Cero Reviews NJPW Destruction in Beppu 2019

[cero2k]

NJPW Destruction in Beppu 2019
September 15, 2019
Beppu, Japan

12th Young Lion Cup League Match
Karl Fredericks vs. Yota Tsuji - 6/10
Solid opener. Tsuji went after the tape up shoulder of Fredericks, who worked through the pain and made a comeback, earning the win with a Half Crab. Fredericks looked good, he always does, but he got to show some fire here.

12th Young Lion Cup League Match
Alex Coughlin vs. Shota Umino - 6.5/10
Coughlin got a lot of offense in on Umino early on, by the time Shota made his comeback, he looked spent already. He hit his usual Spinebuster and it looked like Shota just kinda went with the motion, but couldn't put any power into it. Shota would end up winning with his Fisherman Suplex. Good solid stuff, but I kinda expected more from this.

Clark Connors, Manabu Nakanishi, Michael Richards & Toa Henare vs. Ren Narita, Ryusuke Taguchi, Yuji Nagata & Yuya Uemura - 5.5/10
We have replaced TenCozy with the other grandads of NJPW. Uemura was the babyface in peril until he dropped Nakanishi with a Scoop Slam for a big pop. Nagata and Nakanishi traded strikes, the Taguchi did his butt stuff on Richards, tapping him out with the Ankle Lock. It was fine for what it was.

Jushin Thunder Liger & Roppongi 3K (SHO & YOH) vs. Suzuki-gun (DOUKI, Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) - 6.5/10
Not much to this match, it was mostly SHO and DOUKI until R3K won over him. The real meat was...

Post-match - Suzuki attacked Liger and went after his mask. When the YL came in to separate them, Suzuki took some of them out. Liger the cut a promo telling Suzuki that he goes after his mask and takes it out on the kids, so he challenged him to fight right there right now, but Suzuki walked away. Liger was great.

Backstage, Suzuki said that he's been waiting to fight Liger for decades and he's not just gonna do it 'now' in a random show.

Birds Of Prey (Robbie Eagles & Will Ospreay), Kota Ibushi, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs. BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, El Phantasmo, KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & Yujiro Takahashi) - 7/10
KENTA has dyed his hair blonde, to fully cement in your brain that he is a heel now. This was all over the place, we got the expected pair ups, but towards the end, we were getting some Ospreay vs KENTA action, FALE beating up everyone, Eagles being the babyface in peril, and KENTA vs Honma which led to the finish when KENTA hit the GTS on Honma for the pin. Good stuff, probably the best non-title match tonight.

CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, Kazuchika Okada & Rocky Romero) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, SANADA & Shingo Takagi) - 7/10
It's the same stuff we've seen all tour. It's all great, but it's nothing new anymore. SANADA submitted Rocky with the Skull End.

BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens & Jay White) (w/Gedo) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL & Tetsuya Naito) - 7/10
Also the same stuff we've been seeing all tour. White and Naito keep teasing and playing with each other's feelings. EVIL was babyface in peril for a while. Naito pinned Owens with a Destino. Good action, but nothing new.

Post-match - Naito attacked Gedo until White made the save. Naito can be such a dick sometimes.

IWGP Tag Team Title Match
BULLET CLUB (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) (w/Jado) (c) vs. CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI) - 8.5/10
Ishii vs Tama Tonga stuff was awesome, and while Roa was kinda off tonight, his stuff with Ishii was also great. And then we had YOSHI-HASHI, who shouts a lot and pretends to be tough. He did kick out of a Magic Killer, so i'll give him that. Everything build to the end when CHAOS started kicking out of moves and Jado interfered to no avail when YOSHI-HASHI took him out. Finish saw KENTA come in with YH was closing in on the win, and like a dumbass, he got distracted and rolled up by Tama Tonga for the 3 count. I thought this only happened in WWE. It was a good match, YH put in the work and kept up with the rest.

There was a funny spot with Ishii waiting for Roa to get in position for a running Lariat, except Roa thought he was setting up the Sliding Lariat, so Ishii just got fed up and stood up Roa after 30 seconds of awkwardness.

Post-match - Ishii and KENTA brawled, then KENTA attacked YOSHI-HASHI up the ramp. It was a small pull-apart between both parties.

RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Title Match
Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. - 9/10
May be the proximity to the Royal Quest match, but this felt about the same thing, same quality, just a different feel to it because of the crowds. Story here was that Tanahashi had a lot of good offense playing Sabre's submission game, getting the better of Sabre sometimes, but as the match went on, Tanahashi deciding to keep going for submissions and not his usual arsenal worked against him. Happened when he hit the High Fly Flow and instead of going for the second, he went for a Sharpshooter that Sabre escaped. Tanahashi had worked over Sabre's legs most of the match, while Sabre went for Tana's arms.

Finish saw Tanahashi go for an Abdominal Stretch, which he had been going for, again, playing with Sabre's arsenal, but Sabre reversed it into a roll up, blocking both legs and the surprise pin.

Post-match - Sabre celebrated and cut a promo tossing his name into the pool of guys that want to be double champions, saying he wants to be the first British Undisputed IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Fuck the IC he implied.

Backstage, he talked trash because there was no chair or table like other champions get, which kinda forced some dude to bring him a chair and table, but no beer. He pretty much repeated the same stuff about being the Ace of the UK for the last decade.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Ok show, nothing special really. The main event was something that we saw less than a month ago, the semi was great, but nothing to run out and watch, and the rest of the card was just repeats of the tour. Skip this show unless you have a deep need to watch Sabre vs Tanahashi again.

[Big Red Machine]

I think it's pretty clear we're headed for a unification match at this point.

That RevPro belt doesn't mean sh*t at this point.

[cero2k]

I think it's pretty clear we're headed for a unification match at this point.

That RevPro belt doesn't mean sh*t at this point.

that's exactly what i'm feeling too. Not sure how I feel about it, on one hand, less titles is good, but there are less useful titles to do this with.