New Japan Pro Wrestling continued their annual New Japan Cup tournament. Since the show aired at 6am EST on NJPWWorld.com, here’s a spoiler-free summary for the non-nite owl New Japan fans. Each match receives a Need To Watch Rating of 0.0-10.0
FIRST MATCH: Ren Narita & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Suzuki-gun (Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado)
Fun, quick match. Narita and Taguchi make a solid Jr. Heavyweight tag team.
Need To Watch Rating: (1.0)
SECOND MATCH: Tetsuhiro Yagi, Shota Umino & Yuji Nagata vs. Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi & Tanga Loa)
Nagata continues to lovingly push the Young Lions to fight harder and harder. A fun but inessential match.
Need To Watch Rating: (1.0)
THIRD MATCH: Tomoyuki Oka & Michael Elgin vs. CHAOS (Yoshi-Hashi & Hirooki Goto)
A quick, decent tag match. Again, nothing offensive but nothing essential.
Need To Watch Rating: (1.0)
FOURTH MATCH: Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI) vs. Suzuki-gun (TAKA Michinoku & Zack Sabre Jr.)
TAKA and Sabre are a fun team and their chemistry with Naito and BUSHI is electric. This match was head and shoulders above everything else on the undercard. Definitely recommended viewing.
Need To Watch Rating: (6.1)
FIFTH MATCH: Toa Henare, Juice Robinson, David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Suzuki-gun (Taichi, Takashi Iizuka, Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki)
A classic brawl, filled with the usual Suzuki-gun antics. Finlay and Robinson make a solid case for a run in this year’s World Tag League. Henare is starting to outpace the injured Kitamura as New Japan’s beast rookie. Could be an interesting year for the New Zealander.
Need To Watch Rating: (5.8)
SIXTH MATCH: CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Kazuchika Okada) vs. Kota Ibushi & Chase Owens
Kota continues to team with his Lover’s friends nicely. Okada and Ishii are less cohesive than I expected, but still an effective tag team. A fun match that saw Owens get plenty of offense in on Okada.
Need To Watch Rating: (5.7)
SEVENTH MATCH: New Japan Cup First Round: Toru Yano vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr.
You want Yano? You get Yano.
Need To Watch Rating: (Yano)
MAIN EVENT: New Japan Cup First Round: Chuckie T vs. SANADA
A great, furniture-filled brawl to close out the show. The ending ran a bit long, but overall the match did a great job of cementing Chuckie T as a viable main eventer.
Need To Watch Rating: (9.9)
