Cero Reviews NJPW New Japan Cup 2022, 3.9

[cero2k]

NJPW New Japan Cup 2022, Day 4
March 9, 2022
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tiger Mask vs. BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens) - 4.5/10
This is setting up Mask vs Owens and Tana vs Fale for the next round, so those were the natural pair ups. Mask got worked over, Tana had the warm tag, only for Tiger Mask to tag back in after Fale hurt Tana's leg, and get pinned by Fale. Ok match, nothing special.

BULLET CLUB (Gedo & SHO) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito) - 6/10
Another weird House of Torture and Bullet Club combo that only confuses me more about alliances.

A bit of stalling early in the match because Naito only wanted to wrestle Gedo and Gedo didn't, so they kept tagging in and out. Eventually it came down to BUSHI and SHO, with the former getting cut off for a bit before going back to Naito and Gedo for their cup match tease. SHO tapped out BUSHI after Gedo got him with a left hook and SHO locked in the Snake Bite.

BULLET CLUB (El Phantasmo, EVIL, Taiji Ishimori & Yujiro Takahashi) vs. United Empire (Aaron Henare, Great-O-Khan, Jeff Cobb & Will Ospreay) - 7/10
This was a great pair up of teams, I love when NJPW does heel vs heel. In this case, UE had to work the slightly babyface side when Henare got cut off, but it also made the UE look way dominant when Bullet Club and House of Torture had to rely more on cheap tactics to get the upper hand, while UE mostly dominated by being strong and great wrestlers. Ospreay actually got the hot tag against ELP, and it was like watching a pre-UE Ospreay. At the end, EVIL got the win over O-Khan with an EVERYTHING is EVIL after Ishimori low blowed him from behind.

This may sound weird, but I wanna watch Henare and EVIL hoss it up. ELP vs Ospreay should be fantastic.

Suzuki-gun (DOUKI, Minoru Suzuki & Taichi) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA & Shingo Takagi) - 7.5/10
Building Hiromu vs Suzuki here, but with Shingo, Taichi, SANADA, and DOUKI here, every combination that we could have given time in this match would had been great.

Match saw Hiromu and Suzuki brawl all over ringside at the start, Hiromu ended up getting cut off from his team for a while. SANADA got the hot tag against Taichi and it was great. At the end, just as we were about to get Shingo vs Suzuki, Hiromu run in and kept brawling with Suzuki, so instead we had Shingo pinning DOUKI with Made in Japan after a good sequence of near falls.

Post-match - Suzuki and Hiromu kept brawling until they were broken up. Suzuki got the better of the brawl.

New Japan Cup 2022 Second Round Match
Hirooki Goto vs. Dick Togo - 5/10
Match was going well until the inevitable interference of the House of Torture, but even then, Goto quickly got rid of EVIL and tapped out Togo. When it comes to interference, this is about the best outcome.

Goto awaits the winner of CIMA versus Kanemaru.

New Japan Cup 2022 Second Round Match
Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. CIMA - 7/10
This was a really similar match to TAKA versus CIMA, with Kanemaru working on CIMA's leg from the start, but when Kanemaru started getting closer and closer to landing Deep Impact, CIMA made a comeback and won with Meteora.

It's official, Goto vs CIMA in the next round.

New Japan Cup 2022 Second Round Match
Kazuchika Okada vs. Master Wato - 7/10
After selling so much for Desperado, I was curious to see how much he'd give to Wato. The story of the match was that Wato came in with everything, he was running circles around Wato and going for every submission and roll up he could to get the upset win, but as they went on and on, Wato just couldn't hang with Okada, got tired while Okada was barely breaking a sweat. So Okada just beat him with the Rainmaker. I think this is what an Okada squash looks like.

Okada versus Taichi is next in this bracket.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Weakish show from NJPW. I personally enjoyed some of the undercard and CIMA versus Kanemaru, but I won't pretend like that main event wasn't a glorified squash, as was Goto versus Togo. Next round for these men does look quite promising.

[Big Red Machine]

I personally enjoyed some of the undercard and CIMA versus Kanemaru, but I won't pretend like that main event wasn't a glorified squash, as was Goto versus Togo. Next round for these men does look quite promising.

They really should have let Kanemaru and CIMA be the main event. There's no harm in it, it will feel like they're giving some new guys a chance, it's the only tournament match without a painfully obvious outcome, and don't people going "Master Wato in the main event? Really?" And that's coming from someone who like Master Wato.

[cero2k]

I personally enjoyed some of the undercard and CIMA versus Kanemaru, but I won't pretend like that main event wasn't a glorified squash, as was Goto versus Togo. Next round for these men does look quite promising.

They really should have let Kanemaru and CIMA be the main event. There's no harm in it, it will feel like they're giving some new guys a chance, it's the only tournament match without a painfully obvious outcome, and don't people going "Master Wato in the main event? Really?" And that's coming from someone who like Master Wato.

Yeap, but no way the champion wasn't going to main event, MAYBE if it was a show with a big Naito/SANADA/Shingo/Tana pair up. I don't think the problem is necessarily "Wato in the main event" either, but just doing an 18 minute match that felt one sided. Okada versus Despy was totally perfect and delivered because Okada gave a lot of Despy.

[Big Red Machine]

Yeap, but no way the champion wasn't going to main event, MAYBE if it was a show with a big Naito/SANADA/Shingo/Tana pair up. I don't think the problem is necessarily "Wato in the main event" either, but just doing an 18 minute match that felt one sided. Okada versus Despy was totally perfect and delivered because Okada gave a lot of Despy.

Despy has been given more credibility going in as well. Champion or not, the whole idea of the Master Wato/Taguchi Jr. Tag Title win is not just a joke, but a joke centered around Taguchi. It's clear that Wato is just along for the ride. You're not wrong that if Okada had given Wato enough for it to be a great match, the narrative would be different and people would be saying "wow, Master Wato is great!" or "Okada is awesome for being able to carry that guy," but I think that if this was a big one-sided match with someone with more credibility in Wato's place, people wouldn't have been reacting to it so badly (by which I mean just the emotion of "really? This?" in the main event. I don't think people would be rating it more favorably or anything like that).