NJPW Road to Wrestling Dontaku 2016: Day 4
NJPW Road to Wrestling Dontaku 2016: Day 4 (4/23/2016)- Tokyo, Japan
TIGER MASK IV, MANABU NAKANISHI, & RYUSUKE TAGUCHI vs. CHAOS (Roppongi Vice & Gedo)- 5.75/10
TOMOAKI HONMA & TOGI MAKABE vs. DAVID FINLAY JR. & JAY WHITE- 4.25/10
For absolutely no reason, in the middle of this undercard match on a throw-away New Japan â€"Road to†show, Honma and Makabe gave Finlay a freakin’ SPIKE PILEDRIVER ON THE FLOOR. That was certainly unexpected. As you would expect, Finlay took the pin in this match… although you probably wouldn’t expect that it was over five minutes later.
GUERRILLAS OF DESTINY vs. CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN & JUICE ROBINSON- 5/10
KATSUYORI SHIBATA & KUSHIDA vs. JUSHIN â€"THUNDER†LIGER & YUJI NAGATA- 7.5/10
Great match, and Liger catching KUSHIDA with a backslide was 100% the right finish.
NEVER OPENWEIGHT SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Michael Elgin, Hiroshi Tanahashi, & Yoshitatsu(c) vs. Bullet Club (Kenny Omega, Bad Luck Fale, & Yujiro Takahashi)- 7.75/10
I’m not trying to say that this match doesn’t have intrinsic value on its own because it definitely does (it has some great twists and turns, and as the rating indicates I thought the quality of the match was on the high side), but you really got the feeling that the match was so focused on building up Elgin vs. Omega (and to lesser extent Fale vs. Tanahashi) that it made the match itself as well as the titles and Yujiro and Yoshitatsu all feel unimportant.
EIGHT-MAN ELIMINATION TAG TEAM MATCH: Los Ingobernables de Japon vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, & Tomohiro Ishii) (w/Gedo)- 8.75/10
A fantastic match that did its job in building up all of the matches for Dontaku it needed to build up as well as getting over Sanada as a threat. The pacing was perfect and most of the eliminations were expertly booked (Naito and Ishii’s in particular). Also, it was not until this match that I realized just how shredded Sanada is.
A very fun show from New Japan, with passable undercard followed by a GREAT top three matches. It succeeded in both being a good wrestling show and in hyping up the matches for both Dontaku proper as well as the top two matches for day 7 of this tour (Tanahashi vs. Fale and Elgin challenging Omega for the IC Title).
TIGER MASK IV, MANABU NAKANISHI, & RYUSUKE TAGUCHI vs. CHAOS (Roppongi Vice & Gedo)- 5.75/10
TOMOAKI HONMA & TOGI MAKABE vs. DAVID FINLAY JR. & JAY WHITE- 4.25/10
For absolutely no reason, in the middle of this undercard match on a throw-away New Japan â€"Road to†show, Honma and Makabe gave Finlay a freakin’ SPIKE PILEDRIVER ON THE FLOOR. That was certainly unexpected. As you would expect, Finlay took the pin in this match… although you probably wouldn’t expect that it was over five minutes later.
GUERRILLAS OF DESTINY vs. CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN & JUICE ROBINSON- 5/10
KATSUYORI SHIBATA & KUSHIDA vs. JUSHIN â€"THUNDER†LIGER & YUJI NAGATA- 7.5/10
Great match, and Liger catching KUSHIDA with a backslide was 100% the right finish.
NEVER OPENWEIGHT SIX-MAN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Michael Elgin, Hiroshi Tanahashi, & Yoshitatsu(c) vs. Bullet Club (Kenny Omega, Bad Luck Fale, & Yujiro Takahashi)- 7.75/10
I’m not trying to say that this match doesn’t have intrinsic value on its own because it definitely does (it has some great twists and turns, and as the rating indicates I thought the quality of the match was on the high side), but you really got the feeling that the match was so focused on building up Elgin vs. Omega (and to lesser extent Fale vs. Tanahashi) that it made the match itself as well as the titles and Yujiro and Yoshitatsu all feel unimportant.
EIGHT-MAN ELIMINATION TAG TEAM MATCH: Los Ingobernables de Japon vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, & Tomohiro Ishii) (w/Gedo)- 8.75/10
A fantastic match that did its job in building up all of the matches for Dontaku it needed to build up as well as getting over Sanada as a threat. The pacing was perfect and most of the eliminations were expertly booked (Naito and Ishii’s in particular). Also, it was not until this match that I realized just how shredded Sanada is.
A very fun show from New Japan, with passable undercard followed by a GREAT top three matches. It succeeded in both being a good wrestling show and in hyping up the matches for both Dontaku proper as well as the top two matches for day 7 of this tour (Tanahashi vs. Fale and Elgin challenging Omega for the IC Title).