NJPW Fallout Down Under Tour 2018: Day 3

KUSHIDA vs. ROCKY ROMERO - 7/10

Great opener, full of big dropkicks, work on the arm, chain wrestling, and all of the other stuff you want to see in a KUSHIDA match.

YUJI NAGATA vs. JACK BONZA - 3/10

MICK MORETTI & ROBBIE EAGLES vs. LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (Sanada & EVIL) - 5.75/10

BULLET CLUB (Kenny Omega, Bad Luck Fale, the Guerrillas of Destiny, & Chase Owens) vs. TMDK (Jonah Rock, Marcius Pitt, Damian Slater, Elliot Sexton, & Slex) - 7.25/10

This was your standard ten-man chaos, although the Fale vs. Jonah Rock confrontation was short and had timing problems, which brought things down. I'd like to think that there is something to read into Omega and Owens doing some double-teams together, but maybe not. Chase Owens and Tanga Loa continue to impress on this tour, which is always good to see someone do when you give them a chance. That being said, both still fail to come off to me as someone I want to see in singles match.

KENNY OMEGA PROMO - He puts over Fale, Bullet Club, and does a gift exchange with a fan.

JUICE ROBINSON & TOA HENARE vs. SUZUKI-GUN (Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer) - 4.25/10

Suzuki-Gun jump the bell on their opponents. Same sh*t, different continent. Now the babyfaces have the advantage within moments, so what was even the point? To establish that Suzuki-Gun are the heels? Everyone already knows that. The match was just general hitting each other.

BULLET CLUB (Cody Rhodes & The Young Bucks) vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, & Jay White) - 8.5/10

We start off, unsurprisingly, with Cody wasting time and stalling by jabbering with the crowd. Then we got a bit of wrestling with the Bucks and Ospreay… and then the standard comedy where the Bucks make themselves look like goofs, followed by some more stalling.

Cody and Okada start to wrestle. Again… Cody is wrestling against Kazuchika freakin' Okada, the single best wrestler in the world right now… and the fans are chanting "WE WANT BRANDI!" Why are wrestling fans in 2018 f*cking stupid?

Rather than just ignoring them and letting the chant go away when they finally figure out that they're not going to get Brandi, Cody grabs a mic and plays into it, wasting even more time. Seemingly impossible as it is, these idiot fans actually bought that Cody was going to have Brandi come out. Not even I thought they were that stupid, but apparently they are. The Bucks are egging the fans on, and even Ospreay and Jay White are participating in this stupidity. Cody said they didn't deserve Brandi, resulting in "F*CK YOU, CODY!" chants. I know that these are totally different crowds, half a world away, but I am baffled by the fact that when Cody Rhodes cheated to screw Christopher Daniels out of the Ring of Honor World Title in a PPV main event, fans cheered… but when Cody refuses to bring his wife out to the ring with him, that gets "F*CK YOU, CODY!" chants.

And a few seconds later they're cheering for him doing Goldust's sliding throat thrust. F*cking idiots.

After that, things settled down and we got a pretty awesome six-man tag, minus a few stupid comedy bits form the Bucks and a spot where guys went for low blows that were dumb because in Cody's case it was right in front of the referee and in Okada's case, he's a freakin' babyface. There was a bit of dissension shown on each team (Okada not being happy about Jay White tagging himself in, and the Bucks once again being reluctant to do the Terminator dive with Kenny but eventually acquiescing. The match was awesome, but it would have been much better without Cody's stalling… or if any other member of Bullet Club had replaced Cody.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Jay White cut a promo pointing out to everyone there- especially Okada- that he had beaten Kenny Omega for the IWGP United States Championship, just like he said he would and vowed that their paths would cross in the future… but he's fine just being pals with Okada for now. That was anti-climactic. Then, to make it even more anti-climactic, Okada reminded Jay White that he didn't understand single thing Jay just said because he doesn't speak English. Okada then vowed that New Japan would be back.

Final Thoughts
A pretty good show from New Japan, and with some important (if disappointing) storyline news at the end. This tour seems to have been a rousing success so far, and I once again feel the need to comment on how the use of different combinations of guys (especially in Bullet Club and CHAOS) has made the cards feel refreshing and new, rather than something to be trudged through.