NJPW Road to Power Struggle 2020 11.2

Gabriel Kidd vs. Yota Tsuji - 5.5/10

The usual YL goodness. There was one thing that I wanted to mentioned that I noticed, and that is how Tsuji locked in the Camel Clutch, it's not something that you see often and I love, and that is carrying the opponent by their arms and lowering into the clutch, as opposed to pulling them up from the mat. It just looks more painful. Kidd won by reversing a Sunset Flip into a roll up.

Kazuchika Okada & Yuya Uemura vs. The Empire w/Bea Priestley - 6.5/10

The match was 90% GOK, he started the match, worked over Uemura, fought against Okada in the hot tag, and then had the finish with Uemura, hitting the Eliminator for the win. I thought he looked good with Uemura, but kinda slow versus Okada. Ospreay was there, but was mostly doing run-ins all match.

Post-match - Okada attacked Ospreay and GOK, put the latter on the Moneyclip, but GOK reversed with a claw, breaking the Moneyclip. Ospreay hit a backheel kick and GOK hit the Eliminator. Ospreay talked some trash afterwards.

Suzuki-gun (El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi) - 7.5/10

This was really chaotic, Suzuki and Shingo couldn't stay away from each other and kept brawling all around, even when they were legal, they'd go and antagonize each other and brawl outside the ring.

Post-match - Suzuki attacked Shingo and hit the GSP followed by a Boston Crab, making Shingo tap for forgiveness. Suzuki really working that knee for Power Struggle.

BOSJ 27 Announcement - Participants were announced. Ryusuke Taguchi, Master Wato, SHO, Robbie Eagles, Hiromu Takahashi, BUSHI, El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, DOUKI, and the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Taiji Ishimori. I'm gonna be honest, the lineup looks pretty weak, aside from some likely to be main events with SHO, Hiromu, or Despy, I may skip a lot of these shows, or at least sacrifice them for other stuff.

In addition, they announced a 2020 Super J Cup in the United States. Participants are TJP, ACH, Lio Rush, Chris Bey!!!, Rey Horus, Blake Christian, Clark Connors, and El Phantasmo. This looks way better, I love that they're really making it seem like a promotion tournament. I'm REALLY surprised that ELP would rather go to the US than Japan.

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi & Tomoaki Honma vs. BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens, Jay White & KENTA) w/Gedo - 6.5/10

Chase Owens is back! This match was up and down, the previews for PS matches were all great, but all the time spent working over Honma and the final minutes were kinda meh.

Post-match - Tana and Ibushi were taking out by briefcase shots by their respective opponents at Power Struggle. KENTA straight up broke his briefcase on Tanahashi's head.

BULLET CLUB (EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi) w/Dick Togo vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA & Tetsuya Naito) - 6/10

This was boring, LIJ working over SANADA was super slow and not much was happening, and so, by the time they headed to the finish, it was just like 'get it over with'. EVIL shenanigans and Yujiro's wrestling pace are the worst combination. Naito pinned Yujiro with Destino.

IWGP Tag Team Title Match
Dangerous Tekkers (c) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) - 8/10

This was really good, nicely worked, YOSHI-HASHI is still doing great, BUT then it went on and on more minutes that it needed. It lasted a couple of minutes past the 30 minute mark, but it really should have ended a lot earlier. To me, at the point that CHAOS hit their assisted GTR and Taichi and Goto started hitting each other with big moves, that's where it should have headed for the finisher reversal spot, instead, YH tagged in and pretty much did the same thing that Goto had been doing with Taichi, except that he started chasing the Butterfly Lock instead of KARMA.

This makes it sounds like it's bad, but it really was a great wrestled match, even after they peaked. Taichi vs YH gave me hopes for a one-on-one, and Goto vs Sabre stuff was great as it usually is. At the end, Tekkers hit the Zack Mephisto on YH for the win.

Post-match - Yano got in the ring and said that he is so annoyed with Sabre because he keeps trying to put the corner pads back on when he removes then, and so their KOPW match will be a No Corner Pads match. Sabre attacked Yano and whipped him to the corner, so at least Yano now knows what he got himself into.

After that, Taichi cut a promo, but kept getting interrupted by Yano screaming backstage, and so Sabre went to the back, took him out with a chair, and came back for the end of the promo. Kinda weird contrast to end with comedy after a long hard fought battle, but it's nice to end with some comedy now and then.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Somewhat weak of a show, but nonetheless enjoyable and a quick watch. It's a road to show, no reason to come in expecting anything better than solid wrestling to set up matches for Power Struggle.