Tokyo Dome
NIGHT ONE:
Attendance: 12,689
YANO, BAD LUCK FALE, CHASE OWENS & BUSHI "RAMBO MATCH" (33:40): Tokyo supposedly put a new order into effect last week saying that you can't have more than 5,000 in a building for any event because the Coronavirus is getting worse over there. I'm not sure how New Japan got around that, because they had 12 thousand people in the Dome. They did say that tickets wouldn't be sold at the door. And Night 1 of last year's Dome show had 40 thousand in attendance. While I like watching the Japanese shows better because they at least have bigger crowds than wrestling shows in the U.S., having a sparse crowd that can't yell or boo or cheer in a cavernous building came across pretty weak tonight. Most of the matches sounded like they were wrestling in front of a silent crowd, which made some matches (like Ospreay/Okada) seem not as good as they probably were. I guess I can't complain too much, as they actually still had a show with all of the big matches intact. And this was a really good show, albeit not at the high level some of the great Dome shows of the last five or so years have been. This was the dark Royal Rumble match with twenty or so guys. The highlight was when Ishii and Suzuki came out early and beat the hell out of each other. The final four wrestlers are going to wrestle for Yano's King of Pro-Wrestling title on Night 2. That title is almost as dumb as WWE's 24/7 title which, shockingly, still exists. This was fun but obviously way too long. ** (out of ****)
HIROMU TAKAHASHI vs. EL PHANTASMO (17:46): While these two did all of their big moves and they were both flipping and diving all over the place...it weirdly felt slow and kind of stale. The problem seemed to be that they would do one big move and then lay there and then do another big move and then lay around again. There was no cohesion or drama in this at all. I will say that El Phantasmo's top rope walk to the middle of the ring ropes into a moonsault to the floor was incredible. I was watching this show on a site that had a chat room and after the match everyone was lambasting Phantasmo for whatever reason. I actually really like him and while this match was good it just wasn't as the level you want to see a Hiromu match. Hopefully Hiromu vs. Ishimori on Night 2 will be better. **1/2
GUERRILLAS OF DESTINY vs. ZACK SABRE, JR. & TAICHI (19:18): This match was great, surprisingly because I don't like the Tongans, I think Zack is mostly boring and I usually loathe Taichi. Taichi did have a good G1, though, and in this match, Zack was on fire, running all over the place and wrestling like his life depended on it. Zack wrestled like this was a big show, which it was, so maybe he should have mentioned this to Kenta and Great-O-Khan who both wrestled like this was just some random house show. This match was mostly all action. It had a ton of near-falls and saves. And while I bashed the show for seemingly having a dead crowd, the crowd loved this for whatever reason. The Guerrillas won the tag titles here. ***
KENTA vs. SATOSHI KOJIMA (14:12): This match was for the coveted U.S. title contract in a briefcase that Kenta has. The reason it wasn't for the actual U.S. title is because Jon Moxley has it and I guess doesn't want to go to Japan during a pandemic. Moxley did have a pre-match video where he mentioned something about being the boogeyman. Funny how the actual Boogeyman was on RAW tonight during Legends night. Coincidence? Juice Robinson was supposed to face Kenta but he broke the orbital bone in his face. Would Kenta vs. Juice have been better? Considering either match would have had Kenta, the answer is "no." Kenta fucking sucks. He's more boring than paint drying. Kojima is 50 years old and he had more spark. This was pretty forgettable. 1/2*
HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. GREAT-O-KHAN (17:13): I think it's about time to give up on the Great-O-Khan experiment. He's only been back in NJPW since October but he's already teamed with Ospreay, wrestled Okada, and now is in a match with Tanahashi. How much more can they fucking give this guy? And he's proved NOTHING. He's seriously the worst. His offense of lame chops is silly. Tanahashi is one of the greatest ever and even he couldn't wrangle a decent match out of this stiff. Where do you possibly go with this guy? I say put him in a tag team and relegate him to the low undercard forever and forget about him. 1/2*
KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. WILL OSPREAY (35:14): This was really good...but not as good as their G1 match...and that match wasn't as good as last year's G1 match. They seem to be devolving. Ospreay seemed to be more into doing a long, rough, dramatic classic...when all we really want is a super fast, action packed, high flying spectacle. Sure you can do the high drama stuff...but we don't want a whole match of that. Ospreay didn't do much of his high flying...which is kind of why he's one of the best wrestlers in the world. Okada actually did a top rope flip to the floor...while Ospreay only did a top rope Spanish Fly and an AJ Styles flying forearm. I'm not sure I like Ospreay as a heel. So far it hasn't entirely worked in his favor. You kind of want to cheer the dude doing all of the crazy flips and dives. This kind of reminded me of Ospreay's last Dome match...the one against Ibushi. The expectations were so sky high that even though it was good it was never going to achieve the level of greatness expected. This was really, really good...but I thought it would have reached best of all time level. Which is unrealistic...but look who's in the match. You expect masterpieces with these two. And this was a little bit short of that. ***
KOTA IBUSHI vs. TETSUYA NAITO (31:18): This was a good match but not as good as some of their crazy 2019 matches where they seemingly tried to paralyze each other. This wasn't really a safe match, it just wasn't as sickening as some of their previous matches. Probably the only devastating move was when Ibushi gave Naito a Hurricanrana from the apron to the floor. The end was also a little bit of a disappointment. Ibushi just won after a knee to the face. Ibushi won the title here, which is awesome, but considering he has to face Jay White on Night 2, the victory after all of these years seems a little less cathartic and joyous. Naito's title run, unfortunately, will probably be seen as a disappointment. The pandemic hurt it, but Gedo's booking did as well, making him lose and regain the title to Evil, one of the most boring wrestlers on the planet, in a series of 3 terrible matches. And, really, does anyone want to see an Ibushi vs. Jay White match? Ever? Nope. ***
NIGHT TWO
Attendance: 7,801
TORU YANO vs. BAD LUCK FALE vs. CHASE OWENS vs. BUSHI (7:43): Surprisingly, I thought that Night 2 was better than Night 1. That's a surprise since Ospreay, Tanahashi, Naito, Okada, Suzuki, and Ishii were only on Night 1. The attendance was lower tonight and the card wasn't that great...but tonight had the 2 best matches of WK15. I really hope they get rid of the 2 night deal, as it takes away from the big, one main event that past shows have had. This show certainly didn't start on the right foot. What the fuck was the point of this match? This could have had Ishii and Suzuki. Hell, Honma would've made this more entertaining. I still don't even comprehend the King of Pro-Wrestling title. What is the point of it, anyway? When it was first announced it was supposed to be a gimmick title...meaning every match would be a Falls Count Anywhere or a No DQ or something. Well that's seemingly gone out the window. Yano won. Nothing of note happened. Eh. 1/2*
EL DESPERADO & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU vs. MASTER WATO & RYSUKE TAGUCHI (13:20): El Desperado wrestled Hiromu in the finals of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament last month. Hiromu ripped at Desperado's mask and eventually Desperado just took it off and wrestled without it for the last few minutes. Even the announcers mentioned the name of the guy under the mask. So he comes in here with his mask back on like nothing happened. Huh? Whatever. This match wasn't very good. Master Wato did some interesting big moves, although he still is sloppy and off the mark a lot of the time. Kanemaru sucks. This just never really amounted to much. Desperado and Kanemaru remain the Jr. tag team champs. This just reminds me of the glory days of the Jr. tag division...when The Young Bucks, Sho and Yo, Ricochet, The Time Splitters, and Rappongi Vice were tearing the house down at all of these big shows. Who was Ricochet's partner back then? Did it matter? *1/2
SHINGO TAKAGI vs. JEFF COBB (21:11): This was the best match so far of both nights. What a great match. These two wrestled in the G1 last year and it was a good match but nothing special. Tonight they brought the big guns. This was brutal, dramatic, fast paced. I have no idea why Shingo isn't in the main event picture. He looked as good as anyone in the company tonight as he usually does. Cobb looked great as well. This was just big moves, big elbows, big slams. It was awesome. ***1/2
SANADA vs. EVIL (23:40): This was at least entertaining. Sanada looked spectacular tonight...which is good since he came out and the end of the show to challenge Ibushi for the title. Dick Togo got knocked off the apron and through a table. For some reason Evil threw Sanada so hard into the fence barricade at ringside that it knocked the announcer at the table behind it out of his seat and the table fell on him. It was funny because this happened twice. Is this a new feud? Evil vs. the announcer? It cracked me up, anyway. Sanada did a bunch of moonsaults. Evil didn't do much of anything. There was a ref bump or perhaps multiple ref bumps...these Evil matches have so many ref bumps it can get confusing. This was not great or anything but certainly one of the better Evil matches you'll see. **1/2
HIROMU TAKAHASHI vs. TAIJI ISHIMORI (25:31): What can I say? This match wasn't very good. Hiromu's match on Night 1 wasn't that good either. Even the crowd was pretty silent for most of this. I'm not sure what went wrong, as these two had a great match last summer at the baseball stadium show. Maybe this just went too long. They both did everything they usually do but the high drama was absent for whatever reason. Hiromu won the Jr. title here. **
KOTA IBUSHI vs. JAY WHITE (48:05): I didn't want to see this match. I doubt anyone did. Jay White hasn't exactly set the world on fire in his matches of late. Plus, these two just wrestled in November at a big show and it was decent but nothing great. Tonight, though, the Wrestling Observer reviewer, Ethan Renner, noted that Jay had "the match of his life." He's not wrong. I usually find Jay White's matches boring and this match was boring for the first half but Jay White went into another gear in the second half and this turned into an excellent match and a worthy Wrestle Kingdom main event. It probably helped that this was the longest New Japan match in 2 and a half years (Okada and Omega went over an hour in June of 2018). There was a point in this where Jay was so tired and beaten down that he laid in the ring and motioned for Ibushi to just pin him. Ibushi refused and just slapped him. They traded big moves back and forth. Ibushi did all of his crazy, high flying spots, including a perfect Phoenix Splash. Gedo pulled the ref out of the ring after the Phoenix Splash and Ibushi's attempted pin. Ibushi kicked out of the Switchblade finish which was probably a first. Jay did a series of devastating fisherman suplexes that put Ibushi right on the top of his head multiple times. Ibushi finally won after a few knees to the face. These two just put everything and more into this match...and while we've seen Ibushi do this before, we've never seen Jay White reach this pinnacle. This wasn't a perfect match, as the first half was pretty dull (at least when Jay White was on offense), but by the end this was high drama and as good as it gets. After the match, Sanada came out to challenge Ibushi for the title. And in the post-match press conference, Jay White mentioned something about "ending this" which perhaps means a face turn. While a small crowd didn't help either night and all in all this WK didn't reach the epic highs of past years, notably 2016, this final match was excellent and a great way to end the event. ***1/2
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