Tag: New Japan Pro Wrestling

On last night’s Honor Rising event, Tomohiro Ishii shocked everyone by beating Roderick Strong for the ROH Television championship. It’s one thing for a title to switch hands, but is it possible for both ROH singles titles to change hands on the same tour two nights in a row? It’s entirely possible as this morning, ROH World champion Jay Lethal faces off against perrenial underdog Tomoaki Honma. While Honma is known for getting the occasional big win when it matters, Lethal not only has been very strong as champion, but his manager Truth Martini is known for getting involved in matches. Will the same happen here tonight, or will Honma reign supreme as a double champion?

David Finlay vs. Jay White

Really nice back and forth match. These two will probably be facing off in singles bouts just like Komatsu and Tanaka, and those two always had nice, solid matches. Lots of back and forth with some nice uppercuts by Finlay. White continues to look very good as well. He gets the submission with the Boston crab.

Jushin Thunder Liger and Matt Sydal vs. Gedo and Delirious

Not really much of a match but there were some funny antics by the heels. There was a funny moment before the bell where everyone was wondering why Delirious turtled up in the corner. The bell rang, he went crazy…then promptly tagged in Gedo. Gedo was all nice and wanted to shake Liger’s hand twice. Everything was cool the first time, then he jumped him after the second. Babyfaces always seem to fall for that in New Japan. Delirious took a lady’s purse from the front row and used it as a weapon. That’s a new one. Matt Sydal won with the shooting star press on Gedo.

Delirious mentioned Stokely Hathaway and Cheeseburger (who should have totally been on these cards) after the match.

Frankie Kazarian vs. Dalton Castle

Nice match. It was a slow build kind of match, given a lot of time, but things got going pretty well towards the end. People liked Castle but there wasn’t a ton of heat for this which hurt it. There was some comedy to be had here as Castle did a lot of antics to start off the match, including posing with the boys as well as doing a bit with Tiger Hattori where he leaned all the way down to the floor and Hattori counted his shoulders. Fans tried to start some American chants, rooting for Castle, but they never lasted really long. Castle unleashed some great offense towards the end and pinned Kazarian after a tilt a whirl reverse facebuster.

Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson vs. reDragon, Katsuyori Shibata & Hirooki Goto

Bullet Club were all wearing new shirts. They had their usual eight man tag. They continued teasing something with Goto as he argued with Shibata at one point in the match. He’s had offers from Okada to join Chaos since losing the IWGP title match. Gallows and Anderson teased the Magic Killer but Goto came back and he and Anderson had some good comebacks. Gallows gave Shibata the Gallows Poll for a great near fall. Shibata came back, put him to sleep and hit the penalty kick for the win. Last few minutes were really good.

Bullet Club all got together and hugged after the match as it’s Anderson and Gallows last match with the company (I’m pretty sure, anyway). Tonga and Fale bowed to them and made their exit. Gallows and Anderson then bowed to all four corners of the ring, then knelt down at the last one. Fans were emotional and so were they. Anderson’s music then hit as they made their exit.

Moose and Kushida vs. Tetsuya Naito and Bushi

Fine tag team match. Again, this was to showcase Moose, who is very much over with the crowd in doing his chant. Evil accompanied Naito and Bushi on the outside and aided them in beating up the faces whenever possible. Moose looked really great on offense, especially when having to do the hot top. He even did the Okada dropkick to Naito, who tumbled out of the ring. He pinned Bushi with the spear.

Michael Elgin, Roderick Strong and Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tomohiro Ishii, Yoshi-Hashi and Kazuchika Okada

Pretty good six man bout. It was shaped like a lot of New Japan tags as everyone worked with their rival (Tanahashi/Okada, Strong/Ishii, etc.). A lot of the focus was on Ishii and Strong. Everyone looked pretty good and worked well with one another. Crowd was here and there, but were really into the last few minutes of the match where Yoshi-Hashi got some near falls on Elgin. He overcame them and got the win for his team, pinning Yoshi-Hashi with the buckle bomb and spinning power bomb.

Ishii and Strong got pulled apart several times after the bell rang, making it clear that there’s probably going to be a rematch down the line for the title. Maybe at the TV tapings at the end of the month?

NEVER Six Man Tag Team titles: Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks vs. The Briscoes and Toru Yano (c)

Good match. Omega and the Bucks gel really well togther and helped make the match stand out. Kenny Omega came out wearing a New Day t-shirt saying he’s going to get Austin Creed (Xavier Woods). They have a rivalry going on for the Up Up Down Down show.Cody Hall accompanied the heels and freely interfere in the match, giving the Bullet Club the advantage. Lots of cool tandem work. Yano at one point undid the turnbuckle and laid out Omega with it. It played a part later in the match as all the heels ended up taking the turnbuckle spot.

Omega went for the hairspray but Yano rolled him up for a very close two count. Eventually the Bucks came back and laid out the Briscoes with a double Indytaker. They laid out Yano and gave him an extra More Bang for Your Buck (with Omega also hitting a swanton bomb) to win the titles. Makes sense as they’ve been building them as The Elite as of late.

These NEVER titles seem to be like the Hardcore title of New Japan at this point – we’re already on the fourth champions and the belt’s only existed for over a month!

ROH World Champion Jay Lethal vs. Tomoaki Honma

Good main event. Not great. Honma looked really good. Lethal looked good in places but the finish was kind of lame considering it happens in every Lethal match in Japan. Started off kinda slow. Good action, but nothing extraordinary. Lethal had him laid out and went for the Lethal Injection but Honma countered with a kokeshi. He took him to the floor and hit another one off the top rope. Honma hit all kinds of kokeshis but missed one off the top rope. Ref bump. In a surprise, suddenly Evil and Bushi came out and helped Martini lay him out with the Book of Truth…only to no sell it! He took out Martini but the distraction was enough as Lethal came back and laid him out with the Lethal Injection to retain the title.

Lethal wanted to shake Honma’s hand. There seems to be a theme to never trust the heels when it comes to shaking hands, but the babyfaces fall for it every time anyway. Of course, Honma obliged, and immediately Bushi sprayed him with the mist, leaving him a mess on the outside. Seems obvious the next tag title program is GBH and Naito/Evil.

Truth has the mic and says that Los Ingobernables and Lethal together are unstoppable. Naito then cuts a promo putting over Lethal, calling him his amigo, to end the show.

Pretty good show. There’s nothing absolutely you need to see, but for a live show this was pretty fun to watch. Hope ROH and New Japan do more shows together in the future as they both have some great talent that really shone on these last two shows.

Tonight’s episode are matches from NJPW Wrestling Hinokuni, which took place on April 29, 2015 at Grandmesse Kumamoto

First up is a NWA title defense as new champion Hiroyoshi Tenzan defends against Big Daddy Yum Yum. The challenger is former WWE developmental wrestler Byron Wilcott who has been here a few times in the past, most famous for selling Kojima’s chops in the most bizarre manner possible. He has good presence but everything else just feels off, from his offense to his selling to his ring gear. Even the announcers were saying this wasn’t good, and it really wasn’t. Tenzan should be the one carried at this point, not the other way around. Tenzan eventually got the win with a second anaconda vise. Pretty bad.

Makabe talks about how he had to vacate the NEVER title due to the flu. He mentions how Ishii said he’d have to win the title from Ishii for it to really mean something. He thinks wrestling is all about your heart, and this upcoming match shows this.

The match aired. I’m torn when it comes to these matches. They’ve never been terrible. Both guys are great brawlers and know their style very well. Ishii has always been consistently great. Some people want to rip on Makabe because he’s one of the more protected guys (he has mainstream popularity due to his love for sweets, among other things) even though he’s not as dynamic as others on the roster, but he can still put up a tremendous performance. Problem is, in 2015 they faced off for the NEVER title at least four times. It was overkill by the third defense, and the fourth was just kind of unnecessary.

But in terms of how the match was…it was every match they’ve had. Which means, in other words, it was quite the spectacle. People were into it from the start, as Ishii has this kind of vibe and style where you can get into his work pretty much immediately. Lots of stiff shots, kicks, lariats and all the like. Ishii took very hard suplexes to the back of his head. He can’t be doing this style forever. After 25 minutes of intense back and forth brawling, Makabe won the NEVER title back after pinning Ishii with the King Kong knee drop.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the match, and if you’ve never seen it before, it’s worth your while to check it out. For me, personally, I’ve seen these guys have plenty of great matches, and I just kind of want to move on from watching them. They spent too much of last year feuding, is what I’m getting at here. I think we’re only halfway done with this feud as well as far as this timeline goes, so that’s kind of a bummer for me personally.

Ishii didn’t have anything to say after the match.

Makabe takes a microphone after the match and says that no matter how many times we’ve been beat, we come back up because we have guts. Makabe says he and Ishii might look dirty, but we are talented. He gave away this belt once, but it came back to me. That’s what a true wrestler does.

Makabe backstage says he’ll disprove andy prejudices with this belt. He then says anyone else watching this that has championships, he’ll overthrow them.

In his reflective interview, he says that he knew he had to get the belt back. It was an obstacle, for sure. But he knew that’s the match the people wanted, which is why it was so intense. It’s nice to see different kinds of matches. To him, it’s all about the heart of the match.

And that’ll do it for this season of New Japan on AXS! We’ll return March 4 with Jim Ross replacing Maruo Ranallo. Much thanks to Mauro as he really helped these initial seasons of New Japan on AXS feel really special, and his knowledge of the product felt really refreshing compared to virtually everyone else who does English language broadcasting.

This is an interesting episode as the entire hour is dedicated to the IWGP Heavyweight championship match from Invasion Attack 2015, with Kota Ibushi challenging AJ Styles for the title.

This’ll wrap up our look at the Invasion Attack 2015 show, which took place on April 5, 2015 in Tokyo, Japan at Sumo Hall.

First up is the retrospective interview with Kota Ibushi. He put over the IWGP title and mentioned it’s the biggest title in Japan. He’s proud of himself because his skills are good enough to be in New Japan. When it comes to AJ, he considered him one of the best in the world. He also put over Styles in that Styles had the strongest skills.

I was surprised they took the whole hour to air this, but they took smart commercial breaks and the match did. They took it slow for the first half of the match, very much doing a feeling out process. They did occasional big moves but built up to a great series of moves, including a tease from Kota Ibushi with the attempt of the dragon suplex from the top rope. Ibushi was going for a hurricanrana from the top rope at one point, Styles teased the Clash from the top rope but Ibushi countered. That was a really cool tease.

Another tease I liked was when Omega came out to distract Kota Ibushi. He and Ibushi were synonymous with each other in DDT, teaming together on many occasions. I liked the subtleties of what Omega did as he seemed conflicted, and not outright heelish in his interference. Ibushi tried for a Phoenix Splash, but AJ countered into the Styles Clash and got the win there. Really fantastic match that lived up to everyone’s expectations.

IWGP Champion AJ Styles vs. Kota Ibushi

Crowd was really into this. AJ Styles was truly someone special when in New Japan as he had a presence not too many on the roster have. Ibushi has that presence too, and people buy him as someone who can headline. He’s been out for the last few months with herniated discs, which is hardly surprising considering the type of matches that he has where he completely destroys his body with crazy moves, but that’s the price you pay for doing this kind of style once or even twice a month. When Ibushi returns, and if he can go at this level still when he does, it should be a no-brainer that he, along with Omega, should be the two to fill the void that’s being left by AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura’s departures.

Styles was celebrating his win when Okada came in and cleared everyone out of the ring on his own, laying out Styles with the rainmaker. Gedo takes the mic and says he’ll wrap up the show for him, saying Okada will make it rain in the world of professional wrestling.

Okada mentions that he’s come back for the belt, since he slammed Fale in the ring – he’s really rocking it right now. He’s back, watch him go on a rampage. Gedo says he’ll take it back by force.

Ibushi in his post match interview says he considered it like his last big match, but still couldn’t win. He was very despondent. He says if he could challenge for the belt again, he’d really like to get revenge. You could really feel for him. It’s so weird in WWE they try and dismiss wins and losses because they think everyone knows its fake so it doesn’t matter. But people like seeing wins and losses because even if everyone knows it’s predetermined, they want their favorites to succeed and win, and are with them even at their lowest point, much like Ibushi was here. If you render every win and loss meaningless, why are you even out there supporting guys they want you to like?

Ibushi mentions that he felt like he lost the match in many ways – he was never able to get advantage like he wanted. When Omega interfered, he felt like time stopped. He didn’t feel it had any impact in the match. He still doesn’t know why he joined Bullet Club, but he hopes he can team with him again someday.

Really fine episode of this program. Featured an excellent match, good interviews and some interesting perspectives on things you wouldn’t otherwise get on a regular New Japan feed.

This week, we get more matches from Invasion Attack 2015, which took place on April 5 of that year.

IWGP Tag Team Champions Gallows and Anderson vs. Mike Bennett and Matt Taven

I should mention that the latter team is mostly just two entities to wrestle while the New Japan cameras oogle over Maria Kanellis.. Not that the Kingdom suck, because they don’t, but really the focus and the draw of the team was always made clear to be Maria.

I wasn’t into these series of matches. Nothing wrong with them technically, but it never went beyond a certain level and felt like they dragged at times. The big pop or climax of the match always revolved around Anderson being into Maria, and she’d jiggle as the Kingdom made their comeback. The finish of the match was exactly that, with Bennett getting the win on Anderson after hitting their spike piledriver finish. It wasn’t bad, like I said, just utterly fine and acceptable, nothing more.

Karl said Maria and him were this close to kissing. Doc Gallows came in and said Maria was one dead bitch. Well, that was really nice of him.

Taven cut a promo saying that winners go home and BLEEP with the prom queens (play Scrabble with?) and made fun of the marks in the back and on Twitter. Bennett said this was the end of the Bullet Club and the start of the Kingdom. I guess Bennett isn’t Nostradamus.

Next up, no New Japan card is complete without a six man!

Hirooki Goto, Tetsuya Naito & Togi Makabe vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, Yoshi-Hashi & Tomohiro Ishii

The focus of this match was on Goto and Nakamura. Everything was really well done. Nothing in here that would be considered truly awesome but everyone did their job well. That’s a core definition of a New Japan six man tag. Nakamura kept doing a binoculars gesture throughout the match as he was “looking for Goto” as he didn’t see him near the Intercontinental title. What he also didn’t see was Goto pinning him with the shouten kai.

Makabe after the match talked about Ishii, told him not to run away as they’re set to tango for at least the next year over the NEVER title. Goto names himself next in line for an IC title show and says he’ll regret that he picked a fight with him. Nakamura says he still can’t see anything, but Goto is the one not seeing straight as he accepts his challenge.

It’s Okada in the hot seat this week as he talks about Fale, and how he lost to him quickly in the New Japan Cup. He says he’s very skillful, but not a monster, as he is the monster. He mentions that the appeal of slamming the giant is still something, as he recalls Hogan slamming Andre the Giant. There were a number of factors that ended up playing into this match.

The main event of this week’s show is up next.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Bad Luck Fale

Ranallo is really good, and he totally deserves the Announcer of the Year award, but he need to not repeat himself so often. He keeps talking about “Okada’s failed tenure in a promotion that won’t be named” even though I’ve heard that story many times since watching this show, namely through him. Not a huge deal, but just something worth noting.

As far as the match goes, it was fine. Okada looked excellent here in laying out the match and being in control. In matches like these, Fale works really well. He’s not what I would call good, but he’s good enough that he can be carried when it comes to high profile matches like these. The match came off very well as this battle between one of New Japan’s best against a dominant opponent who meant business like Fale. They built up the big spot where Okada finally tombstoned Bad Luck Fale, then pinned him with the Rainmaker for the win. Not an all time awesome match, but pretty good thanks to Okada.

Okada says it was too easy, he felt nothing. Gedo says Okada will move up even further now in the cards. In his reflective interview, he mentions that now that he hit the tombstone on Fale, he feels that momentum is on his side.

Nice show this week. Nothing off the charts, but plenty of good action throughout.