NJPW POWER STRUGGLE

 

Osaka, Japan

OLEG BOLTIN, RYUSUKE TAGUCHI & THE DKC vs. MOCHIZUKI, JR. & STRONG MACHINE J & YOSHIKI KATO (6:40): This show was 5 hours and 22 minutes long. After this pre-show match they did have a 15 minute or so break, though, but c'mon! That's way too long. They even had the balls to have a 40 minute main event after the fans were sitting down for over 4 plus hours. And considering how often they used the chairs in the arena as weapons, I got great views of the seats and they looked uncomfortable as hell. The big problem was that the show wasn't very good. It was adequate. The main event was really the only match worth watching. This pre-show match featured a team of Dragon Gate wrestlers. While they seemed to be decent wrestlers, their outfits looked like they picked them up at a thrift store. This was forgettable. 1/2*

UNITED EMPRE (JEFF COBB & CALLUM NEWMAN) vs. OSKAR LEUBE & YUTO NAKASHIMA (4:41): Two of these guys, Callum and Oskar, are tall white, Young Lions. It's funny that they make the Young Lions wrestle in black underwear. Those two definitely wrestled like they needed a job, though, which was good. Oksar is very tall and Callum was hitting very hard. I might never see those two again but who knows? They might be stars someday somewhere. I'd be curious to hear their stories of what it's like being a white guy living and working in Japan. That'd be more interesting than this match. **

EL DESPERADO & MASTER WATO vs. BULLET CLUB WAR DOGS (CLARK CONNORS & DRILLA MALONEY) vs. TMDK (KOSEI FUJITA & ROBBIE EAGLES) vs. MUSASHI & YOH (5:36): The finals of the Super Jr. tag team tournament were on this show. I guess these teams were all the other teams in that tournament, a tournament I didn't even know was going on. I'm guessing if there were any great matches in the tournament I would have heard about them. This was too short to amount to much, though Eagles looked good and seemed to do most of the work in the match. Clark Connors cracks me up because his gimmick is basically Matthew McConaughey. **

INTERGALACTIC JET SETTERS (KUSHIDA & KEVIN KNIGHT) & TAMA TONGA vs. LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (BUSHI, SHINGO TAKAGI & TITAN) (10:55): It's always sad to see Shingo, probably the 2nd best New Japan wrestler behind Ospreay, stuck in some meaningless, multi-man tag match. Do they remember they put the title on him in 2021? Maybe they forget. Titan from CMLL flew all the way to Japan to do a 10 minute match. Hope the payday was worth it. Nothing really noteworthy happened in this, but it's always nice to see Kushida wrestling. *1/2

LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (TETSUYA NATIO & YOTA TSUJI) vs. JUST 5 GUYS (SANADA & YUYA UEMURA) (11:10): Sanada and Naito are wrestling for the title in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom. That has to be one of the worst main events in the history of that show. Does anyone actually want to see that match? I assume Naito is winning, since Sanada's title reign has been a dud. Those two didn't do much in this match. Yuya Uemura (what a name) and Tsuji did most of the wrestling in this one. Tsuji is a bonafide star. Uemura, not so much. This was another mostly boring match. *

DAVID FINLAY vs. TANGA LOA (12:33): Finlay is the new Jay White. Gedo is his manager. He's a heel and the leader of Bullet Club. Unlike Jay White, though, Finlay is a terrible wrestler in the ring. He's just too dull and plain. This was not good at all. 1/2*

JON MOXLEY vs. GREAT O'KHAN "FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE MATCH" (15:17): These two started the match brawling in the crowd. They got immediately counted out and then Moxley took the mic and said he wanted a Falls Count Anywhere match, so they re-started the match. They brawled the entire time out in the crowd, mostly throwing each other into chairs and hitting each other with guardrails. Moxley was bleeding and ended up choking out Great O'Khan. While they didn't do anything spectacularly exciting, it was at least engrossing. **

CHAOS (KAZUCHIKA OKADA, HIROSHI TANAHASHI & TOMOHIRO ISHII) vs. TMDK (MIKEY NICHOLLS, SHANE HASTE & ZACK SABRE, JR.) (16:15): When Ishii and Zack were wrestling each other, this match was awesome. The rest of it was average, basic stuff. Chaos retained the 6 man titles. The big story was after the match, Bryan Danielson did a video promo calling out Okada for Wrestle Kingdom. Hopefully that'll be better than their last match. **1/2

CATCH 22 (FRANCESCO AKIRA & TJP) vs. HOUSE OF TORTURE (SHO & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU) (16:40): This was the finals of the Super Jr. tag team tournament. Catch 22 won and gets a shot at Clark Connors and Drilla Maloney's titles at Wrestle Kingdom. Because this was a House of Torture match, we got a ton of interference from them. At one point, Kanemaru came into the ring with a whiskey bottle and Sho was holding a wrench. What is this...a Three Stooges short? As if the Pandemic wasn't bad enough, it also birthed House of Torture. The match was just okay. **

HIROMU TAKAHASHI vs. TAIJI ISHIMORI (20:38): In the past, these two have had some great matches. This was not one of them. It probably went too long, as these two are better off having a fast, short match. There was too much dead time in this. The other problem is that Hiromu seems mired in mud lately. It seems like he's been either the Jr. champ or battling for the title for a decade now. Can't they give him something fresh and new to do? When he was super popular years ago it was rumored that he would move up to the main title picture and possibly be in the G1. That never happened. I'd say maybe he should go join another company but of course look what happened to Kushida. El Desperado came out after the match to challenge Hirumo for the title at Wrestle Kingdom. Hopefully that match will be better than this. **

WILL OSPREAY vs. SHOTA UMINO (40:16): This was quite the epic. It was also too long...so maybe they shouldn't have made it an epic. The first 15 minutes or so were so slow and boring I actually left to wash the dishes. It was pretty obvious this was going long when they were both just doing holds and mat wrestling for the first 10 minutes. The last 15 or so minutes were excellent, though, filled with high drama and big moves. Ospreay gave Umino a Tiger Driver off the apron through two tables. Other than that, they both pretty much beat the shit out of each other, including a gruesome head butting battle. Red Shoes was the ref and is Shota's dad. Isn't that, like, unfair? Maybe they don't want the audience to know this fact. While this was supposed to be Shota Umino's big coming out party, I thought the Will Ospreay vs. Yota Tsuji main event match awhile back was better than this. Shota is good but I think he's going to get better. He still needs a bit of fine tuning to be on the level of an Okada or Tanahashi main event performance from the heyday. If this match was shorter it might have been better, as it didn't start to get good until halfway through. Moxley came out near the end to cheer on Shota. After Will won and retained the U.S./UK title, David Finlay came out and knocked out Moxley and Ospreay with his stick. So it'll be Ospreay vs. Moxley vs. Finlay at Wrestle Kingdom, presumably for the new Intercontinental title since Finlay used a big mallet to destroy the U.S. and UK titles in the ring after the match. Pretty good main event to an average at best show. ***