The Road to Wrestling Dontaku continued through Korakuen Hall, with a brief stop to announce the field for this year’s Best of Super Juniors!
Kevin Kelly is joined on commentary once again by Chris Charlton, who played up some discord between Tama Tonga and Jado after the Bullet Club failed to win the NEVER trios titles yesterday.
Shota Umino, Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura vs. Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima & Toa Henare
Another day, another batch of Young Lions looking to knock-off Nagata and Kojima before they head to the States for the Crockett Cup.
Tsuji charged into Kojima from the off with a dropkick as the Young Lion continued his dream to open at the Tokyo Dome next year. If they bring back the Rumble, he’s got a shot… Nagata looked to make a dent on Tsuji, scoring with a kick to the back before he tried to make him tap to a Liontamer-like Boston crab… only for Umino to break it up. Nagata and Umino locked horns on the outside as Tsuji remained isolated, eating a Samoan drop from Henare for a near-fall, before Tsuji withstood the Kojima machine gun chops to finally get free for a tag out… and the feed freezes!
A quick refresh gets us back to Umino suplexing Nagata for a near-fall, before more buffering takes us to Yuya Uemura having his way with Henare. Tsuji helps out with a slam as Uemura rolled Henare into a Boston crab… that’s instantly broken up by Nagata’s kicks. Henare headbutts his way back in, but can’t avoid a dropkick from Umino, nor a belly-to-belly suplex before another cracking headbutt dropped Uemura.
A suplex ragdolled Uemura to the mat before a uranage slam finally gets the Kiwi the win. Your usual good fire from the Young Lions, but in the end it’s the same old story as they continue to progress through the ranks. ***
Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado) vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask & Ren Narita
Liger’s 30th anniversary is tomorrow, so we’ve more goodness here with him and Minoru Suzuki.
This time, the jump start came ON Suzuki-gun, with Ren Narita perhaps shortening his life expectancy by throwing the first shot as he helped gang up on Suzuki before the bell. Liger tries to pull Suzuki into a Romero special, but Desperado breaks it up… and we’re back into the shenanigans on the outside as Suzuki threw Liger into a guard rail before he wore him out with chairshots.
Suzuki uses a pen to try and stab through Liger’s mask, but instead we go back to the ring as Liger’s chopped through ahead of a leg lock. Eventually Liger got free from the struggle and threw some Shotei as Tiger Mask came in and nearly put away Kanemaru with a swandive headbutt… but things turn around badly when Narita came in, as Suzuki looked to get some revenge for that earlier attack before we all went outside again.
Desperado stays in with Narita, but nearly falls to the bridging overhead suplex… which needed Suzuki to kick apart. A rear naked choke subdues Narita ahead of a spear from Desperado, but that doesn’t put him away, before the Pinche Loco proved to be enough. Another enjoyable outing, and I’ve a feeling tomorrow’s trios match with Liger will be special… ***
Suzuki-gun (Zack Sabre Jr., Taichi & TAKA Michinoku) vs. Tomoaki Honma, YOSHI-HASHI & Rocky Romero
YOSHI-HASHI locked horns with Sabre from the off, catching him with a Bunker Buster as Sabre seemed to be non-plussed at the “downgrade” after the card changes resulted in Kota Ibushi getting pulled from this.
Sabre countered a Bunker Buster into a hammerlock before the match spilled outside. It doesn’t exactly change much, as Sabre remained on YOSHI-HASHI’s perpetually-injured shoulder back in the ring, before TAKA Michinoku had his go… but even after some interference from Taichi, YOSHI’s able to turn it around with a suplex. Honma’s in to keep the momentum going against Suzuki-gun, scoring with a DDT on TAKA before Rocky Romero came in to help with some Forever clotheslines. A bulldog from Honma sets up for double Kokeshi, before Taichi came in to… take a leaping Kokeshi.
The scare’s short-lived though as Taichi nearly put away Rocky with a buzzsaw kick, but YOSHI-HASHI made a save… only for Rocky to come back with some pinning attempts to tease an upset, before a Stretch Plum eventually forced Rocky to tap. Taichi continues to build up steam ahead of his NEVER title shot on May 3 against Jeff Cobb… and there’s the threat of this not stinking out the joint too, which’ll be nice. **¾
After the match, Sabre continued to make an example of YOSHI-HASHI as he targeted him (and two Young Lions) with a trio of armbars. Yeah, Zack’s not taking the card changes well…
Togi Makabe, Toru Yano, Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls vs. Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa)
After successfully defending the NEVER trios titles, Yano manages to make off with his gold… and the IWGP tag titles too, leaving the Guerrillas with “just” possession of the ROH tag titles.
Tama Tonga played up the dissension with Jado, even if nobody else on his team seemed to. It led to Jado cracking everyone on the opposition with Kendo sticks before the bell, and of course… it was a sham. When we got going, Toru Yano goes straight for the turnbuckles, before he pulled down the Guerrillas by the hair. His next big match is with Makabe as the Most Violent Players reunite to try and win the IWGP tag titles… and there’s a bit of a kerfuffle as duelling mounted punches got broken up by Jado’s Kendo stick again.
Things settled down as Makabe found himself isolated, and also cornered when Fale tagged in to continue to throw shots. Nicholls and Juice manage to turn it around, with the latter clattering into Fale with a cannonball… but it looked to tweak Juice’s back some, before he was forced to leap out of a Grenade. Juice tries to slam Fale again, because why not, but it’s blocked as Fale just charged him down with a shoulder tackle instead. Owens looks to take over, but ends up eating a clothesline before Nicholls tagged in… and missed with what looked to be an elbow drop. He recovers with a death valley driver and a sliding lariat as the match broke down into a brief Parade of Moves.
Owens brings it back with a Jewel Heist to Nicholls, before a Package Piledriver was blocked… the Left Hand of God from Juice stops Chase though as a Mikey Bomb ends up getting the win. Decent stuff, which never dragged – in spite of it having the ingredients to do so! ***
Yeah, Toru Yano ran off with the belts again…
We get the field announcement for Best of the Super Junior 26. There’s no word on blocks, but we do have a 20-man field: Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask, Rocky Romero, SHO, YOH, Will Ospreay (interesting given he’s bulking up and trying to escape the Juniors), Taiji Ishimori, El Desperado, TAKA Michinoku, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, BUSHI, Flip Gordon, Titan, Marty Scurll, Dragon Lee, Robbie Eagles, Jonathan Gresham (yes!), Bandido, Shingo Takagi and El Phantasmo (not identified as such, but the same video package was used for the announcement of “X” – who also has a tag match on May 4’s Dontaku show).
The tournament starts on May 13 in Miyagi, and wraps up on Wednesday June 5 in Sumo Hall – Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan. That’ll be fifteen shows, all live on NJPW World with English commentary.
Bullet Club (Jay White, Hikuleo & Taiji Ishimori) vs. Hirooki Goto, Ryusuke Taguchi & Dragon Lee
We eschew Jay White’s time wasting stuff as everyone shot out of the gates, but things quickly settled down as Ryusuke Taguchi, of all people, tried to calm down Goto.
I don’t think this was the time to run play calls, Taguchi…
It worked somewhat, until Jay White just walked away from Taguchi flying in with a hip attack. Just like Samoa Joe did back in the day… and I howled. Bedlam breaks out next as Ishimori looked for Dragon Lee’s mask, while Hikuleo stalled Taguchi into a suplex for a near-fall. Taguchi finally lands a hip attack before we got to Dragon Lee and Ishimori, with the latter taking the Shibata-ish dropkick in the corner.
Ishimori fought back with a handspring enziguiri, before he tagged in Hikluleo to put the boots to Dragon Lee… who flipped out of a body slam before landing a missile dropkick. A tag’s made to Goto, but he too has to get some help to get past Hikuleo, courtesy of a flying hip attack. An ushigoroshi from Goto puts paid to some interference from White, and once Hikuleo ate one of those too, it was elementary as a GTR put away the Bullet Club young boy. Enjoyable stuff, with Goto showing some very rare fire against Jay White – that’ll come in handy later in the tour! ***½
Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, EVIL & Shingo Takagi) vs. Tomohiro Ishii, SHO & Kota Ibushi
We’re into the tasty matches here as we’ve got three matches mashed up here, starting with SHO and Shingo plastering each other with elbows.
That brief flurry quickly gave way as Ibushi and Naito came into play, with the latter taking an early ‘rana that looked to shake him up. Naito comes back with a delayed Combinacion Cabron, before the match spilled outside with your obligatory guard rail spots for all. LIJ looked to edge ahead when Shingo chopped away at Ibushi in the corner. EVIL joins in the fun as Ibushi found himself isolated, with a running dropkick from Naito almost ending things early.
Ibushi finally gets a tag out as we get Ishii and EVIL clobbering each other with shoulder tackles, with EVIL edging ahead there, before his follow-up attempt of a Sharpshooter was successfully blocked by the former Rev Pro champion. Another stand-off led to elbows before EVIL hauled up Ishii in a German suplex.
Tags get us back to SHO and Shingo, with SHO almost winning on a delayed suplex, before a double-handed chop and a solid lariat from Shingo put the junior tag champion down. A top rope ‘rana from Naito continues to lead the way, before Ibushi ran in to stop a Destino – and spark a Parade of Moves in the process. SHO’s spear drops EVIL, but he’s quickly clobbered by a Pumping Bomber before Naito landed Destino, folding SHO in half for the win… despite Ibushi’s despairing dive. Wonderful stuff here, but that’s no surprise given who’s involved. Add this to your “must see” piles! ***¾
Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA & BUSHI) vs. Kazuchika Okada & YOH
Perhaps an odd choice of main event on paper, as neither the junior tag title match, nor SANADA vs. Okada have had much steam here.
YOH and BUSHI start us off with chops, which got the crowd going, as BUSHI forged a way through as he managed to take YOH into the opposite corner, bloodying up his chest in the process. SANADA comes in to keep YOH isolated… but we get the eventual tag out to Okada, who manages to catch SANADA with elbows en route to a spiking DDT for a near-fall. The Okada top rope elbow drop’s aborted as SANADA instead tripped him up for a Paradise Lock… which succeeded this time! Cue applause from Milano on commentary, as Okada had to take a dropkick to the arse to get free. Tags bring us back to BUSHI and YOH, with a similar story repeating itself, with YOH’s attempted forearm comeback leading to him getting dropkicked through the ropes ahead of a nice tope suicida from BUSHI.
Okada and SANADA keep the match outside, where Okada manages to boot SANADA into the front row, while YOH found his way into the stands as he hit a running cannonball off the elevated seating area. Hey, it looked cool and got Chris a new catchphrase! Back in the ring YOH and BUSHI go back at it again, trading enziguiri for fun before a superkick from YOH stopped them in their tracks. Okada and SANADA have another flurry as we crossed the 15-minute mark, with YOH cracking BUSHI with a superkick before Okada went to work with a dropkick, a tombstone piledriver and a cobra clutch as Okada rolled back the clock a little on the way to a Rainmaker for the win. This was fine, and served its purpose of building up Friday’s junior tag title match – which needed heating up, as Okada and SANADA comes at the end of the tour. ***½
The latest stop on the Road to Wrestling Dontaku was perhaps a stop that most people only bookmarked because of the announcement for the Best of the Super Junior field – but beyond that, this was a perfectly fine show, with the top two matches in particular really standing out. Sure, New Japan’s penchant for spreading matches across big shows is diluting interest, but so far they’re hitting the mark when they need to on this tour.