Jushin Thunder Liger will be in New York City during WrestleMania week.
WrestleCon announced today that Liger will be part of this year’s Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow in New York City on Thursday, April 4: “This was originally going to be one of the many surprises at the WrestleCon Supershow, but in light of his retirement announcement, we want to announce that @Liger_NJPW will be part of the WrestleCon Supershow and we have about 150 tickets remaining”
At a press conference overnight, Liger announced that he’ll be retiring at the Tokyo Dome in January 2020. NJPW is running the Tokyo Dome on back-to-back nights in 2020, with the events taking place on January 4 and January 5.
Liger said at the press conference that he wants to be booked on ROH and NJPW’s G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, April 6. Liger also said he wants to wrestle all over the world between now and January.
This year’s WrestleCon Supershow is taking place at the Hilton New York Midtown Ballroom. Will Ospreay vs. Bandido has been announced for the show.
Jushin Thunder Liger announced this morning that he will retire in January.
Making the announcement during a press conference Liger, 54, said that he hopes to wrestle all around the world until the next Tokyo Dome card in January, where he will retire. He will be out during the New Japan Cup tour as he will be in Ireland. He also hoped that he would be able to wrestle at the G1 Supercard event next month at Madison Square Garden.
Born Keiichi Yamada, he originally wanted to join New Japan’s dojo straight out of high school, but he failed to meet their height requirement at the time. He instead travelled to Mexico and trained there until he was asked back to train at the dojo, eventually having his debut match on March 3, 1984 against Shunji Kosugi.
After winning the Young Lion Cup in 1986, Yamada went on excursion and travelled across Europe and Canada, wrestling in England under the name Fuji Yamada. He also wrestled for a time in Stampede Wrestling, training in the famed “Dungeon” with the Hart family.
Returning to NJPW in 1987, he wrestled under his given name for a couple of more years before making his debut as Jushin Liger on April 24, 1989 at a Tokyo Dome event. In a unique move, his outfit, appearance and name would evolve over time in line with the anime his character was based on. By 1990, he “evolved” into Jushin Thunder Liger, the name he uses to this day.
Overseas, Liger made his debut for WCW in 1991 and feuded with Brian Pillman over the WCW Light Heavyweight title. He would appear sporadically for the company throughout the 90s, and later made appearances for Ring of Honor, Impact Wrestling and also made a one-time appearance for NXT in 2015, defeating Tyler Breeze.
In the early stages of his career Liger was a high flying innovator, creating the shooting star press as his finishing move. After a battle with brain cancer in 1996, he adopted a more technical style of wrestling.
Throughout his now nearly 40-year career, Liger has won the IWGP Jr. title 11 times, easily setting the record for most title reigns. He’s also won the Jr. tag team titles six times and won the Best of the Super Juniors tournament in 1994 and 2001. In addition to that, he held the J-Crown and won the Super J Cup in 1995 and 2000, along with countless other titles throughout the world. He entered the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame in 1999.
In recent years, Liger has mostly been on undercards, usually teaming, sometimes feuding with Tiger Mask. His most recent appearance was on Tuesday morning’s New Japan 47th anniversary show, where he was unsuccessful in challenging Taiji Ishimori for the IWGP Jr. title.
With Will Ospreay unable to wrestle at the show, Over The Top Wrestling has announced his replacement for ScrapperMania 5.
Jushin Thunder Liger will be replacing Ospreay at ScrapperMania, which is taking place at National Stadium in Dublin, Ireland on Saturday, March 16. Liger’s match for the show has yet to be revealed.
It was announced yesterday that Ospreay wouldn’t be able to appear at ScrapperMania or OTT’s show in Belfast on Sunday, March 24 due to conflicting commitments: “Due to other commitments, Will Ospreay can no longer appear at March 16th ScrapperMania [and] March 24th Live In Belfast. Both Will and OTT are gutted but the situation is unavoidable. We have worked hard (with Will) and have found star replacements.”
The two shows are during NJPW’s New Japan Cup tour.
Flip Gordon will be Ospreay’s replacement at the Live in Belfast event. Gordon suffered an MCL tear in his right knee at a Ring of Honor show in January, but ROH announced that the injury wouldn’t require surgery. ROH noted that Gordon would be able to return in time for April’s G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden.
After they were set up at the New Beginning in Osaka on Monday morning, New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced two title matches for this year’s anniversary show.
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Taiji Ishimori will defend his title against Jushin Thunder Liger at the anniversary event, and SHO & YOH will challenge for Shingo Takagi & BUSHI’s IWGP Junior Heavyweight titles.
Ishimori called out Liger (who was on commentary) after retaining his title against Ryusuke Taguchi at the New Beginning in Osaka. Liger said he’d accept Ishimori’s challenge at any place or time.
SHO & YOH attacked Takagi & BUSHI and grabbed their title belts after Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, Takagi & BUSHI) defeated Suzuki-gun (Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado) in a six-man tag match. Takagi & BUSHI took the belts back after both teams got on the microphone and set up their title match.
This year marks NJPW’s 47th anniversary. The anniversary show is taking place at Ota City General Gymnasium in Tokyo on Wednesday, March 6 and will air live on New Japan World.
Another member of the New Japan Pro Wrestling roster is set for Ring of Honor’s next pay-per-view.
ROH announced today that Jushin Thunder Liger will be wrestling at Death Before Dishonor in Las Vegas on Friday, September 28. Liger last appeared for ROH as part of their War of the Worlds tour with NJPW in May. He also wrestled against Rocky Romero at NJPW’s event with CEO Fighting Game Championships in Orlando this summer.
As was announced yesterday, Chaos (Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Romero, Trent Barreta & Chuck Taylor) will be teaming against the Bullet Club (Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, Marty Scurll & Hangman Page) in a 10-man tag match at Death Before Dishonor. That’s the first match to be confirmed for the PPV.
While Death Before Dishonor was held at Sam’s Town Live in Las Vegas in 2016 and 2017, this year’s show will take place at the Orleans Arena.
Ring of Honor has announced big title matches and interpromotional bouts for their upcoming War of the Worlds tour.
The main event for Lowell, Massachusetts on May 9th has ROH World Champion Dalton Castle defending the title against Matt Taven. This will be the first singles match they’ve had against one another. Also on the card is SoCal Uncensored against the team of Jay Lethal, Jay White and Chucky T. The Young Bucks take on Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI and Roppongi 3K will tackle Cody, Marty Scurll & Hangman Page in a six-man bout.
Toronto on May 11th has Cody vs. Jushin Thunder Liger. Punishment Martinez will take on Jay White, and Roppongi 3K will challenge ROH Six-Man Tag Team Champions SoCal Uncensored.
Royal Oak on May 12th will have a match pitting Punishment Martinez, who has been getting a big push of late, against Hangman Page, who had had some high-profile matches lately. Cody will also battle Hiromu Takahashi on the show.
Austin Aries will finally get a crack at the ROH Television title as he will face champion Silas Young at the Chicago War of the Worlds event on May 13th. Aries returned to ROH at their 16th anniversary show back in March and also appeared at Supercard of Honor, where he confronted Young after he jumped Kenny King, who Young had just beaten to win the title.
The main event for Chicago has a Bullet Club vs. Los Ingobernables theme, as all five members of Los Ingobernables de Japon will square off against Cody, Hangman Page, Marty Scurll & The Young Bucks.
The Lowell, Toronto and Royal Oak shows will be live events streamed on Honor Club. Chicago will be a television taping.
CEO Fighting Game Championships announced ticket information today for their upcoming event in Daytona Beach, Florida featuring NJPW talent.
Tickets for CEO x NJPW When Worlds Collide will go on sale 5/3 for CEO 2018 attendees, then 5/4 for everyone else. More information will be released tomorrow in a press release that will be available to the public at 5 p.m. EDT. The Golden Lovers and Jushin Thunder Liger are the first announced talent for the show, which is being promoted as a wrestling event.
It will take place at the Daytona Beach Ocean Center Arena, which holds 8,400 people. If the event were to sell out, it would likely be one of the bigger independent wrestling events in the United States in quite some time. And that record may be broken a month later when New Japan heads to the Cow Palace on July 7 for the G1 Special in San Francisco.
CEO Fighting Game Championships is an annual competitive video game event focused on tournaments. Their event will run from June 29 through July 1, with When Worlds Collide taking place on June 29.
Jushin Thunder Liger will be returning to Ring of Honor next month.
ROH announced on their website today that Liger will be a part of the upcoming War of the Worlds tour, the annual ROH tour where New Japan and ROH talent face off against each other. ROH said that Liger will be on all four stops of the tour. Along with Liger, all four members of Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, BUSHI, EVIL and Hiromu Takahashi) have been signed for the tour.
Liger hasn’t competed for Ring of Honor in North America since 2016, taking part in their Final Battle 2016 tour. He lost to Silas Young on that show and also lost to Jay Lethal in a match taped for television.
War of the Worlds will start on May 9 in Lowell, Massachusetts. It will continue in Toronto, Canada on May 11, May 12 in Royal Oak, Michigan and will culminate on May 13 in Chicago, Illinois. No matches have been announced as of this writing.
The first match for New Japan Pro Wrestling’s return to the United States appears to be confirmed, and it’s one that involves a big name from outside of the promotion.
A video where Rey Mysterio challenged Jushin Thunder Liger to face him at Strong Style Evolved in Long Beach aired on this morning’s New Beginning in Osaka show. Mysterio introduced himself, announced that he’d be wrestling in NJPW for the first time ever, and then issued the challenge to Liger.
Liger, who was doing commentary for the New Beginning show, accepted Mysterio’s challenge.
Mysterio called Liger one of the greatest junior heavyweight wrestlers ever, and Kevin Kelly and Don Callis hyped it up as a dream match. In their only other singles meeting, Liger defeated Mysterio at Starrcade 1996.
After making a surprise appearance in last month’s Royal Rumble, Mysterio spoke optimistically about returning to WWE. Dave Meltzer noted that Mysterio doesn’t have a contract with anyone, but he wrote Mysterio has commitments “all over the world” right now.
Strong Style Evolved will take place at Walter Pyramid in Long Beach on March 25th.
This week in wrestling, PROGRESS hosted Super Strong Style 16, the NJPW Best of the Super Juniors came to a close, the build to WWE Extreme Rules continued, and Minoru Suzuki had a match in an empty Tokyo Dome. Here are our favorite wrestlers this week. Who’s yours?
This week’s panel —
Alan4L (Dr. Keith Presents host and Figure Four Weekly writer)
Liger didn’t get a storybook ending in his “last ever” Best of the Super Juniors tournament. He did, however, gain a very satisfying win over Taichi in his final tournament match, and that makes him my favorite wrestler this week.
Sure, Liger going out strong, perhaps making the finals or even winning, would have been the better story, but who even knows if that’s what he wanted. Maybe his goal was to put the younger guys over in his last BOSJ. Whatever the case, his final match with Taichi was basically storytelling perfection (though it did take quite a while for the faces to make the save).
My distaste for Taichi knows no bounds, but he was booked as a pretty great heel throughout this year’s tournament, getting dubious wins over fan favorites like Will Ospreay, Marty Scurll, and Dragon Lee with the help of Suzuki-gun. He even had what is possibly the first match of his that I’ve legitimately enjoyed early in the tournament with Taka Michinoku. Taichi was booked as the perfect piece of s**t heel for Liger to overcome.
And overcome he did. After getting his costume and mask cut to shreds and beat on by Taichi and Suzuki-gun, Liger fought back with the help of KUSHIDA and Taguchi to become triumphant. It was simple, classic storytelling and I ate up every second of it.
David Starr
By Alan Boon
The obvious answer to “Who is your favorite wrestler this week?” would be Travis Banks. The Kiwi continued his ascension to the top of the PROGRESS tree by winning Super Strong Style 16, and carried everyone there with him, but I figure I’ll have plenty of chances to write about Travis for this column.
Instead, I want to write about someone who came into SSS16 with possibly the quietest chatter but left having turned the sell-out crowd on all three nights into firm fans.
Your Favorite Wrestler’s Favorite Wrestler, the King of Taunts, The 104 Minute Man — David Starr made an impact right from the time Jim Smallman started listing his nicknames (he has loads), even if he was shorn of his usual theme music by PROGRESS’ march towards respectability. He then put on a variety of performances, from hard-hitting strong style to out-and-out comedy, winning over even the staunchest doubter (I’m looking at you, my pal Chris) and earning a “Please come back!” chant for his efforts.
To those of us who have been watching Starr in CZW, wXw, RevPro, and so many others this year, this comes as no surprise. He’s been having top matches with top guys, and being one of the more fully-rounded professional wrestlers you’ll ever see. He’s a semi-regular visitor to the UK, where he works for Fight Club: PRO (as well as PROGRESS and RevPro), a solid part of the wXw roster in Germany, and works all over the north east and mid-west in the US.
At 26, and with two of his mentors either in WWE or WWE-bound, his upside is huge. Get on board the Starrship.
Trent Seven
By Mike DellaCamera
The only member of British Strong Style yet to hold the WWE UK Championship is my favorite wrestler this week. Sure, he lost to Matt Riddle in six seconds and was “affectionately” called Trent Six at PROGRESS over the weekend, but Seven is, arguably, the backbone of BSS. Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate get the headlines and most of the spotlight, but Trent is the one who makes the group work.
His mic work is quite far ahead of the other two, which is clearly why they let him carry most of the promos. It’s funny because I am not a fan of facial hair being a gimmick in wrestling, but as soon as Moustache Mountain became BSS everything changed. The “new” Trent Seven wasn’t about smiling and twirling his mustache, he was about beating people up and taking belts — all while being pretty damn good at this wrestling thing.
I do want to take a second to shout out his hair, which is either the best or second best (sup Matt Sydal) in all of wrestling. I mean come on, look at that moss. It is beautiful and perfect and why can’t I have hair like that?
KUSHIDA
By Alan4L
As he heads into his third Best of the Super Juniors final, KUSHIDA has already proven once again that he is one of the best in the game right now. He has had a sublime tournament with his bouts against BUSHI and Ryusuke Taguchi in particular standing out as two of the best junior class matches of 2017.
He’s always been technically sound, but his charisma is vastly underrated and his ability to convey grit, determination, and heart in his matches is on a level that few can lay claim to. By the time you read this it’s very possible he’s chalked up yet another classic with Will Ospreay (Editor’s note: confirmed). KUSHIDA is one of those gifts that keeps on giving — a true pro wrestling treasure.
With one week remaining, the 24th NJPW Best of the Super Juniors tournament still has a lot of twists and turns to sort out. While some competitors have already been knocked out of the tournament, many remain, and even some of those who are currently struggling can still pull it off given the right circumstances.
Here is everything you need to know leading into the last week of the tournament.
Current rankings
As of this writing, Will Ospreay, Dragon Lee, Ricochet, Taichi, and Hiromu Takahashi have eight points to lead Block A. Marty Scurll (six points), Taka Michinoku (two points), and Jushin Thunder Liger (zero) are mathematically eliminated from winning the tournament.
Block B has El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Ryusuke Taguchi, and ACH leading with six points each. Tiger Mask IV, Volador Jr., KUSHIDA, and BUSHI have four points.
Liger’s last stand?
Before the tournament, Jushin Thunder Liger shocked everyone by announcing that this would be his last BOSJ and after his loss to Michinoku, he vowed to win the rest of his matches. But that hasn’t come into fruition at all. In fact, he has a big ol’ goose egg heading into the tourney’s final week.
Liger is the most prolific wrestler to compete in the tournament, entering it every time since its inception with the exception of 1995 and 2000. He’s won it three times: 1992, 1994, and 2001. At 50, he’s still one of the best workers the company has as far as telling a story and overall solid workrate.
KUSHIDA’s story
One wrestler to follow in this tournament is former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion KUSHIDA, who has been struggling to gain momentum ever since he lost his rematch to Hiromu Takahashi at Sakura Genesis back in April.
That struggle continues in this year’s tournament where as of this writing, he has only been able to rack up four points, defeating BUSHI in the main event from the May 22nd show and Yoshinobu Kanemaru on May 27th. Losses to Desperado, ACH, and Tiger Mask have impeded his path to gaining another tournament win.
KUSHIDA needs to win the rest of his matches to have a chance at winning his block and making it to the finals. If he is able to win the tournament, he’ll be able to get another crack at the title, which he’s been yearning to do since his humiliating April loss.
What you need to watch
Without a doubt, Ospreay and Ricochet have stolen the show this year, equaling, if not surpassing, their famous match from last year. They dished out every single move you could possibly imagine with Ospreay finishing things off with a dragonrana and his OsCutter finisher for the win.
Dragon Lee and Takahashi also continued their epic rivalry, capping off the opening day with a killer main event. It wasn’t as barbaric as their encounter back in February at New Beginning, but still managed to wow Korakuen Hall with some sick back and forth offense.
Lee is becoming the big MVP of the tournament and his other matches between he, Ospreay, and Ricochet are also highly recommended.
Most other matches on the card have ranged from solid to pretty good. I’d suggest avoiding anything involving Taichi as he goes out of his way to have bad matches, and I’m sure you have other things to do besides watching him stall for ten minutes.
The rest of the tournament
The tournament runs through June 3rd at Tokyo Yoyogi Gym, with the finals airing live on New Japan World with English commentary. Three other shows will air live before then:
– May 29th at Korakuen Hall will be a B Block night: El Desperado will face Tiger Mask IV, BUSHI takes on Yoshinobu Kanemaru, ACH will face Volador Jr., and KUSHIDA will face Ryusuke Taguchi in the main event.
– May 31st in Osaka will determine the A Block winner: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Taichi, Ricochet vs. Marty Scurll, Dragon Lee vs. Taka Michinoku will all take place, with Hiromu Takahashi vs. Will Ospreay headlining.
– June 1st in Nagoya will decide the B Block winner of the tournament: BUSHI vs. Tiger Mask IV, ACH vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, KUSHIDA vs. Volador Jr. and El Desperado vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru.
The timing could not have worked out better for this show as, just the day before, Jushin Liger was announced as participating in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament.
The tournament this year looks to be one of the most loaded in history with some incredible matches possible.
Karl Stern was a huge fan of Jushin Liger from the start. With his futuristic sci-fi themed outfit to his spectacular and revolutionary highflying, Liger captured the audience’s imagination from day one.
The man who would become Liger, Keiichi Yamada, was a stand-out wrestler in high school. He lost the national championship to another future legend in Toshiaki Kawada.
As many of the Japanese stars over the years have done, Yamada then traveled world learning to work a variety of styles.
Yamada worked in Canada and Europe, including the legendary Stampede promotion where fingerprints of his time there learning from masters like the Harts and the British Bulldogs influenced the Jushin Liger character.
When Liger returned to Japan he debuted the futuristic, manga inspired Jushin “Thunder” Liger character. In 1987 he also debuted a revolutionary move that would be copied by many wrestlers over the coming years, the Shooting Star Press.
In 1999 he was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame.
Today’s edition of the July Classic Wrestling Marathon takes a look at Jushin Thunder Liger, one of the greatest junior heavyweights of all time,
Here we go with more Super Juniors tournament action! Today, the B block begins to take shape as we continue on in Gunma.
Yoshi-Hashi and Rocky Romero vs. Jay White and Ryusuke Taguchi
Solid match. White and Yoshi-Hashi had a pretty good sequence towards the end of the match, and White even kicked out of YH’s flipping neckbreaker. Yoshi-Hashi applied an arm scissors, however, and picked up the submission instead.
Romero mentioned post-match that Yoshi-Hashi is looking to kick Sanada’s ass down the line. They’ve been building a program together during this tour.
Captain New Japan, Matt Sydal, Juice Robinson, Kushida and Katsuyori Shibata vs. Yuji Nagata, Kyle O’Reilly, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Manabu Nakanishi and David Finlay
Pretty good match as the juniors busted out some cool offense. Shibata and Nagata zeroed in on one another throughout the match. Towards the end there were a lot of back and forth between Captain New Japan and Tenzan – CNJ even did the Mongolian chops, always a big no no. Tenzan got the last laugh, pinning CNJ with a moonsault.
Tiger Mask vs. Baretta
Nice match, though the crowd were quiet most of the time and it felt pretty long for what it was – solid work, just didn’t feel like a hot match at the end. Just okay back and forth. Baretta kicked out of a tiger bomb, but Tiger Mask sinked in the double arm scissors and got the win. The loss cuts Baretta from the finals, and Tiger Mask is already eliminated.
Will Ospreay vs. Jushin Thunder Liger
Another pretty solid match. Liger’s good at being the springboard for all of Ospreay’s offense. Ospreay looked pretty good and together they had a very nice match, though nothing too special. The win keeps Ospreay alive but eliminates Liger.
Chase Owens vs. Bobby Fish
Nicely worked match. They traded submissions and targeted each other’s legs. The problem was the crowd again as they just didn’t seem to care and just sat there. Fish submits Owens with a leglock. This puts out Owens, but Fish is still in, though it’s a longshot.
Ricochet vs. Volador Jr.
This was full of high flying moves, as you’d expect. Volador went for the hurricanrana off the top rope but Ricochet landed on his feel. Volador did an inverted code red. Ricochet went for what looked like an Alabama slam but Volador countered with a hurricanrana and SPIKED him right on the mat for the win. Very cool match, especially towards the end.
Both are still in the tournament – if Volador beats Ospreay, he wins the block, simple as that. If Ospreay beats Volador, it boils down to how Ricochet vs. Owens goes. Owens pinning Ricochet eliminates him as he’d tie with a winning Ospreay and Ospreay has the tie over him. If Ricochet wins, however, he’d get 12 and beat Ospreay. So still a lot of variables heading into tomorrow.
Kenny Omega, Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi vs. Yoshitatsu, Satoshi Kojima and Michael Elgin
This got more heat than the other matches for whatever reason. Perfectly fine match, it was all about Elgin looking strong and wanting to get his hands on Omega. Elgin went to use a steel trash can lid on Omega, but he ducked and hit Yujiro instead. He pinned him the sitout powerbomb. He grabbed Omega’s broom after the match and destroyed it, then chased Omega with the trash can lid to the back.
Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & Gedo vs. Tetsuya Naito, Evil, Sanada and Bushi
Since Milano wasn’t here today, Naito decided to pick on Yoshi-Hashi, who was doing commentary post-intermission. It never got anywhere as Okada jumped him immediately. It was another good back and forth match that these two teams have had for most of this tour. Okada and Naito worked briefly, which the crowd were very much into. Sanada and Gedo were the ones left in the ring after them and Sanada submitted Geod quickly with the skull end.
Ingobernables cleared the ring after the match. Yoshi-Hashi tried to make the save but Naito isolated him from the others and dragged him into the ring, but managed to escape. Naito finished the show cutting a promo.
Not as strong as other shows, but good action overall.
Here’s a recap of the four Best of the Super Juniors B block matches that took place this morning in Shizuoka. Thankfully, New Japan World cut the tag team matches that fill these shows. Not that they’re bad, but they’re super formulaic. Some people get into them, and for the very good ones I can get into them too. Most of the time, I just can’t.
Chase Owens vs. Will Ospreay
This was pretty good. Owens is solid. Not flashy like some guys in this tournament, but works really well with a lot of people. Ospreay’s offense was tremendous here, doing everything including the Sasuke special to Owens on the outside. Owens cut him off and pinned him with the package piledriver in a surprise (at least, for me).
There will probably be many examples like this during the tournament, not just because they want to add an air of unpredictability in the tournament but also because they probably had to change a lot of results due to the Young Bucks being pulled from the tournament.
Trent Baretta vs. Volador Jr.
I guess the rule in Japan if you’re a luchador that’s lost his mask is you can wear it for as long as you want, but you have to take it off sometime during the match. The first half of this was okay, nothing special. Volador did a cool dive to the floor. Seems like every time there was a big spot, things would slow down for a while. Things picked up after a while, but the match as a whole was just kind of there save for a few cool spots by Volador. He hit the top rope hurricanrana that won his match on the opening day, but Baretta kicked out. Volador went to charge in the corner, but Baretta lifted up up into the Dudebuster and nailed it for the win.
Bobby Fish vs. Jushin Thunder Liger
Both Fish’s theme and Liger’s theme are no longer dubbed over. For some reason, though, Owens’ theme was. Fish smacked Liger’s leg with some kicks early and focused on throse throughout the match. Liger made a comeback and hit the liger bomb for a nearfall. Liger went for a hurricanrana off the top rope but Fish grabbed the ropes, causing Liger to land on his bad leg. Fish kept working on Liger’s leg in a long ankle lock submission. Liger escaped, then managed to hold Fish down long enough by grabbing the ropes t o pick up the sneaky win. Do what you gotta do, I guess.
Tiger Mask vs. Ricochet
This was okay for most of it. Nothing bad, but Tiger Mask’s work is always just there, just good enough not to be bad. Ricochet didn’t do anything flashy for this match either and as a result the match in general was just kinda there. Ricochet picked up the submission win with a modified armbar.
