NJPW Strong Style 42nd Anniversary
NJPW Strong Style 42nd Anniversary (3/6/2014)- Tokyo, Japan
SHO TANAKA & YOHEI KOMATSU vs. SUZUKI-GUN (Minoru Suzuki & Taichi)- 4.25/10
I got into the hope spots, but Suzuki really just beat the crap out of these kids.
JADO & GEDO vs. MANABU NAKANISHI & KUSHIDA- 4.5/10
JUSHIN "THUNDER" LIGER, TIGER MASK VI, & SUPER STRONG MACHINE vs. CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN, DESPERADO, & BUSHI- 4.25/10
RYUSUKE TAGUCHI, TOGI MAKABE & TAMAOKI HONMA vs. THE BULLET CLUB (Prince Devitt, Bad Luck Fale, & Tama Tonga)- 5.75/10
HIROYOSHI TENZAN, SATOSHI KOJIMA, YUGI NAGATA, & KAZUSHI SAKURABA vs. CHAOS (Yujiro Takahashi, Toru Yano, Takashi Iizuka, & YOSHI-HASHI)- 4/10
Iizuka once again tortured an announcer but this time someone came to help the announcer! Was it one of the many babyfaces Iizuka is about to wrestle? Of course not! it was the other announcer, who got an ass-kicking from one of Iizuka's buddies. The babyfaces just waited backstage while this innocent man was humiliated. Once the babyfaces showed up and the action actually started, the camera immediately cut to the announcer for a while. FAIL!
Anyway, this match was just a big clusterduck that felt like a waste of the star power involved on the babyface side. The botched 3-D at the end didn't help.
THE BULLET CLUB (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) vs. HIROOKI GOTO & KATSUYORI SHIBATA- 6/10
Standard tag team stuff, but it did build towards a GHC Heavyweight Tag Title match, I guess it worked.
HIROSHI TANAHASHI & TETSUYA NAITO vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA & TOMOHIRO ISHII- 7.5/10
KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. KOTA IBUSHI- 8.75/10
Awesome match. Okada works over Kota’s neck and Kota does less flippy Kota stuff than usual. The fighting spirit spot out of the tombstone was freakin’ awesome, which is not something I usually say about no-selling a finisher, but this worked. There were one or two slightly hokey spots to set up a signature flippy spot of Kota’s, and I could have done without some of the fighting spirit towards the end, but this match was awesome. Definitely my early choice for Puro Match of the Year.
The "bunch of random tag teams" format really hurt this show. They made it feel like one of New Japan's standard "Road to *INSERT NAME OF THE NEXT PPV HERE*" shows, except that with the next bunch of shows being the New Japan Cup, which is a singles tournament, I have no idea what the matches were even supposed to be building to. Aside from the last two matches, this show isn't even close to worth watching.
SHO TANAKA & YOHEI KOMATSU vs. SUZUKI-GUN (Minoru Suzuki & Taichi)- 4.25/10
I got into the hope spots, but Suzuki really just beat the crap out of these kids.
JADO & GEDO vs. MANABU NAKANISHI & KUSHIDA- 4.5/10
JUSHIN "THUNDER" LIGER, TIGER MASK VI, & SUPER STRONG MACHINE vs. CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN, DESPERADO, & BUSHI- 4.25/10
RYUSUKE TAGUCHI, TOGI MAKABE & TAMAOKI HONMA vs. THE BULLET CLUB (Prince Devitt, Bad Luck Fale, & Tama Tonga)- 5.75/10
HIROYOSHI TENZAN, SATOSHI KOJIMA, YUGI NAGATA, & KAZUSHI SAKURABA vs. CHAOS (Yujiro Takahashi, Toru Yano, Takashi Iizuka, & YOSHI-HASHI)- 4/10
Iizuka once again tortured an announcer but this time someone came to help the announcer! Was it one of the many babyfaces Iizuka is about to wrestle? Of course not! it was the other announcer, who got an ass-kicking from one of Iizuka's buddies. The babyfaces just waited backstage while this innocent man was humiliated. Once the babyfaces showed up and the action actually started, the camera immediately cut to the announcer for a while. FAIL!
Anyway, this match was just a big clusterduck that felt like a waste of the star power involved on the babyface side. The botched 3-D at the end didn't help.
THE BULLET CLUB (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) vs. HIROOKI GOTO & KATSUYORI SHIBATA- 6/10
Standard tag team stuff, but it did build towards a GHC Heavyweight Tag Title match, I guess it worked.
HIROSHI TANAHASHI & TETSUYA NAITO vs. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA & TOMOHIRO ISHII- 7.5/10
KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. KOTA IBUSHI- 8.75/10
Awesome match. Okada works over Kota’s neck and Kota does less flippy Kota stuff than usual. The fighting spirit spot out of the tombstone was freakin’ awesome, which is not something I usually say about no-selling a finisher, but this worked. There were one or two slightly hokey spots to set up a signature flippy spot of Kota’s, and I could have done without some of the fighting spirit towards the end, but this match was awesome. Definitely my early choice for Puro Match of the Year.
The "bunch of random tag teams" format really hurt this show. They made it feel like one of New Japan's standard "Road to *INSERT NAME OF THE NEXT PPV HERE*" shows, except that with the next bunch of shows being the New Japan Cup, which is a singles tournament, I have no idea what the matches were even supposed to be building to. Aside from the last two matches, this show isn't even close to worth watching.