NJPW Best of the Super Juniors XXIV: Day 5

HIRAI KAWATO & TOMOYUKI OKA vs. SHOTA UMINO & KATSUYA KITAMURA - 3.75/10

CHAOS (Will Ospreay & Jado) vs. SUZUKI-GUN (TAKA Michinoku & Taichi) - 4/10

Why does Taichi always try to stab his opponent in the forehead with the handle of the ring bell hammer instead of just HIT HIM WITH THE HAMMER PART? So in addition to getting exposed as a lip-sync-er before the match, I have now just exposed him as an idiot as well. The match was meh. Ospreay was good, though, for the short amount of time he was in. This is the second time we've gotten this match-up on an undercard in this tournament and we're getting it on the undercard of the next two B Block shows as well. Uch.

RICOCHET, WAR MACHINE, & DAVID FINLAY JR. vs. BULLET CLUB (Marty Scurll, Yujiro Takahashi, & the Guerrillas of Destiny) - 5.75/10

Not only is Rowe blocking forearm shots by throwing his face into them, but now I am supposed to believe that not only does this not hurt Rowe, but it actually hurts Scurll's arm. After that this was pretty good, but still short enough that it didn't have time to be much. Good heel finish, though.

LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON vs. JUSHIN "THUNDER" LIGER, DRAGON LEE, JUICE ROBINSON, & SATOSHI KOJIMA - 7.25/10

This a very good eight-man tag. LIJ were great heels, Liger was a great babyface in peril, and the other three babyfaces did a great job making the comeback feel action-packed and exciting.

BLOCK B MATCH: Volador Jr. vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru (w/TAKA Michinoku) - 6.75/10

They did this spot where Kanemaru was getting pinned and he didn't get his shoulder up but he did manage to catch the referee's hand. Shouldn't that be a DQ? He put a hand on the referee for the sole purpose of preventing him from doing his job. Plus, the referee could see that his shoulders were down what was clearly more than three seconds so shouldn't the referee have just called for the bell because it was clear to him that there was a pin? If a referee can negate his hand hitting the mat if he sees that the wrestler got a shoulder up at the last instant then shouldn't he be able to negate his hand not hitting the mat if he sees that the wrester's shoulders are down?

Other than that this was a very fluid match that was also quite fun before the overbooking.

BLOCK B MATCH: ACH vs. Tiger Mask IV - 6.75/10

Tiger Mask worked over ACH's back, ACH worked over Tiger Mask's head, and ACH has now stolen Jay Lethal's series of dives spot. That's about it, really.

BLOCK B MATCH: Ryusuke Taguchi vs. El Desperado (w/TAKA Michinoku) - 4.25/10

El Desperado assaulted Taguchi and beat the sh*t out of him. He used chairs, which the referee apparently had no problem with. Then El Desperado took some sort of sharp object and sodomized Taguchi with it. Then he applied a half crab and worked over Taguchi's knee and they had a perfectly normal wrestling match for a while until we got a very clever heel finish. The two different parts of this match did not mesh together AT ALL.

BLOCK B MATCH: KUSHIDA v. BUSHI - 8/10

BUSHI is wearing a white suit and this utterly ridiculously-looking white… half lobster mask or something. Thankfully he took it off to wrestle. This was a very intense match in which it felt like both guys were just throwing their bodies at their opponents. I know that sounds weird but that's the best way I can sum this match up. It worked.

Final Thoughts
A solid show from New Japan, but all that you really need to see is the main event.