NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2021: Day 2
SUZUKI-GUN (Taichi, DOUKI, & Zack Sabre Jr.) vs. BULLET CLUB (Jado & the Guerrillas of Destiny) - 6/10
Standard stuff. Suzuki-Gun won. DOUKI had to be pulled off of Jado after the match. There was a post-match promo which I assume was a challenge for a title match.
HIROYOSHI TENZAN & MASTER WATO vs. BULLET CLUB (Taiji Ishimori & Yujiro Takahashi) - 5.55/10
LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (Tetsuya Naito, Sanada, & BUSHI) vs. THE UNITED EMPIRE (Jeff Cobb, Great-O-Khan, & Aaron Henare) - 7/10
The United Empire jumped the bell on LIJ, because I guess every single heel faction in NJPW must jump the bell on their opponents on a regular basis. And, of course, this must be immediately followed by tossing them to the outside and beating them up there, while the referee fails to even try to count anyone one.
Anyway, they did the usual stuff for a fifteen-minute six-man tag. I know this sounds weird, but this match managed to feel like it was dragging on longer than it should even though the stuff going on the ring was mostly exciting. I think it was that last Cobb vs. BUSHI bit where the finish felt inevitable.
HIROSHI TANAHASHI, RYUSUKE TAGUCHI, & TORU YANO vs. BULLET CLUB (Jay White, Dick Togo, & EVIL) (w/Gedo) - 5.5/10
This was an exciting Jay White vs. Tanahashi match that kept getting interrupted for stupid Yano and Taguchi comedy bullsh*t.
IWGP WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH:
Will Ospreay(c) (w/the United Empire) vs. Shingo Takagi - 9.5/10
I’m just going to get this out of the way first: This is Will Ospreay vs Shingo Takagi! Can we really not have a main event where they don’t stay on the outside forever and hit each other with stuff? Really? Could you not have come up with some other way for Shingo to get some offense in on Ospreay’ back than a big crazy table bump right in front of the referee?
Okay, that being said, this was TREMENDOUS! It was full of drama and athleticism and excellent sequences and fighting spirit. And that’s coming from someone who usually doesn’t like fighting spirit, and especially you go to that well more than once in a given match. It did feel like they were starting to go overboard toward the end, but then it ended (duh) so they didn’t.
But their greatest accomplishment here was not making me think they used an appropriate amount of fighting spirit spots. Nor was it that AMAZING sequence on the ropes where Ospreay legitimately looked like he was losing and then regaining his balance whenever he got it (as opposed to the standard pro wrestling spaghetti legs). Their greatest accomplishment here was a match that went almost forty-five minutes and never felt slow once. That’s not to say that they were going fast the whole time. They simply paced everything out perfectly. If not for my standard poor refereeing issues, one sequence in the middle that felt way too hard like they were trying to do something cool rather than feeling organic, and the fact that Ospreay working over Shingo’s arm almost never mattered in the match despite Shingo doing all of his usual offense, I would have given this a 10/10.
Final Thoughts
This show… was what it was. It was supposed to be a major show, but circumstances beyond New Japan’s control resulted in a lot of key talent being unable to wrestle and thus big matches being cancelled. All you can do in that case is try to give the fans a hell of a show to make up for it… except that New Japan’s style of booking doesn’t quite allow for that, so they did the next best thing, which was to present a show with a killer main event and design the show so that no one will remember anything other than the main event.