New Japan Pro Wrestling presents Power Struggle live on New Japan World tonight, featuring four championship matches, a special challenge match, the anticipated “time bomb” exploding, and the final build towards the biggest show of the year, Wrestle Kingdom 11!
Power Struggle goes live at 4:00 am EST and we will have complete live coverage right here on this page. Who do you think will be the big reveal behind the time bomb? Will Sanada get the biggest upset win of his career over Hiroshi Tanahashi? Will Jay Lethal be able to take the IWGP Intercontinental title from Tetsuya Naito? Get the discussion going in the comments section below.
To watch tonight’s event simply head on over to NJPWWorld.com and sign up as a new subscriber, or log in if you are currently subscribed. The streaming service is excellent and contains just about every NJPW event ever produced on video, including this year’s incredible G1 Climax tournament and every massive Tokyo Dome show.
DAVID FINLAY, RICOCHET, TIGER MASK & JUSHIN THUNDER LIGER vs. RYUSUKE TAGUCHI, ANGEL DE ORO, TITAN & FUEGO
Titan and Liger start things off with some lucha libre and Titan showboats a bit. Oro tags in as the CMLL guys want to show off, so naturally Ricochet tags in and gives him a “oh, that’s cute” look. The match very quickly breaks down with Taguchi doing hip attacks to all four guys, but gets triple dropkicked when he tries to do his Nakamura shtick. Awesome ending sequence with everyoen busting out big moves one after another, including a Tiger Driver to Taguchi, and a Rolling Hills/Shooting Star Press combo from Ricochet and Finaly to put away Fuego. A really fun, short, opener that the crowd was really into. The CMLL guys showed respect after the match and everyone celebrated together. Winners: Finlay, Ricochet, Tiger Mask & Liger.
BONE SOLDIER, CHASE OWENS & YUJIRO TAKAHASHI vs. YOSHITATSU, TOMOAKI HONMA & TOGI MAKABE
Yujiro has all the ladies with him tonight. Yoshi Tatsu did a Triple H water spray during his entrance. Gag. The story of the match was basically Honma being beat down by Bullet Club shenanigans, hitting one move, and being beat back down. Makabe made the hot tag and did exactly the same thing, followed by Tatsu who did…the same thing. After a triple team, Yujiro pinned Tatsu with a DDT. This was kept mercifully short. Winners: The Bullet Club.
IWGP TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
TAMA TONGA (c) & TANGA ROA (c) vs. YOSHI-HASHI & TOMOHIRO ISHII
Roa starts the match and tells Ishii to bring it, then actually takes the big man down and runs through Tacos, showing the most fire and intensity… ever? Maybe? Tonga came in and hit a great dropkick, but is letting his brother do most of the work. After awhile Tacos drops Roa with a DDT and makes the hot tag, but again Roa is taking everything he’s got and shaking it off, controlling the match. Ishii saves his partner from Guerilla Warfare and levels Tonga with a lariat for two. Hashi hits a Swanton Bomb but again he kicks out. He locks in the Butterfly hold but Roa makes the save just before he taps out, and again runs down Ishii and dumps him out of the ring. Some misdirection from G.o.D. lays Tacos out with a spear, and they hit him with stereo dives from the top, but Ishii makes the save at the last second. They hit him with Guerrilla Warfare for the one, two…but he kicks out, as the crowd goes insane! Ishii comes out of nowhere and suplexes Roa, but Tama throws him from the ring and begins to stalk Yoshi-Hashi. Tacos shakes off a Gun Stun and lays him out with a huge lariat for the closest two-and-a-half count ever. Tacos picks him up for Karma, but Tama counters into a Gun Stun Outta Nowhere! G.o.D. hits him with another G.W. and this time it does the job. This was just awesome, and will set the bar for everything after it. The best G.o.D. match so far, and the first time Tanga Roa really showed up and looked like a star. Winners and Still Champions: Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa.
SUPER JR. TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT FINALS
ACH & TAIJI ISHIMORI vs. BARETTA & ROCKY ROMERO
The story here is that Baretta has been growing frustrated with his partner for the last few months due to loss after loss as a tag team, even threatening to call it quits. Roppongi takes control right away and they get on the same page, high-fiving in the ring. ACH knocks Baretta off the apron and slams him into the ring several times, throwing him back in and locking in a half crab. Eventually Rocky makes the tag and takes them both down with running headscissors, and plants Ishimori with a crazy tilt-a-whirl neckbreaker. Miscommunication from Roppongi leads to stereo German suplexes for both guys. ACH penalty kicked Baretta off the apron as Ishimori hit a moonsault from the top to the floor on Romero (somehow ACH was the one to sell an injury from that). Ishimori did a beautiful fallaway slam from the top rope where he turned it into a splash, and R.V. is in bad shape. Rocky gives them the double birds and mounts a comeback, but runs into a flying knee from both opponents. Baretta makes the save again and they hit a backbreaker/knee drop combo for a nearfall. From here the match broke down into everyone hitting big spot after big spot, but there’s a lack of consistency to who’s selling or on top for more than a few seconds at a time. The finish was Baretta setting up for the Dudebuster, and Romero spiking it with a springboard double foot stomp. They worked really hard, and did a lot of cool moves, and maybe I’m alone in this but I feel like at a certain point they just totally lost control and it got to a level where nothing mattered. Winners: Roppongi Vice.
After the match Roppongi got their trophies and Rocky said they wanted the champions. He called out the Young Bucks three times, and eventually they came to the ring. Rocky asked for a match at the Tokyo Dome, and after awhile the Bucks agreed, so there’s our junior tag title match.
IWGP Jr. HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
BUSHI (c) vs. KUSHIDA
Kushida goes right after the champion as soon as the bell rings, taking him down and trying for an armbar, then taking him to the floor and brawling over the barricade. The crowd is actually booing Kushida against the LIJ member, and he’s embracing it by working closer to a heel style. Sensing this Bushi immediately starts choking him out with his shirt, and the crowd somewhat turns on him. He puts Kushida in a sleeper and he fades before getting to the ropes to break the hold. Big Mic Check into the corner turnbuckle and a jump kick to the champion, before coming off the top rope into a cross armbreaker! Bushi eventually breaks free and connects with a hard running knee, followed by a suicide dive sending both guys into the barricade. They make the 20-count and Bushi goes for a codebreaker, but it’s countered into a cross armbreaker, which is countered back into a mounted sleeper hold in a great exchange. Bushi connects with the codebreaker, then comes off the second rope with another but only gets two. This time he goes to the very top rope, Kushida side steps the move and levels him with a huge kick to the head. The crowd boos him HARD and he goes after the champion’s mask garnering even more heat. They start going crazy with rights and lefts and the crowd is eating it up. Bushi wins the exchange and hits a Canadian Destroyer for two-and-a-half. He climbs the ropes again but is caught with a codebreaker out of nowhere from the challenger for a nearfall, as the crowd is now split evenly between the two. Kushida locks in an armbar, Bushi tries to get to the ropes but he rolls through it and hangs on to the hold! Kushida wrenches down on the hold, rolls through once more, and finally Bushi is forced to tap out! Great match with just an incredible final couple of minutes. Winner and New Champion: Kushida!
Kushida is still in the ring, and the Time Bomb clock starts ticking down. The new champ braces himself for what’s to come and… we have Kamaitachi! The former Young Lion left New Japan on an excursion to find his star three years ago, and is back to take the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship, as Hiromu Takahashi. The two stare down, and Hiromu gets a great reaction from Osaka. He’s rocking a very flamboyant gimmick with crazy hair, licking the IWGP title and getting up in Kushida’s face. He lays down the challenge, and Kushdia accepts! It’s on at the Tokyo Dome!
ADAM COLE, KENNY OMEGA & THE YOUNG BUCKS vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA, HIROOKI GOTO, WILL OSPREAY & GEDO
I’m not even going to try. Ospreay started the match doing flips with one of the Bucks, but it was Gedo and Goto that worked the vast majority of the match for CHAOS. Okada was intentionally kept away from most of the action. And there was certainly a lot of action. There was a great spot where all four CHAOS guys got thrown to opposite sides outside the ring, and the Bullet Club guys knelt down on the mat and posed like The Terminator before sprinting into simultaneous suicide dives. Adam Cole has been trying hard to get his “Adam Cole Baybay!” chant over in Japan, so when he went for it and half the Osaka crowd chanted it back to him, that had to feel great. Omega got in his face and said they had work to do and to cut out the theatrics. After a fun mid match with everyone flying everywhere, Okada hit the ring and did the Rainmaker pose, only to turn around into four simultaneous superkicks. Goto went after them but met the same fate. Ospreay and Gedo cleared the ring and Okada went for the Rainmaker on Omega, but he countered with a jumping knee into a frankensteiner. Omega hit the One Winged Angel and pinned the Heavyweight Champion as the other Club members piled on. Really solid match with a great finish. Okada took an unexpected amount of damage, and Omega pinning him relatively clean is huge. Winners: The Bullet Club.
NEVER OPENWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
KATSUYORI SHIBATA (c) vs. EVIL
In case you were wondering if this would be physical, Evil started the match by taking a boot off the apron and landing throat-first onto the barricade. He responded by trapping Shibata’s already wrapped up arm in a chair and slamming it against a post. This was one of the more convincing chair spots I’ve seen, as it looked like his arm was really stuck in there. Evil went to work with stiff offense, and of course the champ being who he is kept asking for more. Shibata took a ton of moves including lariats and a falcon arrow and kept battling back. They traded a few dozen forearms and Shibata put him in a sleeper, which Evil tried to break by working the injured arm before being dumped on his head with a dragon suplex. The challenger rolled to the floor and started throwing chairs into the ring. He put one around Shibata’s neck and hit him hard unprotected with another in a sickening spot that the champ somehow kicked out of. Evil picked him up and dropped him with the STO to win. Another great match. Winner and New Champion: EVIL!
HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. SANADA
Sanada got his shots in early to get heat on Tanahashi. Tana taunted him and held the ropes for him, so Sanada leveled him with a dropkick and a plancha to the outside for good measure. They fought up the ramp to tease Tana getting counted out, but of course he managed to roll back in at 19 to eat another dropkick. We’re definitely changing pace into the slow main event style portion of the evening, as Tanahashi takes his time with a comeback and very slowly works over the younger star. Sanada actually countered a dragon screw beautifully, which had to pop Keiji Mutoh pretty hard. Tana went all out for the up-and-comer including a High Fly Flow to the floor. Sanada hit a TKO and a Dragon Suplex for two, took off his shirt and went right into the Skull End, which the announcers mentioned is how he beat him in the G1 opener. Tanahashi escaped and rolled away from a moonsault, but Sanada was able to escape the High Fly Flow as well. He tried for another moonsault, landed on his feet but went down holding his knee. The ref checked on him, but showing no compassion Tana put him down with a dropkick to the knee, a dragon screw, and locked in the Texas Cloverleaf! Sanada got to the ropes, Tanahashi hit another dragon screw, then went up for the High Fly Flow but came down on his knees, which killed both guys. Both guys exhausted they began trading elbows until they were on their knees, then traded slaps. Sanada rolled into the Skull End out of a German, fought off a pin attempt back into the Skull End, but Tanahashi leaped over him to counter yet again. Sanada did a springboard like AJ Styles used to do into a neckbreaker, but into the Skull End; another counter! Dragon screw. Slingblade. Dragon Suplex. High Fly Flow to the back. High Fly Flow to the front. This one is….over. Outstanding match. Winner: Hiroshi Tanahashi.
IWGP INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
TETSUYA NAITO (c) vs. JAY LETHAL
Lethal started with a trio of suicide dives and mocked Naito with the tranquillo pose. Naito came back and teased his own suicide dives, but called it short and did the tranquillo to a pop. Crowd can’t decide if they love him or hate him yet. This quickly devolped into a slugfest. Naito did his cool looking corner dropkick, leg sweep, swinging dropkick over the ropes spot. Lethal tried for a powerbomb but got caught in a koji clutch to zero reaction. Lethal Combination out of nowhere, but it’s dead in Osaka. This is the problem with putting Lethal in this kind of match, the main event of a major show against a legit star, without first establishing him as a consistent name in Japan. He’s a known name in the US, but he’s not established to them. He hasn’t put in the work there, and that’s something that matters i NJPW unless you’re on a level like Ric Flair or Brock Lesnar or Kurt Angle. They just don’t care about this one. Anyways – lots of counters throughout, including the Lethal Injection into a tilt-a-whirl DDT and a fight over a superplex on the top rope. They brawled around again until Lethal put him in the crossface and did the Savage elbow drop for two. He called out Big Mike and hit a Bucklebomb and the Elgin Bomb for another nearfall. Bad move. Lethal Injection countered into the Destino and that’s all she wrote. Winner and Still Champion: Tetsuya Naito.
The second the match is over and Jay Lethal is taken away, Hiroshi Tanahashi hits the ring. He says that one year ago the roles were reversed and he was the ace, and Naito wanted in at the Tokyo Dome. Now it’s the other way around, and Tanahashi wants a spot in the Dome, and Naito is his last chance to prove he still has it. Naito says he’ll do it, but be careful what you wish for.
That’s our show! This was easily one of the best shows of the entire year. Even with the main event being fairly lackluster this was easily on a 9/10 level show overall. The tag team title match was just incredible, Sanada/Tanahashi was a classic main event match, Bushi/Kushida delivered something unexpected in a deeply personal, dirty match. The Time Bomb wasn’t what we expected but Kamaitachi is a much needed breath of fresh air to a division that seriously needs some help, and their match will be a show-stealer even in the Dome. Plus we got a look at a bunch of new Wrestle Kingdom matches, a great 8-man tag, Kenny Omega pinning the champion clean, and a lot more. Great show, top to bottom one of the best shows for any company in 2016.
