NJPW Best of the Super Jr. 26, 5.15

Ren Narita & Yuya Uemura vs Bullet Club (Robbie Eagles & Jado) - 6/10

The Young Lions were doing good until Jado hit Uemura with the kendo stick and turned the match around on him. Narita and Eagles did their thing, but it was Eagles vs Uemura at the end that was really good, the Young Lion actually kicking out of a kendo stick shot, but falling to the Turbo Backpack. Good opener, i'm excited for Narita.

Taichi & Douki vs Ryusuke Taguchi & Shota Umino - 4.5/10

Taichi and Douki jumped their opponents, and we focused so much on Taguchi and Douki that I completely forgot that the other two were out there brawling in the crowd. Back in the ring, Taguchi got worked on for a while until Shota came in, fought with Taichi, and got submitted with the Stretch Plum. Ok match, nothing special, but I do think that Taguchi can have a good match with Douki.

Post-match - Taichi and Douki took out Taguchi with the pipe.

Bandido, Will Ospreay, & Juice Robinson vs Rocky Romero, YOH, & Toa Henare - 6.5/10

6 Men, 6 countries represented in this match. KK said that it's not always we have CHAOS members in opposite corners, while we just saw a full tournament of that in the New Japan Cup. He did point out that all of R3K members lost their opening match.

The stuff with Rocky and Ospreay was probably my favorite part of the match. Bandido and YOH were goo, but we didn't see that much. Juice pinned Henare with Pulp Friction to win the match. Good match, but nothing special really.

They played the Time's Up video at the end of the match, and you know what, i'm really starting to like that song.

Bullet Club (El Phantasmo & Gedo) vs Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI) - 5.5/10

Phantasmo vs Naito is a really interesting clash of egos and characters. Everyone is wearing black in this match, this is like a fight broke out at the entrance line. The match was a lot of Bullet Club cheating to get heat on Naito and work on his arm, then to try and stop BUSHI's hot tag, but at the end, when Gedo went for some Brass Knucks, Naito stopped him, BUSHI hit MX and picked up the win. Match wasn't much, and the preview of Phantasmo vs BUSHI was considerably slower than I expected, but I think it has potential. I'm just really high on BUSHI this year.

Best of the Super Jr 26 Block A
Jonathan Gresham (0) vs TAKA Michinoku (0) - 7/10

Seems like hanging out with Sabre hasn't helped TAKA work on his submission work, as Gresham lived up to his nickname and Octopused around TAKA for a while until the veteran relied on dirty tricks to gain control. Once with the upper hand, TAKA and Gresham started working on each other's arms. TAKA would later transition to hurt Gresham's neck too, but it was too late for Gresham locked in the Octopus Stretch and tapped out TAKA. Good technical based match.

Best of the Super Jr 26 Block A
Tiger Mask (2) vs Yoshinobu Kanemaru (0) - 7/10

Kanemaru stole Tiger's mask last time and now Tiger didn't wait for nothing, he stole one from Suzuki-Gun's playbook and attacked Kanemaru as he made the ring. Kanemaru worked over Tiger's injured knee, and he did it nice and vicious. Tiger had few moves, but they were all big moves like Piledrivers and Tiger Drivers. At one point, Tiger kicked out of the Deep Impact, only for Kanemaru to follow with a Figure 4 Leg Lock for a near submission. Finish saw Tiger go for a Tiger Suplex, but Kanemaru countered and went for the F4LL again, only to get packed into a pin and loss. Tiger Mask is top of the Blocks right now.

There is a cool idea here that Tiger, the injured guy, had to go against Suzuki-Gun back to back, two guys that would go and destroy that knee, but not only did he win those matches, he is now done with Suzuki-Gun and their antics.

Best of the Super Jr 26 Block A
Shingo Takagi (2) vs Titan (2) - 8/10

Story was that Lucha and speed are Shingo's weaknesses, but as soon as Shingo was able to get a hold of Titan, he stopped him like a brick wall and beat the shit out of him until the Mexican found himself a large enough space to catch some speed and get back in the match. They went back and forward for a bit, Titan got a couple of near falls, one after a Mistica transitioned into a Crucifix pin, but at the end, Shingo just woke up, hit all his big moves and pinned Titan with The Last Dragon. Good showing for Titan, but it felt like a night off for Shingo.

Best of the Super Jr 26 Block A
"Bone Soldier" Taiji Ishimori (2) vs "The Villain" Marty Scurll (2) w/Brody King - 9/10

Marty was really dominant in this match, he worked over Ishimori's arm and head, he had a lot of offense and rarely looked in trouble. It wasn't until Ishimori got a Shotgun Dropkick that Scrull slowed down, but even then, he still had a bunch of offense.

I didn't notice when it happened, but Ishimori was out in this match, he botched a jumping Frankensteiner, and botched a piledriver, almost dropping Scurll on top of his head. At one point, Scurll couldn't even get Ishimori up. He kinda woke up for a battle with the Chickenwing and a Crossface, but he was moving slightly slower now. He did manage to hit Bloody Cross at the end and win the match. It was a great match regardless, just got that ugly feeling that something was wrong.

There was a beautiful Superplex that Coleman wouldn't shut the fuck up about it, he kept saying 'it was a tud!' over and over again. Fuck Coleman, let it go! Later on, Coleman is saying 'This match is just passed the 20 minute mark" and no more than a minute later, they announce it's only been 15 minutes. Stop talking out of your ass Caprice, why does he have a job? Bring back Chris!

Best of the Super Jr 26 Block A
Dragon Lee (0) vs SHO (0) - 9.5/10

Yesterday, these two got heated and today they went straight into the Frye/Takayama brawl. The match was awesome, both men worked on each other's arms from early on and they pretty much fought the whole match selling those arms. They went for submissions, they went back to the forearm exchange many times, and towards the end tney started hitting each other with big moves until Lee hit La Desnucadora for the win. There is a Tope Suicida that will make everyone stand up.

Post-match - Dragon Lee and SHO embraced. Dragon Lee cut a promo saying that today is his birthday and that he is happy to be here in Japan with all this talent. He thanked the fans and left. Backstage he explained that he and SHO respect each other an that the heat from yesterday was just because they both give their all in the ring and neither was going to show less.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

A good show that got capped up by two great matches. SHO has now delivered two top matches in 3 days, and he still has talent like Scurll and Ishimori coming up, he is most definitely walking out of this tournament with a new shade of greatness

Also want to mention, without Chris Charlton, English commentary just became a circle-jerk between Coleman and KK. I ended up moving to the Japanese commentary at the end. CC and KK completely lack the energy of the Japanese table.