Cero Reviews NJPW King of Pro Wrestling 2016

[cero2k]

NJPW King of Pro Wrestling 2016
October 10, 2016
Ryōgoku Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan

Tiger Mask W vs Red Death Mask - 5.5/10
I really hope that we get a bunch of matches of Tiger Mask W taking on each of the villains of the show. The match wasn't as good as I hoped to be considering who is underneath the TMW mask, a mask which looks awfully uncomfortable and hot, but the overall attire looks amazing! This match was also quite longer than I expected for a pre-show match.

Bullet Club (Adam Cole, Yujiro, Takahashi, and Bad Luck Fale) vs CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii, Will Ospreay, and YOSHI-HASHI) - 6/10
Adam Cole has the worst/kinda best theme in NJPW history. Corino and KK did a fantastic job in burying their own ROH Champion by making fun of Cole's idea of main eventing the show, saying "He thinks he's better than Okada and Marafuji". Match was for the most part good, Takahashi and Fale were ok, they almost have me wanting Takahashi to go on another excursion. They seem to be wanting to push for a Cole vs Yoshi-Hashi and Cole vs Ishii match in the future.

GHB, Bobby Fish, and Ryusuke Taguchi vs RPG Vice, Toru Yano, and Jado - 5/10
Mostly a comedy match, a terrible match, with lots of chaos (no pun intended). Interesting to see Yano fighting GHB. They took a bunch of heel heat on Makabe of all people, but then the match became an 'everyone gets their shit in' match.

Post-Match: Makabe and Yano kinda brawled a bit, I think they're gonna build to GHB chasing the GHC Tag Titles for the NOAH vs NJPW shows.

Go Shiozaki, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Masa Kitamiya and Maybach Taniguchi vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Manabu Nakanishi, Satoshi Kojima and Yuji Nagata - 4.5/10
Good reaction for the NOAH guys. I was really glad the match just started off as a brawl since the last time these guys were in the ring it was an all out fight...scratch that, the 'brawl' lasted 1 minute. And now the NJPW old timers are double teaming Taniguchi, everything feels backwards...scratch that, now the NOAH guys are doing a 4-on-1 on Kojima. Man, wouldn't be awesome if we could just get rid of everyone and make this Go vs Nagata and leave it as that? Anyway, when Nagata did his rolling eyes armbar, they focused on him so much you could see him looking around for Masa to attack him. This was a really weird match, the wrestling wasn't that good and it felt like a bunch of old timers trying to teach these youngsters at a bar a lesson.

Post-Match: Both teams got in a brawl again, it wasn't as awesome as the last one, except for Nakajima and Nagata staring off and stiffing each other. I kinda feel this should play out later in the Okada/Marafuji match.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title Match
The Young Bucks (C) vs Ricochet and David Finlay - 8/10
Matt Jackson has lost his side burns. All is lost. Finlay himself is becoming the showered version of Trevor Lee. The story of the match is that the Bucks don't respect anyone, but ever less Finlay because he's a young boy, so he has a lot to prove; in addition, at the same time, they're selling us the fact that The Bucks just came out of Ladder War 6 and are surely still banged up. The match was amazing, all four guys were great, Finlay showing a lot of improvement, but storyline-wise, while improving in-ring, he's still making rookie mistakes like not staying aware where everyone is. Finish sequence was worth seeing.

IWGP Tag Team Title Match
The Briscoes (C) vs Guerrillas of Destiny - 7/10
This was my favorite match of the set of Briscoes vs GoD/BC matches I've seen, Tanga Roa still looks really green, but he's starting to do little things that I appreciate and like in him. Guerrillas had the heat on Mark for a while. There was point mid-match that a board bumped into the ring, i don't think anyone would have noticed it anyway, but KK and Corino started selling it as a hazard and bullseye to put your opponent through, unfortunately, the wrestlers are not selling it, so commentary just seemed exaggerated. Guerrillas need to work on their team moves, they seem waay too set up. Finish was lackluster.

Post-Match: The Bucks attack The Briscoes because ROH Final Battle. Ishii came out to attack the Bullet Club (Are the Briscoes part of CHAOS??), GoD took him out. Bucks called out The Briscoes, GoD called out any team in ROH.

Time Bomb Promo - it says 624 hours left, so 26 day til this is revealed, there were a bunch of flags flashing including Mexico, which worries me because I don't think Suzuki-Gun has a Mexican in the ranks.

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jay Lethal, Michael Elgin, and KUSHIDA vs Los Ingobernables de Japon - 7/10
This was weird, the guys who aren't a team all come out with the same song, yet the guys who ARE a stable, come out separate. I just can't get accustomed to seeing a face Jay Lethal. Naito is SUPER over tonight, like beyond Tanahashi and barely surpassing Elgin. At one point in the match KUSHIDA injured himself, Elgin's reaction to follow the match was great, from here on, the match was all over the place. I need more Elgin vs EVIL in my life. Elgin seems to be injured near the eye socket.

Post-Match - Everyone brawls, setting up BUSHI vs KUSHIDA, Sanada vs Tanahashi, and Naito vs Elgin. I really liked BUSHI after this. KUSHIDA did a stretcher job, not sure if it's legit.

NEVER Openweight Class Title Match
Katsuyori Shibata vs Kyle O'Reilly - 9/10
Man, these guys are just shoot wrestling for some minutes before starting to work and it was awesome. This was a masterpiece in countering and submissions that I hadn't seen since Angle vs Benoit. KOR worked towards the armbar and legbar, Shibata towards the Rear Naked Choke or PK. During this match, Bobby Fish was KOR's second, you could hear him with comments a la UFC, it was a nice touch. I liked the finish a lot, but I wonder where does reDragon go from here.

Post-Match - Shibata, and reDragon all shake hands and embrace. Finally a team I wanna see chase the 6-man titles. Go Shiozaki comes out to the ring, comes face to face with Shibata and we all know what that means. Go walks away and EVIL attacks Shibata from behind, hits the TKO and we now have two contenders.

Omega vs Goto Video - I don't understand Japanese, but at one point Omega tells Goto to just leave, no more title matches, and then they cut to Goto saying something all jolly and shit and I found it hard to disagree with Omega, Goto seemed like he wasn't taking this seriously.

IWGP World Title Shot at WK11 On The Line
Kenny Omega (C) vs Hirooki Goto - 8.5/10
Goto started the match smashing the briefcase on Omega's head over and over, but the ringbell hadn't gone off yet. Match started with Goto coming off really really strong, to the point that Omega looks more like the babyface here. Match wasn't as good as the G1 Climax one, it was a whole lot more fast paced, but the story wasn't as awesome. It did seem like Goto was a lot more prepared for Omega this time, but still failed to defeat Omega. These matches seriously kill Goto, Omega goes through a table and his head is smashed on a briefcase and Goto still can't get a win.

Part of the commentary mentioned all of Omega's big wins this year, started defeating Nakamura, Tanahashi, G1 Climax, and now he is going towards WK11. Pretty good actually. Meanwhile, they talked how Goto is 0-8 on world title matches.

IWGP World Title Match
Kazuchika Okada (C) vs Naomichi Marufuji - 10/10
This....This just may have defeated Omega v Naito for the MOTY. I kinda wish I would had gone into this match not really knowing who was winning, but we're way to close to WK11 for Marufuji to give us a surprise win, especially with Corino selling that people have been GHC and IWGP champs before, and by the end of the match, you really start to wonder. Regardless, this was a dream of a match. The story was primarily that Marufuji had Okada's number, plain and simple, he had countless counters for the rainmaker and was just out-wrestling Okada. At one point Okada hit Emerald Flowsion on Marufuji, which is his move (gifted by Misawa), all the NOAH guys were just left with their mouths open. Fantastic finish sequence, just go and watch this fucking match. I'm shedding tears of amazement.

Post-Match - Okada calls out Omega. great promo by Omega, and I think it was a great promo by Okada. Hyped for WK11!

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
Great show by NJPW, KOPW always delivers and this was no different. Show started slow, but by Gawd, the final matches were just out of this world. Go watch this show now.

[Big Red Machine]

I didn't pick up on the Rainmaker thing and totally missed that whole Emerald Flowsion thing. I had it at a 9, so maybe I'll give it a rematch.

Also, I'm glad to see someone else who liked the Briscoes vs. Guerrillas of Destiny match as much as I did. Totally disagree on the Bucks match, though.

[cero2k]

I didn't pick up on the Rainmaker thing and totally missed that whole Emerald Flowsion thing. I had it at a 9, so maybe I'll give it a rematch.

Also, I'm glad to see someone else who liked the Briscoes vs. Guerrillas of Destiny match as much as I did. Totally disagree on the Bucks match, though.

GoD is starting to grow on me, it won't happen, but I wish we would get Bucks vs GoD, or maybe vs reDragon.

You didn't like the Bucks match?

[Big Red Machine]

I didn't pick up on the Rainmaker thing and totally missed that whole Emerald Flowsion thing. I had it at a 9, so maybe I'll give it a rematch.

Also, I'm glad to see someone else who liked the Briscoes vs. Guerrillas of Destiny match as much as I did. Totally disagree on the Bucks match, though.

GoD is starting to grow on me, it won't happen, but I wish we would get Bucks vs GoD, or maybe vs reDragon.

You didn't like the Bucks match?

I had it at 7.25/10/ It was great, but it certainly wasn't an 8/10.

[cero2k]

I had it at 7.25/10/ It was great, but it certainly wasn't an 8/10.

it could be cuz i missed the last two Finlay matches, so I felt his improvement helped a lot, maybe that was the extra point from

[Big Red Machine]

I had it at 7.25/10/ It was great, but it certainly wasn't an 8/10.

it could be cuz i missed the last two Finlay matches, so I felt his improvement helped a lot, maybe that was the extra point from

It really hasn't even seemed like "improvement" to me. With Young Lions I get the sense that they can do a lot more and are really just held back by the Young Lion restrictions. He feels like the same Finlay to me, but it's like he's now being allowed to do more moves- like Cena adding the Code Red and the Cena-carana.

Dave agreed with your rating, but that's because it's a Bucks match and he has to support his illegitimate children in some way.

[cero2k]

It really hasn't even seemed like "improvement" to me. With Young Lions I get the sense that they can do a lot more and are really just held back by the Young Lion restrictions. He feels like the same Finlay to me, but it's like he's now being allowed to do more moves- like Cena adding the Code Red and the Cena-carana.

Dave agreed with your rating, but that's because it's a Bucks match and he has to support his illegitimate children in some way.

that could be it, before I always saw him as just another guy in the match, now i'm kinda getting more story or insight on him with the whole 'you don't belong here' thing, so his moves and selling kinda mean a bit more to me now

[cero2k]

Meltzer's

Tiger Mask W vs. Red Death Mask 2.75
CHAOS vs. Bullet Club 3.25
Fish/Taguchi/Makabe/Honma vs. CHAOS 3
NOAH vs. Tenzan/Nakanishi/Kojima/Nagata 4
Young Bucks (c) vs. Ricochet and Finlay 3.75
GOD vs. Briscoes (c) 3
Tanahashi/Lethal/KUSHIDA/Elgin vs. LIJ 3.25
Shibata (c) vs. O'Reilly 4.5
Omega (c) vs. Goto 4.75
Okada (c) vs. Marufuji 4.75

seems i completely missed something in the NJPW vs NOAH match.
I'm also hearing that Red Death Mask was Juice Robinson

[Big Red Machine]

Meltzer's

Tiger Mask W vs. Red Death Mask 2.75
CHAOS vs. Bullet Club 3.25
Fish/Taguchi/Makabe/Honma vs. CHAOS 3
NOAH vs. Tenzan/Nakanishi/Kojima/Nagata 4
Young Bucks (c) vs. Ricochet and Finlay 3.75
GOD vs. Briscoes (c) 3
Tanahashi/Lethal/KUSHIDA/Elgin vs. LIJ 3.25
Shibata (c) vs. O'Reilly 4.5
Omega (c) vs. Goto 4.75
Okada (c) vs. Marufuji 4.75

seems i completely missed something in the NJPW vs NOAH match.
I'm also hearing that Red Death Mask was Juice Robinson

It's not just you. All of the puro people (Dave included) have been WAY overrating these NOAH vs. New Japan feud matches. Same thing happened at the G1 Finals show.