BRM Reviews NJPW Windy City Riot (disappointing)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews NJPW Windy City Riot (disappointing)

Post by Big Red Machine » May 13th, '22, 14:45

NJPW Windy City Riot (4/16/2022)- Villa Park, IL


CLARK CONNORS, KARL FREDERICKS, & YUYA UEMURA vs. THE FACTORY (Q.T. Marshall, Aaron Solow, & Nick Comoroto)- 6.5/10
Before the match, Q.T. cut a promo saying this match would prove whether his school or the NJPW LA Dojo was better.
There was some great stuff here (like that one spear spot… and you’ll know the one I mean as soon as you see it), but mostly this was just solid babyface vs. heel stuff. Q.T. pinned Uemura after a low blow and a Diamond Cutter.

ALEX COUGHLIN, CHRIS DICKINSON, FRED ROSSER, JOSH ALEXANDER, & REN NARITA vs. TEAM FILTHY (Jorel Nelson, Black Tiger, Royce Isaacs, Danny Limelight, & JR Kratos)- 7/10
Look at that! A big tag match where they didn’t go to the outside forever and hit each other with weapons. This was just great, logical, intense action, building up to one awesome dive spot at the end.
The finish saw Rosser make Black Tiger tap out to the Crossface Chickenwing, and then not let the hold go. Filthy Tom ran out to make the save, which turned into a beat-down. I would have liked this more if Rosser hadn’t kept the hold on for no reason. Yuji Nagata came out to make the save, jumpstarting the…

NJPW STRONG OPENWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Tom Lawlor(c) vs. Yuji Nagata- 6.75/10
Filthy Tom worked over Nagata’s leg… but NJPW Strong is still NJPW, so we can’t have a match that doesn’t start with a brawl and the wrestlers going to the outside so that someone can get thrown into the barricade. Nagata worked the head and they traded big submissions. Lawler eventually won cleanly.

SCOTT NORTON & BULLET CLUB (Chris Bey, El Phantasma, Hikuleo, Doc Gallows, & Karl Anderson) vs. UNITED EMPIRE (Great O-Khan, Aaron Henare, Jeff Cobb, TJP, Mark Davis, & Kyle Fletcher)- DUD!
If you’re trying to build Jeff Cobb up, maybe don’t have him get bested by a guy who is almost sixty-one. I also could have done without El Phantasmo doing sh*t that Chris Hero decided was stupid fifteen years ago.
Bullet Club did their stupid crap, including the back-rake shtick. It was painfully boring. I was hoping the referee would just disqualify them for not listening to him the first six times he told them not to do that same illegal move, but the finish of this match wasn’t booked to be a disqualification, so the referee couldn’t enforce any rules. Despite the referee showing that he is not going to enforce any rules, United Empire- a bunch of heels- just stood there and watched their friend get beaten up with a bunch of illegal moves instead of all running into the ring to put a stop to it.
Heel-in-peril TJP managed to escape and made the hot tag to Mark Davis, who ran wild. Stuff happened. It was schticky. This was basically the 2022 version of that late-80s WWF stuff that most people who would proudly declare themselves as “WRESTLING” fans hated.
After the match, O’Khan and Cobb got into a shoving match with Guns & Gallows… which is a match that is a lot less appealing now than it was fifteen minutes ago when I hadn’t seen Jeff Cobb get bested by a sexagenarian wrestling his first match in two and a half years, and just his fifteenth in a decade.

CHICAGO STREET FIGHT: FinJuice & Brody King vs. Bad Dude Tito & TMDK (Shane Haste & JONAH)- 4/10
They hit each other with stuff. A lot. It was very long, they spent WAY too much time in the crowd where it was hard to see anything, and even the live crowd that was into stupid back-rakes didn’t really care. There were one or two embarrassingly bad spots (the bump for the chop with the garbage can being one that immediately springs to mind), and I’ve seen enough weapons matches in my life that just hitting people with things or putting them through things doesn’t make up for that the way it used to.

JAY WHITE vs. SHOTA UMINO- 7/10
They got a Moxley cameo on the screen to introduce Umino. Umino jumped the bell on White like a total heel. White eventually took over, and threw Umino to the outside to throw him into the barricades repeatedly. I think I’ve seen Jay White whip people into barricades in new Japan more than I have seen him forearm them.
After beating him up on the outside, White got Umino back into the ring, followed by doing stuff to him while he was in the ropes, then arguing with the referee, then throwing taunting little kicks. Basically, Generic New Japan Match #3. Fortunately, they didn’t go quite too long with this, and di one or two different things to get to the usual places, so this didn’t feel as painfully formulaic as most NJPW matches do… and then they killed it by just going rinse-wash-repeat on the formulaic stuff. Once they started up again with the comeback it got quite exciting, but they never got to the point where they were able to make me doubt the outcome.
Either way, though, Umino came quite close to beating a big star here, which should feel like a major moment for him and a big step forward, but because of the way New Japan books, I have no faith that this will be anything close to that.

MINORU SUZUKI vs. TOMOHIRO ISHII- 5.75/10
We started off with a hockey-fight of forearms, but the camera angle they used made it look pretty bad, pretty much exposing that they weren’t hitting the body parts we were supposed to think they were hitting. Foremarm exchanges, “GRRRR! WE’RE SO INTENSE!” armbar in the ropes, into the barricades, the referee is made to look completely impotent, they use weapons on each other, count-out rules are ignored until they suddenly aren’t… the third of this match was everything I was complaining about in the previous match and more. Even if you take out the part where they do things that should get them disqualified, I’ve seen these two do this same stuff against each other so many times that it’s very hard for me to get into a match between them when there are zero potential storyline ramifications (and I really do mean zero. I don’t expect a win here to do anything to move either guy towards some sort of title shot).
Things did get better after that, with Suzuki working the arm and Ishii ACTUALLY SELLING IT while still using it for offense (how did this guy get through a dojo, never mind twenty-five years of pro wrestling without figuring out how to throw a kick?). Then Suzuki took over and went right back to doing all of the heel “I will be arrogant and taunt you and not take you seriously now that you’re down” stuff I complain about all of the time for being too formulaic. This led to the apparently-obligatory forearm battle after that situation… and, of course, Ishii’s not selling that arm anymore. Then he just stops selling everything, takes about twenty straight shots from Suzuki, and knocks Suzuki down with one forearm. More overdramatic forearm sh*t followed, included my hated “I’ll allow you to hit me to prove my toughness, then you do the same.” It’s not about proving your toughness; it’s about trying to win the match. More hitting and no-selling, and grunting followed, followed by the finisher attempts and the finish. For all you know, I didn’t even watch this match and just copied and pasted something I wrote from a match they had in 2018... and the fact that it’d still be accurate is exactly the problem.
When I see matches like this, I can’t help but think about guys like Bryan Danielson and Austin Aries in their ROH runs. When they faced off, sometimes it was a wrestling match, sometimes it was a brawl, sometimes it was more of a babyface vs. heel dynamic, sometimes there was a specific story about chasing a move or working over a specific body part, but they always made an effort to make their matches with each other feel different (and they had a booker who was able to help that by putting them in situations that were different). With these guys (and many others in New Japan), we don’t get that, and so it just feels like I’m watching in consequential matches that I have seen a million times over. That’s not great on it’s own, but when you throw in the fact that it’s a style that I generally don’t enjoy very much, it’s even worse.

Dragon/Nigel/Aries/Joe/Punk- it was either building off of a previous match, or they made an effort to make it different

JON MOXLEY vs. WILL OSPREAY (w/United Empire)- 7/10
Ospreay met Moxley as he was coming through the crowd for his entrance, and they started to brawl. They finally got the ring so the bell could ring… and then we were right back onto the outside for more brawling, except this time creating the issue of the wrestlers fighting on the outside while the referee just followed them around and yelled impotently instead of doing his job and counting them out. Well… at least they had UE distracting the referee when Ospreay through a chair at Moxley’s head, and Moxley was busted open (this might have been the first time I caught a wrestler putting a blade away. Good for me, I guess. I purposely try not to look for these things, but in this case Moxley fiddling with his wrist just caught my eye for some reason).
Ospreay got Moxley into the ring and beat up on him some more until they went to the outside again so that Ospreay could put Moxley on a table, and then hit a HUGE diving elbow drop off the top rope and through the table. Again, no count-outs here… until they were ready for Moxley to beat the Count-Out Tease That No One Ever Buys™.
I really wasn’t a fan of Moxley no-selling the double-arm DDT just so he could hit a Hidden Blade and do a double-down. The mechanics involved made the it feel very phony.
They did stuff to each other. Ospreay eventually got Moxley’s back and just started forearming him in the back of the head. The referee tried to intervene, so Opsreay shoved him. Either Ospreay should have been DQed for interfering with the referee trying to check on Moxley, or the referee should have given Ospreay the win by stoppage. You can’t be so concerned for someone that you’re trying to check on them while also getting in the way of the other wrestler. Either you’re so concerned that you need to stop the match, or you’re not concerned enough to need to stop the match and thus shouldn’t get in the way.
After pushing the referee away, Opsreay stopped doing the thing that was effective- a bunch of forearms to the head- to pick Moxley up and go for the Hidden Blade… which is just one running forearm. Yes, the Hidden Blade is Ospreay’s “finisher,” but you need to get to the finisher from a situation where it’s f*cking LOGICAL.
Moxley, of course, countered it with a clothesline, then hit a curb-stomp for a nearfall, and Moxley collapsed so that Ospreay could have the attention while defiantly sitting up and flipping everyone the double-birds and then dramatically collapsing because he doesn’t have the strength to keep his body upright… but he’s still got the strength and wherewithal to keep his arms and middle fingers extended.
They did more stuff and kicked out of more finishers until it was time for the finish, at which point Moxley choked Ospreay out (after the ref screwed up and counted a three on a Death Rider when Ospreay clearly got his shoulder up). I use that phrasing “until it was time for the finish” intentionally, because way too much of this match felt to me like a series of spots created for the purpose of being dramatic/cool, rather than feeling like an actual fight that just happens to be dramatic and cool because of the things the wrestlers are doing and the toughness and determination they are showing.

JON MOXLEY PROMO- fine
He says he is tired of Tanahashi ducking him, and he will drag Tanahashi’s ass to a match in Washington D.C. if he has to. Moxley’s phrasing here is a little problematic to me, simply because… well… isn’t he right? Why the hell hasn’t Tanahashi answered his challenge by now? COVID got in the way a bit, yes, but it’s not like Tanahashi can’t get to the US. Suzuki, Ishii, and many others have been to the US and back. Why hasn’t Tanahashi come?


This was a disappointing and frustrating show from New Japan. The disappointment was mainly from the main event not delivering, but the frustration is really what killed it for me. I was hoping that this NJPW Strong crew would do something a little different from the stuff that made me mostly give up on Japanese NJPW, instead I just got more of the same.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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