The Best And Worst Of NJPW: Destruction In Beppu, Destruction In Kagoshima, And The 2019 Young Lion Cup

Previously on NJPW: New Japan’s International Summer wrapped up with surprising championship wins by Tana and Kenta in the UK.

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And now, the best and worst of the 2019 Destruction tour so far. This article will cover Destruction in Beppu on September 15 and Destruction in Kagoshima on September 16, with some notes on aspects of the Road to Destruction shows.

Best: I Believe The Children Are Our Future

The thing about the Destruction tour is that it has a reputation for being not great, and that reputation is mostly deserved. Like the Kizuna Road tour, it’s uncomfortably sandwiched between more important things. There have been some “main roster” highlights of this year’s Destruction tour so far, but it can’t be overstated how important that Young Lion Cup has been in breathing life into New Japan’s shows this month.

The Young Lion Cup (which I previewed here a while back) consists of almost all basic, chicken-and-vegetables pro wrestling seasoned with the real urgency of these young performers working to prove themselves. Almost everyone comes out of it looking good, but for me, Japan newbie Alex Coughlin has made the strongest positive impression with the intensity he brings to every match. Fale Dojo’s Michael Richards stands out as the weakest, with his moves not as clean and his fighting spirit stuff more awkward than that of the others in the tournament. It’s possible he looks a lot stronger in his indie work and this just isn’t a great setting for him, but if this was some kind of reality competition show, it’s clear he would be the one who would get voted out first.

The matches in this year’s Young Lion Cup are pretty similar to the ones from earlier tournaments, judging from the old trainee matches that are available to watch, but the 2019 iteration has the brand new element of Dojo Warz, and I think it’s handled really well. The LA Dojo and Noge Dojo (domestic New Japan dojo in Tokyo) boys have a fierce rivalry. When Narita gets the first win for the Noge Dojo it’s a significant moment for him, but overall, the tournament isn’t really presented along the lines of Us vs. Them for the audience, even though that’s how the dojo boys feel about it.

Veterans like Makabe, Nakanishi, and Tenzan talk more explicitly about the Mostly America vs. Japan aspect of the tournament, but in a way where they put over the intensity of the LA Dojo Young Lions and seem happy with how well they’re doing. Everyone can see the foreign trainees are learning from the same training handbook as the Japanese guys and are meant to be part of NJPW proper someday. The Young Lion Cup sends a message that the more things change in certain ways as the company expands, the more they will stay the same in the ways that matter the most.

Best: Douki Has Returned To NJPW!

El Desperado, you are missed, but Douki, your pipe and futile quest against the hipster wrestlers of New Japan and your cool suplex will always be welcome.

Best: Wishin’ For A Kishin

Even more important and welcome is the return of the SUZUKI VS. LIGER OLD MAN FEUD TO POSSIBLY THE LITERAL DEATH. This had escalated to a crazy point before Suzuki pivoted to being angry about the G1, and it soon escalates even further once Suzuki restarts the feud by just grabbing Liger off commentary and hitting him with a Gotch Style Piledriver. They continue to have next-level chemistry in the ring and deliver incredible promos, especially Liger after Suzuki starts messing with his mask.

It turns out all the mask crime is probably Suzuki trying to draw out Kishin Liger, unless he’s talking about wanting to fight Keiichi Yamada for some reason. While the full mask removal doesn’t do that, it gives us the incredible moment of Suzuki holding Liger’s mask in his teeth like an animal and the off-putting sight of like half of Liger’s real, regular old man face. Basically, Suzuki vs. Liger continues to deliver on every level and they can’t announce the date of their singles match soon enough.

Best: Pre-Kobe Beef

Before we get to the big matches from these shows, let’s go over the feuds that are still working towards their climaxes either at Destruction in Kobe later this month or at King of Pro Wrestling in October. The one that feels the least essential is, unfortunately, for NJPW’s most essential title, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Sanada and Kazuchika Okada have some good exchanges in tag matches, but they don’t show anything new to hook people on their KOPW match, which will be their fourth this year.

The feuds for Destruction in Kobe’s singles matches, both rematches of first-time pairings from this year’s G1, have stood out a lot more in tag matches, promos, and general animosity. As soon as Tetsuya Naito and Jay White (post-excursion) first interacted during the G1, it was clear they worked really well together, and they keep showing that chemistry throughout the Destruction tour. White is all about mind games and trolling and Naito is also all about mind games, but is impossible to troll. They do something different with this dynamic every show, including, at one point, spitting in each other’s faces while smiling.

Does this convince me their wrestling match will be good? Not really, because Jay White and over-twenty-five-minute NJPW main events have not consistently been a winning combination. But these two have built a lot of hype going into their match and it has one of the least predictable results on the tour. And maybe they were kind of holding something back in the G1 since they were going to rematch so soon! Omega vs. Ibushi in same position in last year’s G1 was also weirdly not that great!

The other big pre-Kobe feud, Hirooki Goto vs. Shingo Takagi, has been delivering in preview tags and seems guaranteed to deliver one-on-one. Of all the rivals on this tour, these two have consistently gone the hardest every time they’re in the ring together. In promos, it started with the element of competing to be the strongest Japanese Spirit Guy played pretty straight, but that has now evolved (devolved?) into Takagi doing some of Goto’s moves and Goto getting extremely pissed off about it. I don’t know if it’s an improvement or not, but it’s pretty great.

Takagi claims to have invented the “Takagi-Style GTR,” which is allegedly completely different from the regular GTR. Goto does not think this is funny at all and says he won’t be beaten by the soulless version of his own move, but if New Japan would do that to anyone it would probably be Goto. Unless we get the twist of them putting aside their differents and forming a samurai super-team, this feud is like twins trying to eat each other in the womb, except they’re full-grown adults already. It’s basically The Double.

There’s a theme on this tour of the L.I.J. guys wanting big things and being very vocal about that. Evil declares he wants the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, then makes his move for it by claiming his earned shot at Ibushi’s Wrestle Kingdom contract. Takagi wants a singles title shot after beating Goto, and hopefully, he’ll pin a champion in a tag match or challenge some individual before he gets one because that doesn’t make a ton a of sense. Why does everyone think that beating goldless Goto equals a title shot this year?

And as other wrestlers (now Kota Ibushi, Jay White, and Zack Sabre Jr.) pile on to the double championship bandwagon, Naito calls out New Japan to announce whether they’ll actually do a winner-take-all match at all. So many wrestlers are talking about this now that it seems inevitable, but it’ll be interesting to see if someone wins two titles and if so, what that actually means. No one’s ever held the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and IC before, but there have been unification matches for extra championships, most recently with Nakamura vs. Takayama in 2004 and Nakamura vs. Kurt Angle in 2008. We could see a new precedent set for singles-belt-collecting in NJPW, or it’s possible Wrestle Kingdom 14 just reduces the number of titles in the company. There is so much time to speculate about that, though, so let’s leave the Tokyo Dome behind and get back to Beppu!

Best: Cobra Twist And Shout

The main event of Destruction in Beppu is a match we’ve seen several times already this year, Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hiroshi Tanashi. It has delivered before and it delivers again and it will probably deliver yet again in the future. It’s compelling to watch Tanahashi win exchanges with a lot of effort and focus towards the beginning of the match. The crowd remains invested in the Ace’s escapes and brief moments of offense once Sabre gets control. This becomes one of those NJPW main events that feels like it’s going over twenty-five minutes for the sake of going over twenty-five minutes towards the en,d but the surprise Ground Cobra Twist finish is still really entertaining.

Backstage, Sabre continues the bit he began earlier in the tour about becoming the first triple champion in NJPW and keeps his super hot streak of promos going by interviewing himself and rambling about his home town. His rambling skills are extremely strong, much stronger than his headbutt skills! (Please, please, Zack Sabre Jr., leave the headbutt counters to the guys who seem tough and are good at headbutts! Everyone does not need to do every move!)

Worst: The Dreaded Distraction Roll-Up

The best thing about the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match between the Guerrillas of Destiny and the team of Tomohiro Ishii and Yoshi-Hashi is that they got people to care about it. With Evil and Sanada busy in the singles wrestling scene and Killer Elite Squad dying before they got to kill anybody, there hasn’t been enough going on in the tag title picture for it to stay on people’s minds. Making this match about Ishii getting revenge on G.O.D. (and Yoshi-Hashi helping), however, gave it much more tangible stakes, connecting it to things people care about more right now.

The match starts promisingly with the Ishii vs. Tama Tonga opening sequence and G.O.D. controlling the match with their superior tag team experience, but it falls apart when Yoshi-Hashi gets tagged in. He’s not a natural choice for a hot tag because he is a very low-intensity wrestler and though the crowd is behind him, every time he’s tagged in kills the momentum of the match. Things drag on for a while and look like they might pick up when Ishii and Yoshi-Hashi get on a roll with some teamwork, but that’s when things actually get really, really stupid.

Kenta shows up to help G.O.D. like they helped him in his title match with Ishii, but rather than do a wrestling move to anyone or pull the ref out of the ring or something, he breaks out a little trick he picked up in WWE: the Distraction Entrance that makes wrestlers of all experience levels completely stop whatever they’re doing! The Distraction Rollup has been one of the worst spots in wrestling for years and it’s really disappointing to see NJPW think it’s a good idea to use in even one match!

Best: Caring About Tag Championships 3K 3K 3K

While the Beppu tag championship match is a letdown, it does lead to two really good moments the following night in Kagoshima, the first of which promises positive things for the future of the heavyweight tag team division. Roppongi 3K makes good on their post-Dallas promise to come after G.O.D. when Yoh pins Tama with a rollup and the crowd goes wild. Now we have a setup for a tag title match that, judging from history, will probably be good and whose result people will care about a lot. And there are at least two actual active heavyweight tag teams now!

This also creates an opening for Rocky Romero to agree to return to junior heavyweight tag team competition as half of the SUPER COACH TEAM Taguchi has been pitching. Suddenly this tag division has three active teams, probably, and just in time for tag league! The Roppongi tag team extended universe continues to be a force for good and fun in the wrestling world and the NJPW tag team wrestling scene is finally taken off life support, in the good way one can be taken off life support.

Best: The Birds Of Prey Take Flight

The Birds of Prey (Will Ospreay and Robbie Eagles) vs. El Phantasmo and Taiji Ishimori (ELP-shimori, in my mind) is a very athletically impressive match. After Ospreay makes all the worst possible faces and poses, their more low-key opening spots like the arm-wringers in the corner look better than they had on the Road To shows. Both teams, who have wrestled three previous tag matches between them, soon break out a lot of new tandem moves that most humans cannot physically do, and mostly with minimal cornball energy.

An issue with this match, I think, is the packaging that made this seem like it was supposed to be not just an impressive athletic exhibition, but an important storyline moment. The VTR reminds everyone of the months (in NJPW) and years (elsewhere) of history between these people, but I wonder how many people have actually seen all of it. Many of the major moments weren’t available to watch in the same way as most NJPW programming.

Southern Showdown, where Eagles wrestled Ospreay and joined Chaos, was available to watch live on Fite, but it was available on NJPW World much later, and I don’t think it was ever on TV Asahi, aka the most normal version of NJPW TV. Royal Quest, the sight of their first tag match and challenge, was on Fite and TV Asahi, but was also VOD on NJPW World. The Super J-Cup was only VOD on NJPW World and was uploaded a while after it happened.

Some combination of these factors with the fact that Eagles and El Phantasmo haven’t worked that many NJPW tours yet so a lot of audiences haven’t seen much of them leads to what looked like it was supposed to be a significant dramatic moment when Eagles snapped and choked ELP getting basically no reaction. Overall, the crowd is far from as loud for most of what ELP calls backstage a “five-star, twenty-minute-plus classic” (because I guess these wrestlers were more concerned something beyond the fourth wall than with trying to win at sports.)

Honestly, it’s hard to come up with things to say enthusiastically about the NJPW junior division right now when it seems like about half of AEW is the same type of thing but with people who are more fun and with no people who are Jay White Again But Smaller. To me, Private Party vs. Evans/Angelico was the more appealing version of this match! With the Street Profits as champs, NXT tag title matches also have insane stunts and there’s crazy stuff happening in the lucha world all the time and if this became a complete list of all the great high-flying I can think of this paragraph would get way too long. Basically, I don’t know why people would say this is the best version of this type of wrestling when this seems like the most unnecessarily corny version of this type of wrestling to me.

Ultimately, that’s just me whining about aesthetics and preferences! But it bugs me when something is good in New Japan so people say that must be the best version of the thing in the whole wide wrestling world. I don’t think this mentality does New Japan any favors either because it seems impossible to maintain that level of hype for a long period of time. Insisting something or someone is the official best in the world seems like setting it up for backlash more than anything else. How cool was that monkey flip spot in this match though? It was very cool! I definitely couldn’t do it!

Best/Worst: But Do Blondes Have More Fun

As with most of the other big matches on these shows, Kota Ibushi vs. Kenta for the contract to the rights for an IWGP Heavyweight Championship match in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom (inhale!) includes some questionable creative decisions. Kenta’s first match after publicly joining Bullet Club was at Royal Quest, but he shows up as the made-over BC version of himself on the Destruction tour with a terrible new theme song and a hairdo so flattering it nearly makes up for that. In Kagoshima, he shows that BC Kenta is not only a blonde, but a pre-match attack and interference guy!

The interference spot is executed really well, and Ishii and Yoshi-Hashi cutting off G.O.D.’s attack is a nice moment of continuity that injects some new energy into a lengthy bout. But I have no clue why someone would plan a pre-match spot involving checking whether the match should be called off due to a head injury in Kenta’s first singles match after one where it looked like things should have been stopped due to a head injury. Kenta was taken off most of the Destruction tour because what happened during that match with Ishii and the head injury angle here made me think about Kenta as a human being rather than Kenta a wrestling character. I don’t have a reason to want to see the real human Kenta being get murked by Ibushi’s inner demon, so I think this was not ideal!

When the match gets started, it has its positive aspects. Kenta adding a few underhanded tactics and focusing on a limb makes his dominance a lot more believable than in his first match with Ibushi in which they were presented as more equally matched dream match opponents. There’s a very nice angry, motivated forearm exchange in this match too. Overall, it’s fine but feels like it would have been better with five-to-ten minutes shaved off, even more so than Sabre vs. Tanahashi.

As you can tell by now, a lot of the Destruction tour so far has not blown me away! I’m not crazy about a lot of New Japan’s early fall, which is not an unfamiliar feeling! Still, there are some highlights, Destruction in Kobe looks promising, and New Japan clearly has some cool things coming up in the future, though most of them may not happen for a while.