NJPW Road to Power Struggle 2018- Super Junior Tag League 2018: Day 1

AYATO YOSHIDA, YOT TSUJI, & YUYA UEMURA vs. REN NARITA, SHOTA UMINO, & TOA HENARE - 6.75/10

This was quite great for the level of experience of most of those involved in and the limitations placed upon them.

HIROSHI TANAHASHI, TOGI MAKABE, & TOMOAKI HONMA vs. KOTA IBUSHI & BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi) - 6.5/10

CHUCK TAYLOR & CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano, & Trent Beretta) vs. BULLET CLUB FIRING SQUAD (Bad Luck Fale, Jay White, & the Guerrillas of Destiny) (w/Jado & Gedo) - 6.5/10

Oh come on! Can we really not even let Jay White pin CHUCK TAYLOR cleanly?

SUPER JUNIOR TAG LEAGUE MATCH:
Jushin "Thunder" Liger & Tiger Mask IV vs. Robbie Eagles & Taiji Ishimori - 6.5/10

Eagles gets the big win on Liger in his debut. I thought the 450 onto the leg as a way of working on the limb set Eagles apart from everyone else in New Japan (and most other places) right now.

SUPER JUNIOR TAG LEAGUE MATCH:
Volador Jr. & El Soberano Jr. vs. Ryusuke Taguchi & ACH - 7.5/10

ACH & Taguchi came out wearing rugby helmets but throwing a football around. They had a pretty damn great match, though. I'd like to see both ACH and Volador Jr. get some more singles opportunities in New Japan.

SUPER JUNIOR TAG LEAGUE MATCH:
Chris Sabin & KUSHIDA vs. Suzuki-Gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) - 6.75/10

Suzuki-Gun jump the bell on their opponents. More usual Suzuki-Gun stuff happens, like doing whatever they want without getting DQed and without the referee counting people out. Babyfaces make a comeback but lose, even though Suzuki-Gun should have been DQed several times over.

SUPER JUNIOR TAG LEAGUE MATCH:
Los Ingobernables de Japon (Shingo Takagi & BUSHI) vs. Roppongi 3K (w/Rocky Romero) - 7.5/10

They wasted the first six minutes of the match brawling into the crowd for the sole purpose of being able to brawl all the way to ends of the building. Of course they weren't counted out during this because OMFG WE WENT TO THE FAR WALLS OF THE ROOM ISN'T THAT SO COOL?!

The match was certainly able to recover from that misstep and got quite exciting, but I'm having a lot of trouble adjusting to the idea of Shingo as a Jr. Heavyweight. Also, maybe it's just me, but having him be a Jr. Heavyweight makes him feel more like a replacement for Hiromu, which is exactly what Naito has insisted to us that he isn't.

Final Thoughts
This was a decent show from New Japan, but I don't think I can watch any more of this tournament. The single-elimination format made this tournament different from every other NJPW tournament (other than the New Japan Cup, which is six months away, for heavyweights, and not a tag team tournament) and now that's gone in favor of yet another round robin, including yet another tag team round robin coming up in the next big show cycle. I am not going to sit through yet another month of pointless undercard matches and the occasional, pointless match tournament matches towards the end as well. Making this change was a poor idea by New Japan.