NEVER title, dual finals, key tags
After an intense three and a half weeks, the Super Junior and World Tag Leagues come to an end on December 14 in Sendai’s Sun Plaza Hall. The dual finals will headline the card, but with some intriguing combustible elements underneath, as well as a long anticipated championship bout, there is much to talk about.
Watch the finals LIVE IN ENGLISH on NJPW World!
Main event 2: World Tag League Final- Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Aussie Open (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher)
Tag record: 1-0 Aussie Open
For the first time since 2019, the heavyweight World Tag League finals will headline in 2022, Bishamon heading to their second consecutive finals to face Aussie Open. For the team of YOSHI-HASHI, and especially Goto, this is a familiar spot; outside of Bishamon’s successful 2021 campaign, Goto has been in two other finals in 2012 and 2014 and won them both. There is precedent for back to back World Tag League victories as well; Great Bash Heel went back to back in 2015 and 2016, while SANADA and EVIL pulled off the feat in 2017 and 2018. Will this be the third such occasion?
Aussie Open will argue no. Despite both sides first teaming together at around the same time, the Australian side is by far the more consistent duo, boasting 263 direct tag bouts to their name compared to Bishamon’s anemic by comparison 77. One of Aussie Open’s 263 was a win over Bishamon on November 26 in Fujisawa, one that will fill Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis with confidence. Yet in the three times in World tag League final history where a single block format was followed by a top two scorer final, the eventual winners avenged a loss earlier in the league to take the trophies twice; including Bishamon getting payback over EVIL and Yujiro Takahashi to take the trophies in Ryogoku last year.
Since the G1 Tag League became World tag League in 2012, only two teams have won tag league and not followed through with the ‘double’ of the IWGP Tag team Championships at Wrestle Kingdom. As we approach a decade straight of tag title changes at the Tokyo Dome, FTR have to be deeply concerned about whatever team stands before them January 4. Will it be Aussie Open, determined to get their own revenge for a loss in arguably the best tag match of the year at Royal Quest II, or Bishamon going back to back?
Main event 1: Super Jr. Tag League Final: CHAOS (Lio Rush & YOH) vs BULLET CLUB (Ace Austin & Chris Bey)
Tag record: 1-0 BULLET CLUB
The junior heavyweight half of the main event in Sendai will see the Super Jr. Tag League decided between two fresh teams: CHAOS’ Lio Rush and YOH, and IMPACT/BULLET CLUB’s Ace Austin and Chris Bey.
That two fresh teams should be in the final is of little surprise, in a league that has seen major shakeups and only one duo with league experience in the running. The result has been thrilling competition, where great importance has been on competitors keeping their cool, and developing their communication while still battling at a high and intricate level. It’s been a league as much about how makes the fewest mistakes as about the most impact, and one could argue that Austin and Bey have succeeded at both.
The BULLET CLUB side seemed unstoppable in the early stages of the tournament, as they shot to four straight wins, only to be stopped by their opponents in the final tonight. Lio Rush has been a phenomenon in this year’s tag league, not just for showing out in his long wished for Japanese debut tour, but for his chemistry with YOH, as the two artistic spirits have quickly formed a close bond. For Rush, he couldn’t ask for a better partner in this final; between the Super Jr. Tag Tournament, and its 2018 repositioning as a league format, YOH has won three times, with the former Roppongi 3K’s second win in 2018 coming in a three way match over El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru, following up on a victory over the Suzuki-Gun side earlier in the league. Austin and Bey know full well that the CHAOS duo make formidable competition, and this match is anything but as easy as ‘1-2-Sweet’
7th Match: NEVER Openweight Championship- Karl Anderson vs Hikuleo
A long overdue championship contest will see Machine Gun Karl Anderson put the NEVER Openweight gold on the line against Hikuleo Wednesday. Moments after Anderson defended the NEVER title for the first time against Hiroshi Tanahashi in Kobe at Burning Spirit, Tama Tonga interrupted a post match attack on the Ace, all a plot to put Tama in the clutches of a BULLET CLUB ambush. Switchblade Jay White planned to serve Tama on a plate to Hikuleo, who had earlier in the year sided with the ‘catalyst of professional wrestling’ to remain in BULLET CLUB in the wake of his brothers’ expulsion. Yet Hikuleo would instead grab the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion around the throat, realigning himself with his siblings, and become a big heavy hitter for Hontai.
The NEVER Openweight Championship challenge was thrown out right away as a result, and the match had been made for November and Battle Autumn in Osaka. Yet the champion would, without advance notice, show up on WWE television, and then intentionally double book himself in the weeks that followed. NJPW officials had every intention of stripping Anderson of the NEVER title for his unprofessional actions, but Hikuleo insisted that a date and place be made for the fight, that date being December 14 and the place being Sendai.
Hikuleo now gets what he wants, but the adage of being careful what one wishes for may be in effect. Should Anderson, with Doc Gallows presence likely being a factor in his corner, retain the title, he could be able to continue holding the gold hostage, the one time ‘BMF title’ reduced to anything but. Pressure will be on for Hikuleo to seize his first career singles gold for the home team Wednesday.
6th Match: Master Wato, Tama Tonga & Kazuchika Okada vs Gedo, Taiji Ishimori & Jay White
Six man action will see a double championship preview of January 4 at Wrestle Kingdom, as IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Taiji Ishimori squares off with one of his three challengers at Wrestle Kingdom in Master Wato, and Switchblade Jay White faces off with his WK17 opponent Kazuchika Okada. While Ishimori and Wato, along with El Desperado and Hiromu Takahashi have collided in different combinations all the way through the last tour, Okada and White are meeting for the first time since Rumble on 44th Street in New York at the end of October, and with only three weeks separataing them from the Tokyo Dome, all eyes are on the two. As both seek to heat up a main event with the highest of stakes, who leaves making a major statement in Sendai?
5th Match: Clark Connors, Ryusuke Taguchi, Toru Yano & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Los Ingobernables De Japon (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, Titan & BUSHI)
Eight man competition will see two teams from each league relegated from finals competition go head to head. The Be-Bop Tag Team of Toru Yano and Hiroshi Tanahashi shares a common ignomy with Tetsuya Naito and SANADA- that of coming undone at the hands of HOUSE OF TORTURE in World Tag League competition. As a changing of the guard looms over Wrestle Kingdom, staples of the main event scene in Naito and Tanahashi are now without a route to January 4, instead having to make one for themselves. Just what might that entail, and might we see that plan B in action during this bout?
4th Match: Suzuki-Gun (DOUKI, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki) vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL, SHO, Dick Togo & Yujiro Takahashi)
An eight man clash of the blackest of hats, this is very much an intriguing match to watch. Yes, SHO and Togo lost to Kanemaru and DOUKI in Super Jr. Tag League, while Archer and Suzuki’s defeat to EVIL and Yujiro during World Tag League sparked a mid campaign collapse that will see the King and the Murderhawk Monster in the mood for violent retribution. Yes, the NEVER Openweight 6 Man Tag Team Champions all being united tonight might make them championship targets for Suzuki-Gun either in the events remaining this year or at the start of next. Yet the most intriguing aspect of this match might be in the aftermath. Suzuki has promised a major bombshell announcement for the group to be revealed here in Sendai, a sentiment Archer has backed up. Just what is coming on Wednesday? Inquiring minds want to know.
3rd Match: Gabriel Kidd, Alex Coughlin, Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask vs United Empire (TJP, Francesco Akira, Great-O-Khan & Aar0n Henare)
There can be no doubting that the Mechanical Bulls side of Alex Coughlin and Gabriel Kidd, as well as the Flying Tiger duo of Robbie Eagles and Tiger Mask, have to be coming out of their respective tag league campaigns with a good deal of disappointment. As former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag team Champions, Flying Tiger wanted to be a threat in the finals, but found themselves nearer the bottom of the table, while as satisfying as Coughlin and Kidd’s victory over HOUSE OF TORTURE in World Tag League was, they lacked enough cohesiveness as a side to be a factor. The perfectionists in the United Empire side will be disappointed in their own records, 5-4 not being two wins off the top scoring pace for O-Khan and Henare, while Catch 2/2 were unable to take one of the top two spots as champions. That frustration from all eight men gets worked out tonight.
2nd Match: Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA vs TMDK (Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls)
An intriguing openweight contest pits KUSHIDA and Kevin Knight against Shane Haste and Mikey Nicholls. The TMDK duo are dealing with the heartache of coming oh-so-close to an all Australian World Tag League final with Aussie Open only coming just short of Bishamon in the deciding block bout Sunday. Yet this match is more than just about hopping easily back on the winning horse. KUSHIDA and Kevin Knight might only have come away from Super Jr. tag League with four points off two wins, but the story of the league has been the incremental gains by Knight, who started the league in Young Lion plain garb with high potential but low expectations, and ended it with two straight pinfall victories in undercard and full on league action, and a look that definitely meets his ‘too flyy’ catchphrase. He and KUSHIDA are definitely underdogs tonight, but don’t count them out.
1st Match: Kosei Fujita & Ryohei Oiwa vs SAUCEHEARTS (El Lindaman & Alex Zayne)
Coming up just short of the Super Junior Tag League final, the SAUCEHEARTS side of El Lindaman and Alex Zayne will instead be battling Young Lion competition to kick off the evening. While this is not the competition Lindaman and Zayne would have wanted, they are sure to be bringing their charismatic energy to the ring as they see what Oiwa and Fujita are capable of.
