The Big Takeaway —
Suzuki-gun, after a night of defeats a few days ago in Sapporo, immediately gained their momentum back in their 10-man tag. Michael Elgin and Tetsuya Naito clashed in the main event, with Naito using his brain to outsmart Elgin. However, Elgin’s team won in the end as Ryusuke Taguchi outwrestled SANADA to close off the show.
Show Recap —
It was announced that Desperado has come down with a bout of the flu and is out of the show, so as a result the undercard has been switched around.
Henare defeated Oka
Henare showed great fire early. Oka looked really good in places; he has a really good belly-to-belly suplex. Overall a pretty solid match with Henare scoring the submission win with the Boston crab.
Satoshi Kojima & Yuji Nagata defeated Jushin Thunder Liger & Yoshitatsu
Solid tag bout. A lot of it was Yoshitatsu challenging Nagata, which didn’t lead to great results for him. Kojima came in, looked great, and eventually got the win with the lariat.
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Tiger Mask defeated Takashi Iizuka & Taka Michinoku by DQ
The match was fine. The DQ was pretty lame but it at least makes sense in that Iizuka probably doesn’t care one bit if he wins or loses. Tiger Mask laid out Iizuka with the Tiger Bomb. Tenzan came in and sunk in the Anaconda Vise but it was broken up.
Taka grabbed Tenzan as Iizuka threw him down. Iizuka got thwarted after using a chair, same with Taka, but when Tenzan blocked Taka, Iizuka had the iron fingers and nailed Tenzan for the DQ.
KUSHIDA, Juice Robinson, Katsuyori Shibata, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma defeated Will Ospreay, YOSHI-HASHI, Hirooki Goto, Jado & Gedo
Fun match, as most NJPW elimination matches are. Ospreay was eliminated early by a big boot to the floor. Shibata immediately followed with a crossbody to the outside, effectively eliminating himself as he and Ospreay brawled to the back.
Gedo fell to the King Kong Knee Drop by Makabe. Jado came in and wore down Makabe with a crossface. KUSHIDA came in and took out Jado, which helped out Makabe as he nailed the King Kong Knee Drop again to eliminate him. YOSHI-HASHI eliminated Makabe by clotheslining him to the floor. KUSHIDA immediately tried to get rid of him, as he was on the apron, but he made it back in.
KUSHIDA was on the apron as YOSHI-HASHI charged, but KUSHIDA opened the rope as YH tumbled out. KUSHIDA eliminated him, but Goto quickly dispatched KUSHIDA over the top rope, eliminating him as well. Honma was eliminated next, leaving Juice Robinson against Hirooki Goto. It was a back and forth battle, but with his team rooting for him, Juice was able to eliminate Goto to the floor, giving his team the win.
Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Lance Archer & Taichi defeated Tomohiro Ishii, Kazuchika Okada, Rocky Romero, Baretta & Toru Yano
Another solid elimination match. The right team won as it makes sense to get Suzuki-gun some heat back after all of their losses on Sunday. Suzuki in particular did a great job in getting the leglock over as a finish.
Suzuki-gun immediately jumped their foes at the bell and started brawling with everyone in and out of the ring. Taichi brought in the bell hammer from the outside and hit Baretta with it to get the heat. Suzuki targeted his leg, as well as Okada’s when he came back in.
Taichi was the first one eliminated after Ishii flattened him with a brainbuster. Davey Boy Smith came in, and after a good battle, Ishii dropkicked Smith to the floor after an errant leg drop on the apron. Archer gained revenge by booting Ishii out when he was on the top rope.
Yano came in to try and even things, and managed to do so briefly, but while doing his catchphrase Archer grabbed him and gave him a full nelson out of the ring. Okada came in, and after some good back and forth got Archer out of the ring to eliminate him.
That brought it back to Okada and Suzuki, and the latter immediately went back to work on Okada’s bad leg. They made it to the apron where Suzuki grabbed him with the kneelock, then dragged him to the outside for the elimination. Baretta immediately followed with a dropkick that eliminated Suzuki.
This left Baretta and Kanemaru remaining. Baretta had it won as he went for the Dudebuster but Taichi came in and interfered, allowing Kanemaru to gain the advantage. He launched himself off the top rope and gave Baretta a DDT for the win.
Suzuki cut a promo after the match, insinuating what went down in Sapporo was only the beginning.
Ryusuke Taguchi, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Dragon Lee, Michael Elgin & Manabu Nakanishi defeated EVIL, SANADA, BUSHI, Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi
Good main event. Everyone got some time with one another early, making this a pretty good back and forth match to start.
BUSHI was the first to fall after a High Fly Flow by Tanahashi. EVIL came in, and after a tussle, actually not only managed to eliminate Tanahashi, but Nakanishi as well after Nakanishi failed to hit the Hercules cutter. Elgin dodged a double team attack by getting out of the way of an EVIL kick. EVIL accidentally hit SANADA instead as Elgin eliminated EVIL.
Naito came in as they went at it, and eventually made it to the apron. Naito willingly eliminated himself in order to grab onto Elgin, who got dropkicked for an elimination.
Takahashi and Dragon Lee were in, and rather quickly Lee was eliminated after Takahashi hit a back body drop that wiped out bodies on the outside. Taguchi somehow caught himself on the apron with Takahashi and SANADA with him. He managed to dodge Takahashi and eliminated him with a hip toss.
Back in the ring, SANADA and Taguchi went at it and had some great back and forth with one another until Taguchi caught him in a roll-up and scored the win for his team.
Taguchi finished off the show by doing an impersonation of the Los Ingobernables taunt they usually close the show off with.
Final Thoughts —
A good “in between” show that perfectly hyped the big matches for this weekend (Shibata/Ospreay, NEVER Six-Man tag, Naito/Elgin) and continued the old rivalries from a few days ago (Okada/Suzuki, Robinson/Goto).
Elimination matches are almost never bad, so the last three matches on the card not only hyped the Osaka show but also were pretty fun, with great back and forth action all throughout. Can’t ask for much more!