Cero Reviews NJPW King Of Pro Wrestling 2017

[cero2k]

NJPW King Of Pro Wrestling 2017
October 9th, 2017
Sumo Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA, & BUSHI) vs Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi, & Leo Tonga) - 6/10
Match started with Hiromu going after Bad Luck Fale, which as you can imagine led to Bullet Club having the control of the match from the get go. Hiromu made a comeback when he and his brother fought, giving the pin to SANADA who ran wild on BC. Leo Tonga had a good amount of time in the ring versus SANADA and BUSHI before tagging in Fale, leading to the finish when Hiromu used Darryl to taunt Fale, making an opening for BUSHI to hit the mist and the roll up win. Fun opener. The stuffed cat is over.

CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & Toru Yano) vs Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. ) - 4.5/10
It was a really nice pleasure seeing Sabre torture Yano, him and Suzuki got Yano down and stretched every limb on every direction. Sabre also had a chance to play spider monkey all over Goto for a while. Suzuki and Yano fought towards the end again with Yano's anticts not working on Suzuki who savagely beat him up, and as Yano tries to escape, there was always Sabre, Desperado, or Taka making sure Yano ended up in Suzuki's hands again.

Towards the finish, Suzuki finally jumped the shark by bringing out a freaking rope, crappily tying up Yano and going for the 20 count, but Yano mananges to get free, low blow Suzuki, get in the ring, and this is how Suzuki has lost to Yano by count out. Yano posed with the NEVER title, which I think could lead to Power Struggle in order to build towards Goto v Suzuki. Also, after the match Sabre locked in a guillotine on the ref and it look too shooty, like the ref wasn't expecting it and Sabre actually got him of his feet. Not cool and completely unnecessary. I liked the wrestling inside the ring, but the overbooking of this match really hurt it.

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Match
Funky Future (C) vs Roppongi 3K w/Rocky Romero - 8/10
Before their intro, they showed a little video of RPG3K coming on a vice drinking champagne. Roppongi Vice are Sho Tanaka and Yohei Komatsu, who came in to a HUGE ovation by the fans. This was a great re-introduction of Sho and Yoh into NJPW, they're not Sydal/Ricochet, but their synchronization in on point and their slightly changed look makes them look great, an awesome addition to CHAOS. Sho is kinda like the muscle of the team while Yoh is more like the speed demon.

Match started with Funky Future doing their comedy athletic thing early, but soon after, RPG3K got the offense and worked on Taguchi for a long while, several double team moves, kinda shading of MCMG past paced style. Ricochet ran wild on the hot tag. There was some really great wrestling towards the end of the match and some even better near falls. Finish saw RPG3K hit a version of the 3D but into an STO to win the titles. Great match.

Post-match - There was a certain shot of Ricochet looking at the crowd, so he is either gone or turning heel.

IWGP Tag Team Championship 3-way Tornado Elimination Match
Killer Elite Squad (C) vs War Machine vs Guerrillas of Destiny - 5/10
GoD came in first, and while War Machine made their entrance, they walked all the way back to where KES would come out in order to jump them from behind, so the match started with War Machine working Smith Jr around the crowd, and GoD working Archer the same way, and while it seemed that KES was out for a while and we would get a 2-on-2 fight, everything got chaotic outside the ring with weapons and people flying around. All teams proceeded to battle out in the ring with mostly spots, taking turns with tons of weapons.

First eliminated team was GoD in a way that made Roa look really stupid as he rushes Davey Boy who easily dodges and Roa goes straight into a chair. After they were eliminated, Tama Tonga came in and destroyed Rowe with a trashcan. A little bit after, KES put Hanson through a table for the pin. I really really hope this 3-way feud is over, can we get EVIL and SANADA in here? Briscoes maybe? Bad Intentions?

I'm really getting tired of War Machine. I'm hating Hanson doing all that athletic stuff, most of the times he doesn't even look athletic, he looks slow and sloppy, extremely forced, a fight between KES and War Machine should be a hoss fight, not a flippy shit exhibition; in addition, Rowe's no selling and pretending to be an extra tough motherfucker is getting annoying. It's cool that he is, but when working with giants like KES, he just looks like he is overdoing it. War Machine should go to WWE so I don't have to put up with them.

CHAOS (YOSHI-HASHI, Beretta, & Jado) vs Bullet Club (Kenny Omega, Cody, & Marty Scurll) - 7/10
The 'too sweet' has transitioned into a single finger (poke of doom?). This match is really about building the Omega vs YOSHI match at the ROH tour, which is nice to see that NJPW puts effort into building a ROH match for once, it happens, but it's rare. Also, are there plans for a Beretta vs Cody match in the future? Because it's something that I've be down to watching.

YOSHI and Omega started the match, but not much happened other that it ended with a top rope move to the outside from Beretta, who once inside the ring was worked on for a while by the Bullet Club team. They did the corner boots spot that The Elite did during this year's Battle of Los Angeles vs Penta/Fenix/Flamita, except this time Beretta reversed it at 4 boots instead of the run-in 6 boots spot from the original. Anyway, this led to YOSHI getting the hot tag for a quick run over all the BC guys, which all led to Jado getting the tag, just to be beaten by Marty Scurll with the Crossface Chickenwing after reversing a crossface from Jado. Given the finish, I can see Scurll becoming the challenger to the KUSHIDA/Ospreay winner.

Post-match - While posing, YOSHI-HASHI and Omega faced off one last time. Cody was also getting fans to kiss his Ring "of Honor", it be great heat if the fans knew what it meant.

We got another "Switchblade (aka Callihan) is coming vignette." There were some 5s shown, so maybe the 5th November, which is Power Struggle. Remember remember, the 5th of November.

Kota Ibushi & Juice Robinson vs Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe - 7/10
Ibushi and Tanahashi start the match, crowd is pretty hot for this, but they only battled into a stand off. Robinson and Makabe followed and we actually saw Robinson get the best of Makabe for a bit, until, Makabe was like Fuck this and started tossing Juice around, from here on, Tanahashi and Makabe worked on Juice for a while. After the hot tag from Ibushi, they went all tornado tag with mostly Juice and Makabe taking center stage back and forward, and when Makabe was close to winning, Robinson reversed the battle and put Makabe down for the pin.

Post-match - Tanahashi, who looked beat, got face to face with the much fresher Ibushi. I also noticed that Juice for FUCKING ever to get back to the locker rooms.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship Match
"The Aerial Assassin" Will Ospreay vs KUSHIDA (C) - 9/10
Ospreay came out dressed as spiderman, mask and all, he looked stupid, mainly the mask. These guys started at 100mph, Frye/Takayama spot to start, a flight to the outside, and a series of running spots in the barricades outside. KUSHIDA worked on Ospreay's arms from the get go, even locking in a Cattle Mutilation early in the match. In return, Ospreay focused most of his moves towards KUSHIDA's head. This match had everything for everyone, strong style submissions and high fly work, tons and tons of reversals and coutner. Finish saw Ospreay drop KUSHIDA with the Os Cutter for the 1-2-3.

At one point KUSHIDA started stomping on Ospreay's head and the fans heavily booed him, I wasn't sure if they hated the heelish aggressiveness, or they fought the ref would stop the match.

Post-match - Hiromu came out to congratulate Ospreay, as he is about to talk, Scurll ran in, broke his fingers and got in Ospreay's face. Once again, someone else cuts in line between Hiromu and the championship! Hiromu threw a tantrum at the end. Fans were going crazy for Hiromu. At the end of this segment, Ospreay shrugged his shoulders and made a face that pissed me off.

Tokyo Dome IWGP Heavyweight Championship No 1 Contender's Contract Match
Tetsuya Naito (C) vs Tomohiro Ishii - 9.5/10
Story here is that Ishii has previously defeated Naito in the US and in the G1, so we know that Ishii can pull this win off and could be on the way to the title shot at the Tokyo Dome, so can Naito finally defeat Ishii and keep his big G1 win?

Match saw Naito work on Ishii's legs while Ishii worked on Naito's upper body and head. The match was arguably all Naito until one slap that I know you'll recognize when you see it, at that point Ishii really turned the match around and it got more intense, as well as Ishii's offense. As the match progressed and the violence went back and forward, Naito started working Ishii's head more and more, working towards Destino, while Ishii who had been working the head from the start was looking for the brainbuster. Ishii had already kicked out of 2 Destinos by the time the final one came in for the pin. Awesome match, not the best of their trilogy, but still up there.

EVIL vs Okada Build Up Video - AWESOME! it really focused on how EVIL has been beating the shit out of Okada for the last months since the G1.

IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match
"King of Darkness" EVIL vs "Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada (C) - 9/10
Awesome match, but I didn't like it as much as the G1 encounter. Here we saw Okada and EVIL race for their finishers early one, right before they would both start working on each other's necks. EVIL got the heat on Okada after batting the chair to the back of Okada's neck, and it was from here on that the focus of the neck started. We saw several suplexes to the neck, we saw both guys play a bit around spots of their previous matches, like Okada dodging a flying chair when he was running towards EVIL and flying over the guardrail with a splash. Towards the end we saw them race to hit their finishers, of which it took several Rainmakers (granted, they were not full ones) and two piledrives before Okada was able to finally pin EVIL.

Post-match - Gedo and Okada called out Naito, who came out. They both cut promos pretty much confirming the Tokyo Dome main event.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
A great and enjoyable show by NJPW, I'm really happy how the booking came out with the title changes and defenses. The main matches for Power Struggle are pretty much set after this show with Tana and Ibushi likely main eventing.

[Big Red Machine]

I've only seen the main event so far, but I like it substantially less than you did.