NJPW KING OF PRO-WRESTLING

Ryogoku, Tokyo, Japan

EL DESPERADO & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU vs. ROPPONGI 3K (10:44): There was a super typhoon that hit Japan on Saturday, which meant changes to this show which was oddly not cancelled. Tokyo supposedly got hit with a lot of flooding but I guess the show must go on! Two wrestlers couldn't make the show, presumably because of flight cancellations. Zack Sabre, Jr. wasn't there but was only scheduled for a superfluous multi-man tag match. Jon Moxley, however, couldn't make it to Japan and was thus stripped of his coveted U.S. title. The Moxley/Juice no DQ match for the title probably would have been one of the better matches on the show, so that was a letdown. The show was a good one, though, save for most of these lame tag matches that New Japan fucking adores for some reason. There doing a Jr. tag tournament starting on Wednesday so I guess this was a preview. El Desperado is back after having his jaw broken in a match against Jun Kasai last Spring. That elusive mask vs. mask match between Dragon Lee and El Desperado certainly seems further away than ever thanks to CMLL firing Dragon Lee and New Japan pulling Dragon Lee out of the Jr. tournament. As for this match...Roppongi 3K is always entertaining so it was at least watchable. El Desperado came out wearing a blood stained shirt that he supposedly was wearing in the match he broke his jaw in. Does he even wear a white shirt in matches? No. So that confused me. Jun Kasai is nuts. Remember the infamous CZW Fans Bring the Weapons match with him like fifteen years ago in Delaware where he got his elbow cut open after being power bombed out of the ring through a stack of fluorescent light tubes? Yep. So it certainly doesn't surprise me that he broke someone's jaw. **1/2

HIROSHI TANAHASHI & TOMOAKI HONMA vs. TOGI MAKABE & TORU YANO (9:43): Tanahashi is in the second match of one of their biggest shows. My how the mighty have fallen. Well Naito was in the third match and Jay White in a nothing six man so I guess this show wasn't as "big" as some may thing. Usually this is there third biggest show after the Dome and Dominion, right? Although, the championship hasn't changed hands on this show in five years (when AJ Styles lost to Tanahashi) so it's been a little stale (and how can we forget last year's epic fail when Ibushi vs. Omega was ruined by inserting Cody into the match). And what's up with Honma? Dude was almost paralyzed with a neck injury and he's still doing twenty diving head butts every match. This wasn't terrible or anything, just forgettable. **

TETSUYA NAITO & SHINGO TAKAGI vs. TAICHI & DOUKI (9:00): Shingo should be battling for the title in the main event. What's wrong with this company? I guess he's still new and a Dragon Gate guy but still, c'mon, what's one of your best wrestlers doing in a lame match against the two stupidest wrestlers on the roster, Taichi and Douki? I will admit that Taichi's ultra stupid entrance always makes me laugh at how ridiculous it is. He's lip singing while holding a microphone obviously not plugged in and he looks like the Phantom of the Opera and he's supposed to be this tough, bad ass heel? Douki is worse. Guy wears a dress that's flapping around while he's trying to do dives and flips. And I can never get past his name. Shingo saved this, though, and Naito is always amusing. There was that. *1/2

MINORU SUZUKI vs. JYUSHIN THUNDER LIGER (17:38): This was a letdown. Liger didn't wear his whole costume, just a new mask and pants. They set this up by doing a ridiculous, hard core run in with a spike and a table so you figured this would be a hardcore match or something. Nope. It was boring. Liger didn't do any of his high flying. Eh. His retirement tour isn't going so well. *

WILL OSPREAY vs. EL PHANTASMO (27:58): The match of the night! Ospreay is just having one of those years. He's already the best wrestler of 2019 and he's still putting out unbelievably awesome matches. They did pretty much everything. Phantasmo did a dive off an entranceway amidst the crowd. The ref got knocked out and Ishimori interfered. They both kicked out of everything. Phantasmo jumped up from the top rope to give Ospreay a Hurricanrana off the top rope by Ospreay slammed him down in mid-air from like ten feet. This was just nuts. Great match. ***1/2

HIROOKI GOTO, TOMOHIRO ISHII & YOSHI-HASHI vs. JAY WHITE, KENTA & YUJIRO TAKAHASHI (12:27): Ishii and Kenta are on a collision course that will probably end at Wrestle Kingdom even though they already wrestled in August in London when Kenta was legit knocked out. Besides the Kenta/Ishii stuff there wasn't much of anything else noteworthy. Kenta has yet to have a great match in New Japan so fingers crossed we'll get it someday. **1/2

LANCE ARCHER vs. JUICE ROBINSON "NO DQ" (14:58): Archer replaced Moxley and won the U.S. title. They broke a bunch of tables and used chairs. This never heated up into anything special or awesome or anything but it was at least semi-entertaining. Archer had a hell of a G1 but maybe he doesn't have anything left after that because this felt like the old, dull Archer. **

KOTA IBUSHI vs. EVIL (24:05): Ugh...a twenty five minute Evil match. What, are you trying to torture us? I can't wait for the day when Shingo takes Evil's spot up here in the prestigious matches. This was for Ibushi's Wrestle Kingdom title shot contract...which makes no sense because he won the whole fucking G1 to get it and all Evil has to do is win one match to get the same thing? Stupid. Has anyone ever won the contract this way? I'll have to investigate. But of course Ibushi won. If Evil ever main events a Dome then I'm done watching this company. I'm also trying to think of the last good Evil match. Has there ever been one? Maybe Ospreay got a good match out of him once. I'll have to do more investigating. Evil sucks. I will admit that the final flurry was entertaining. The problem was that Evil wasn't winning and that sucked any sort of drama out of this. The other problem is that as big as Okada vs. Ibushi is...the previous times they've wrestled it never turned out as epic and as awesome as you'd think. I hope it's not that they don't have chemistry together and I'm totally wrong and their Dome match is the greatest thing in the world ever. **

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. SANADA (36:21): Sanada loses to Okada all the time so why are they wrestling again? Oh, right, Sanada beat Okada in the G1 which, let's face it, was meaningless because it wasn't the final or semi-final. These two had a better match earlier in the year. It was either the New Japan Cup final or their match right before that. But this was still good, at least by the end when the crowd was into it and there were a bunch of near falls. One glaring issue with this match was that Sanada had his submission hold locked in for probably ten minutes total in this match...which made a lot of this boring. I can see Sanada winning the title but probably at the February show when it doesn't mean as much. **1/2