NJPW is actually one of the oldest wrestling companies still in existence, but as of late they’ve seen their popularity in the US rise significantly, so their parent company Bushiroad arranged two major events this year in the Long Beach, CA area- with plans for an even wider expansion over time, including a dojo in the United States.
With a blend of Japanese talent and foreign wrestlers from across the globe, as of this point they’re the second most successful promotion behind WWE. Their product, as head booker Gedo sells it, is a rather straightforward vision of pro wrestling that emphasizes a sports-like feel. That’s not to say it lacks color- absolutely on the contrary. This company is full of some rather eccentric characters, and combined with their athletic ability, it makes for something fun and totally its own thing.
Not only did tickets sell out in a matter of days, apparently the lines for the merchandise were significantly long, and the crew didn’t bring anywhere near enough to fill demands. Maybe NJPW can’t compete with WWE’s share of the wrestling market (and ideally, I’d rather see both companies thrive to the best of their abilities), but there’s certainly a hunger for this product stateside.
CHAOS (Will Ospreay, Trent Baretta, Rocky Romero and the Briscoes) vs. Bullet Club (Marty Scurll, Nick Jackson, Matt Jackson, Yujiro Takahashi and Bad Luck Fale)
We kick things off with another chapter in the seemingly never-ending war between CHAOS, a faction of babyfaces led by Okada, and Kenny Omega’s dastardly Bullet Club. Yujiro, “Mr. R-Rated”, is more or less one of the underlings even though he likes to act like he’s more important. Honestly, it’s amazing how much his former tag team partner Naito has evolved past him. Anyway, the Briscoes, kick his ass on the outside while the Bucks and RPG Vice have a fun exchange together. They then wind up on the outside with the Briscoes, and Ospreay jumps off the top onto everyone with a shooting star press. Because screw your other teammates, right?
Scurll partially takes a page out of Ric Flair’s playbook and begs off from Mark, before fighting dirty and hitting his “finger break” spot as opposed to an eye poke. Ospreay then hits Marty with a Spanish Fly, then Baretta tries to rescue Romero from Fale and they double team him, but Fale nails both of them with a double clothesline and hits Baretta with a Razor’s Edge to the outside on a bunch of dudes. Awesome. The Bucks throw a superkick party for Jay, but the Meltzer Driver is blocked when Romero rolls up Matt for the win. Fun opener, and the Bucks freaking out about their Hot Topic merchandise deal possibly being in jeopardy after the loss is damn funny.
Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL, BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi and SANADA vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, Volador Jr, Dragon Lee and Titan
I don’t keep up much with CMLL, but everything I keep seeing out of Volador Jr. amazes me more and more, the dude is just great in-ring with good physical charisma, and he has a perfect “superstar” look. Ingobernables work over Liger early on and Sanada hits Titan with a sliding dropkick to the butt (don’t ever let anyone tell you that pro wrestling isn’t mature), but Titan and Volador respond with double tope con hilos to SANADA and BUSHI outside. This earns Titan a belly-to-belly suplex on the ring apron by Hiromu, then all the LIJ members sans EVIL dropkick him in the face. Evil then smashes Titan with a chair, then Hiromu finishes off the poor guy with Time Bomb for the victory. Los Ingobernables De Japon is a very, very nasty stable.
US Title Tournament, Quarterfinals: Jay Lethal vs. Hangman Page
Lethal is widely regarded as the “franchise” of Ring of Honor, but he’s moved down the card a bit in favor of talent like Cody and Daniels while he works on the upper-mid level, He’s nursing some badly bruised ribs here against Page, who gets a bit of flack from some fans, but I think he looked pretty decent here. Lethal soon advances with his Lethal Injection finisher.
US Title Tournament, Quarterfinals: Juice Robinson vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
WWE fans are probably familiar with Juice’s run in the NXT division as “CJ Parker”, while Sabre is more known to fans of Revolution Pro Wrestling. ZSJ gets the “vanilla” label applied to him a lot, but I think he has an interesting presence about him and his matches are usually fun. Juice for his part is probably better than he’s ever been, and even came off like a believable threat against Tetsuya Naito in a bid for the Intercontinental Title, which is big for a young, foreign talent in New Japan. The story of this match is Juice fighting to get comebacks with the support of the crowd in spite of ZSJ working over his body parts, including a kimura lock at one point that Juice breaks with a crazy powerbomb. Sadly, Robinson’s juice dries up as he submits to Sabre’s double chickenwing hold.
David Finlay, Jay White, KUSHIDA and Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. The Tempura Boys (Yohei Komatsu and Sho Tanaka and Hunter Club (Yoshi Tatsu and Billy Gunn)
I forgot how large a man Billy Gunn actually is. There were a lot of big guys running around in Attitude-era WWF, so it’s easy for taller wrestlers to look like moderately size men on average each week because you visually become accustomed to it. KUSHIDA is the designated face-in-peril here as the Tempura Boyz work him over with kicks, armbars and a standing moonsault at one point. KUSHIDA tags in Tanahashi, and Gunn, who’s challenging Tanahashi for the Intercontinental title on Night Two, is playing a great heel tonight. He gets huge boos from the crowd when he recovers from being hit by a flying forearm and gives Tana a fallaway slam.
Jay White just SPIKES Tatsu with a belly to back suplex, that did not look like fun at all. A flurry of signature spots from everyone follows- sling blade neckbreakers, powerslams, backbreakers- and it ends with White hitting a Rock Bottom of Tatsu, but that only gets two. White finishes off Tatsu for the team win, which is a major moment as he’s another young foreign lion working his way up.
IWGP Tag Team Championship The Guerillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Roa) ( C ) vs. War Machine (Raymond Rowe and Hanson)
These two teams look like stereotypes of wrestlers, and I love it. Between the elaborate makeup, outfits and mugging for the camera on both G.O.D and War Machine, this is the wrestling match that characters on sitcoms and animated shows are always watching on television. That is by no means a bad thing, as all four men balance power moves, brawling and weapon shots well. Hanson’s running clotheslines on Tama and Tanga gets a big pop from the audience as usual, but then Chase Owens interferes, allowing Tanga to smash Rowe with a trash can. War Machine captures the victory with hitting a Fall Out on Tonga through a table. Unfortunately, it’s here where AXS TV’s production, which has been shaky all night, starts to get noticeably bad.
US Title Tournament, Quarterfinals: Tetsuya Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii
Naito, Mr. Positivity, claimed in an interview earlier that if he won the U.S. Heavyweight title he’d throw it in the trash, and Ishii’s fighting him here like that offended him. When Naito smacks Ishii with a sliding dropkick he stops to taunt the crowds afterwards, and then starts slapping Ishii’s head- only for him to get back suplexed in a nice bit of revenge, but that’s followed by Naito hitting a neckbreaker, missile dropkick, DDT and then a german suplex for a two count.
Ishii is playing the hungry, fighting babyface against Naito’s arrogant heel character well in this match. He responds with a headbutt, a nice powerbomb for two and then a lariat for two, but his enzuigiri misses and Naito gets a rollup for two and then a cool looking tornado DDT for two. Naito then dropkicks Ishii from the top rope in the back of the damn head, then that gets two. Everything in this match is really advanced athletically, but it’s not just moves for the sake of moves, there’s a story going on. Ishii eventually does connect with the enzuigiri, but he gets dragon suplexed for a two count. Naito can’t follow that up with Destino, though, and Ishii hits him with a brainbuster to advance in what’s a bit of an upset. A fantastic match.
US Title Tournament, Quarterfinal Match: “The Cleaner” Kenny Omega vs. “Unbreakable” Michael Elgin
I love Michael Elgin, but he looks like The Crusher to me. He always resembles someone who should probably be fighting Bugs Bunny, he has that strong of a “traditional wrestler” look. And then there’s his actual wrestling, which isn’t too shabby, holding up Omega (not a small man) up in a delayed vertical suplex for what feels like forever.
Omega, in contrast, couldn’t be any more modern, and that’s not just in terms of the video game references in his presentation. His selling is extremely over the top, on display when he goes halfway across the ring from Elgin’s flying shoulderblock. He then answers back with a running facecrusher to Elgin on the outside, and Elgin is barely able to make it back inside the ring at the count of 19.
Elgin then hits Omega with a kick and a combo of german suplexes, and right before he hits the suplexes he throws his arms up like a bear, or Zangief from Street Fighter and goes “RAAARH!” I LOL’ed. Omega backflips out of the last suplex only to get power slammed for two. Omega’s frankensteiner is blocked, but he turns the tide with a dragon suplex and a tope con hilo dive to Elgin on the outside. That gets Omega “Too Sweet” chants from the crowd.
Back in the ring, Omega points at Elgin with his gun taunt….then charges for a knee strike, only to get clotheslined into oblivion, flattened with a german suplex on the ring apron and then powerbombed from the top rope for a two-count. Another powerbomb is reversed into a rollup from Omega for two, then Elgin hits Omega with a lariat for another close near fall. Omega then gets a series of knee strikes, a reverse frankensteiner, another knee and then the One Winged Angel to advance after a crazy battle.
IWGP Heavyweight Championship: “Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada (C) vs. “The American Nightmare” Cody (Ring Of Honor World Champion)
Okada arguably sports the coolest entrance in wrestling now that the Undertaker is presumably retired. He rocks a ridiculously detailed technicolor coat, there’s Okada Dollars dropping from the ceiling, and it doesn’t hurt that his theme song is an earworm. That’s not the only thing he has going for him- he may be the most complete talent package I’ve seen in wrestling in a long time. Okada has a great mix of high work rate, interview skills (both in Japanese and English), and he injects a ton of personality and emotion in his matches.
Cody nails Okada with the sliding uppercut he borrowed from his brother Goldust, but misses a Disaster Kick before he dodges Okada’s first Rainmaker attempt. Okada then hits a low dropkick, then follows with his patented diving crossbody to Cody over the guardrails. Cody is doing everything in his power to get this crowd to hate his guts as he works Okada over, but given how over Okada is with the crowd, it doesn’t even feel necessary. I knew from watching his WWE run that he knew how to play an effective heel, and this is one of his first real opportunities to show it in a main event position.
Jim Ross, who is really one of my favorite commentators ever, sounds like he’s off his game on the English commentary, mumbling food references awkwardly. Cody makes up for this with a sick looking front suplex on Okada for two (it looked like the champ came down hard there), before spitting on referee Red Shoes Uno. The crowd did NOT like that one bit.
Okada shifts the momentum with a neckbreaker and a series of running elbows, followed by a DDT and a sliding elbow for two. He them dropkicks Cody all the way to the outside, then he DDT’s Cody (this time from a Randy Orton style position) again on the floor. Note to self, never piss this guy off. But Rhodes answers back with an arm drag from the top rope, then he really does nail the Disaster Kick for a two count. Okada responses with a reverse neckbreaker and the flying elbow drop, then he stretches out his arms in the Rainmaker pose, which usually is a signal for the end- but then Cody locks in a calf slicer, and Okada sells the pain like he’s dying before he barely gets a rope break.
Okada then hits a Tombstone piledriver and sets up Cody for the Rainmaker, but Cody counters by spitting on Okada this time. Okada just wipes his face, looks at him like “dude, for real?” and them gives him two Rainmaker clotheslines. Kenny Omega then comes out to ringside and threatens to throw in the towel on behalf of Rhodes, whether Cody asked for it or not- signaling the ongoing signs of dissension in Bullet Club. The crowd, who has been happily backing Bullet Club members all night long, start chanting “throw the towel in! Throw the towel in!” That’s how much Okada connects with this audience, because these fans are just done with Cody and do not want to see him walk out with two world championships. Amist this confusion, Cody hits the Cross Rhodes neckbreaker for a dramatic two-count that freaks out the crowd, then he angrily throws the towel back onto Omega as the Young Bucks try to be peacemakers.
Okada then gives Cody his own Cross Rhodes, and that gets two. He then follows with a nasty german suplex, a jumping tombstone and then a final Rainmaker to retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, sending the fans home happy. Omega then warns Okada of their upcoming G1 Climax rematch, then Okada and Gedo cut their usual post-match promo. Okada promises to “make it rain strong style all over the world”, while Omega and Rhodes argue backstage.
Can the Bullet Club pull themselves together? Will Tanahashi be able to fend off the challenge of a certain Outlaw? Who will walk out as the first U.S. Heavyweight Champion? Does Ishii really look that much like a refrigerator, as Ross claims? Find out on Night Two!