NJPW Best of the Super Juniors XXIII: Day 13

BLOCK B MATCH: Jushin “Thunder” Liger vs. Trent Beretta- 4.25/10

Good for the time it got.

BLOCK B MATCH: Bobby Fish vs. Tiger Mask IV- 5/10

BLOCK B MATCH: Ricochet vs. Chase Owens (w/Yujiro Takahashi)- 6.75/10

In order for Ricochet to make the finals, he would need to win this match and have Volador Jr. lose or draw, or he could draw this match and have Volador Jr. lose. Alas poor Ricochet did not win this match, falling victim to Bullet Club’s cheating despite Jay White’s repeated attempts to make the referee aware of these shenanigans. As a result, the following match now becomes a win-and-in to the finals.

BLOCK B MATCH: Volador Jr. vs. Will Ospreay- 7.75/10

Spotty? Yes. But the kind of spotty where a few of the key spots just blow your mind. Not as good as Ospreay vs. Ricochet, but this also only got about half of the time.

LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, & Sanada) vs. CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI, & Kazuchika Okada)- 7.5/10

BLOCK A MATCH: Kyle O’Reilly vs. Rocky Romero- 8.25/10

GEEZ! This division has been in need of singles talent for a while (especially now with the rumors flying around of O’Reilly and possibly Fish moving up to heavyweight), and Rocky Romero is that talent. These two guys wrestled an awesome match with lots of great work on the arm by Kyle while Rocky played a fantastic underdog. Their struggles in submission holds and that one back and forth on the top rope were SOOOOO tense and it made the match feel much bigger than it was (and it was decently big as a win would have given O’Reilly a very good shot at winning the block).

BLOCK A MATCH: David Finlay Jr. vs. Matt Sydal- 6.5/10

BLOCK A MATCH: Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Gedo- 5/10

It’s a win-and-in for Taguchi. Apparently hitting your opponent in the head with the ring bell hammer is not a DQ. After two shots the referee finally decides to take the hammer away from Gedo but still doesn’t call for the bell. Gedo then picked the hammer up and hit Taguchi in the head with it again, and this was still not a DQ. That completely took me out of this match. Taguchi won, clinching the block.

BLOCK A MATCH: KUSHIDA vs. BUSHI- 8/10

Awesome match. KUSHIDA worked the arm as he usually does and BUSHI worked the head (including a SICK DDT on the apron early on) as he usually does, but they also did a great job of building in some twists and turns along the way to keep you guessing. One brilliant little detail that I absolutely loved was that after BUSHI misted KUSHIDA, when he went to pin him he made certain to use his body to block the referee’s view of KUSHIDA’s face so that the referee would not see the evidence of his cheating. BUSHI picks up the win on the champion to justify this getting the main event spot even though the match that was rendered irrelevant to the tournament by Taguchi’s victory in the previous match.

A GREAT show from New Japan with the sort of fine junior heavyweight action you’d expect from the Best of the Super Juniors.