as much, which is understandable, but when they did, it was super sweet.
They had a sweet sequence mid-match and that was pretty much the highlight of the entire bout. They've truly become soulmates.
Their chemistry is just excellent. Yano had his usual comedy shtick come into play, I was laughing like a mad man when he was pulling Cody by the ears and then was like "Sorry, sorry!". Cody's improving, so that's a good thing... Ultimately, YTR stole the win with a low-blow and a roll-up on Hall.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Kenny Omega vs KUSHIDA was very good, despite the outcome. ***½
The work was crisp and fluid, but the BC shenanigans annoyed me and as much as I love Omega, KUSHIDA should've retained here.
There was no need for him to fail on his second defense. He can still regain the title, but that ain't the route I'd go with.
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Makabe vs Kota Ibushi was a great ME! ****
This was MOTN and them trying to make the NEVER title seem like a big deal by putting it on last is nice!
However, I was pulling hard for a Ibushi win here! The sad thing is, as long as he isn't exclusive to NJPW, they won't be putting a singles title on him.
Shame. They should've pulled the trigger on making him a star. He won the New Japan Cup and then nothing happened for him, he faced Nakamura for the IC title and failed, he faced AJ for the IWGP title and then nothing, again. And now he's failed at capturing the NEVER title. That sucks.
The NEVER title will prolly keep revolving around Makabe and Ishii, but adding more guys wouldn't hurt. Honma comes to mind, for an example.
Shibata and Naito, too. So, having these 5 guys all feuding for it would mix things up and it'd be more interesting than just revisiting feuds.
OVERALL THOUGHTS: As far as in-ring effort goes, this was a good show. But, booking-wise, not so much.
I get that all those multi-man tag matches won't go away, but the juniors tag division needs to be shaken up a bit and booked properly.
Build some new teams/stars and for God's sake, stop playing hot potatoes with the titles! It's annoying.
Same thing goes for the Juniors HW division. KUSHIDA losing on his second defense is lame. He should've remained the champ till the Dome, at the very least. KUSHIDA losing here prolly sets up a Time Splitters win over reDRagon this Sunday. Oh, well. Here we go again.
The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Omega was just a transitional champion and dropped the title to Sydal at KOPW.
Also, the HW tag division needs more teams. Machine Gun and Doc basically have no competition.
And I sure as hell don't want to see another match with The Kingdom. Same thing goes for the NEVER title. Makabe/Ishii keeps spinning around.
As I've said before, adding the likes of Honma, Naito and Shibata wouldn't hurt.
