Cero Reviews NJPW Road To New Beginnings 1.29

[cero2k]

NJPW Road To New Beginnings
January 29th, 2019
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Ren Narita vs Yuya Uemura - 6.5/10
Great match as always with the Young Lions, Yuya Uemura will be someone. Finish and submission teases were great.

Manabu Nakanishi & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs Shota Umino & Ayato Yoshida - 6/10
Really good for what it was, they literally took the two week links of each of the old timer's teams and had them go against Young Lions, but having said that, Nakanishi and Tenzan tried to hang, and Nakanishi straight up look decent. Umino really needs to leave on excursion, he's more than ready to come back with a gimmick.

Bullet Club ("Bone Soldier" Taiji Ishimori & Yujiro Takahashi) vs Ryusuke Taguchi & Toa Henare - 6.5/10
Overall a good match, Taguchi was working his serious side tonight with a few cute things going on, the upcoming title match should be great. Henare and Yujiro did a lot in this match with some good work too. Henare took the pin here via Yujiro's Pimp Juice.

Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, & Toru Yano vs Bullet Club (Guerrillas of Destiny & Chase Owens) w/Jado - 7/10
Great match. Tama Tonga keeps doing his Good Guy thing, taking care of Honma, making sure the corner pads are well placed back when Yano rips them off, he's just a good guy. Match saw the BC work over Honma, which seems to be a staple now, eventually Yano got the hot tag and did his thing. Makabe had a good run against Roa and Owens, lots of power moves. Big spot came when Honma was going for Kokeshi on Owens, but Jado hit him with a kendo stick from behind, and then teased the same Draping DDT that left Honma almost like a vegetable, but Makabe made the save, and took the win over Owens with the KKKDrop.

Bullet Club ("Switchblade" Jay White & Bad Luck Fale) w/Gedo vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI) - 8/10
Great crazy match, both teams were all over the place, and YH sucks so bad that Okada was pretty much taking on two dudes here. Okada and Fale brawled outside a lot. Towards the end of the match, Okada and YH did some great tag work, mostly due to Okada pushing YH away and directing traffic. Finish saw YH dodge a Grenade, hit a codebreaker, but as he tried to follow with lariats, Fale blocked him, hit the Grenade, and won. TONS of heat.

Post-match - Grenade from Fale on Okada, when Fale went for the Bad Luck Fall, Young Lions all jumped in and stopped him.

Los Ingobernables de Japon vs Suzuki-Gun - 7.5/10
This was 5-on-5, Suzuki-Gun represnted by Suzuki, Sabre Jr, Taichi, Despy, and Kanemaru, so all contenders to the LIJ titles. SZKG entrance was to Taichi's song, so he is the big deal of the match. Suzuki got a hair cut with a mohawk, he looks awesome as always.

This match is building three feuds, so there was a lot going on. Sabre faced off with EVIL since they have a history. SANADA faced off with Suzuki, and it was probably the best of the match, SANADA looked amazing tonight, I loved his count-out tease save. Naito and Taichi did their thing, it's weird since they're doing all the fake respect thing, but it was mostly brawling for them outside the ring while the rest played inside. The small time Naito and Taichi were inside, they were just playing dirty with each other, both blocking moves with the ref, going for cheap shots and such. Finally, the juniors, who probably took over for most of the second half of the match, Shingo looking amazing, a total powerhouse, and BUSHI doing his thing with Desperado. EVIL pinned Kanemaru at the end after Everything is Evil.

Post-match - Naito attacked Taichi, made fun of him outside the ring.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs KUSHIDA - 9/10
This is KUSHIDA's final match for NJPW before he likely goes replace KENTA at 205Geek. This was a fantastic match with both men picking apart limbs, Tanahashi working the legs, KUSHIDA working the arm, not the injured one, because he's a babyface and is facing his best friend. This had a lot of submission work at first, but later on, they got into striking and big spots, as they started chasing their finishers.

The finish sequence was great, Tanahashi landed a HFF, but KUSHIDA countered the second and straight up dead-lifted Tana into the Back to the Future for a huge near fall. KUSHIDA went for the Hoverboard, but Tanahashi got out, hit a Straight Jacket German, locked in a Cloverleaf and tapped KUSHIDA out.

I'm sad for the loss of KUSHIDA, he was a great wrestler that had so much potential, but NJPW never gave him the heavyweight nod and now he has passed on. RIP KUSHIDA

Post-match - While Tana and KUSHIDA are embracing, Jay White came out, attacked Tanahashi and pillmanized his leg. Tanahashi was taken to the back. In the ring, that geek Kushida cut a promo, leave already, you're dead to us.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
For a road to show, it was pretty solid, super short, or at least it felt really short. It will go down in history as KUSHIDA's final match, and I think that's the only relevance here. If you were a fan of KUSHIDA before his passing, I think you should make the effort to check out this match.