The Best And Worst Of NJPW: New Year Dash!! 2019

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And now, the best and worst of New Year Dash!! 2019, which kicked off the new year’s first round of feuds.

But First, What Did People Have To Say Backstage At Wrestle Kingdom?

There were fully one hour and fifteen minutes of promos, more press conference style than usual, backstage at Wrestle Kingdom, and here are the highlights/things with future relevance:

The only comments by the Elite are incredibly, well, elitist, and make you want #justiceforchaseandyujiro even more, with Marty Scurll saying the Elite deserve fancy entrances and not to be on the pre-show because they’re just better than everyone else, and that Chase and Yujiro were never really part of the Elite because their t-shirts didn’t sell as well. (Is it extremely wild that NJPW tried to turn this stable babyface while having them keep this exact attitude, or am I just poor?) Page is less of a jerk though, and if AEW and NJPW end up working together they really should bring him back as a babyface and give him a damn horse entrance.

Chuckie T didn’t go crazy, but we see a darker/reasonably frustrated side of Beretta, who says “something gotta f*cking change” because the Best Friends were on the pre-show for All In and ROH Final Battle and now Wrestle Kingdom. INTERESTING.

Jeff Cobb wants to work in New Japan more, which should happen because he’s great and people love watching him wrestle and then he can use his very good Japanese catchphrase!

Minoru Suzuki ethers Kenny Omega and vows revenge for Suzukigun being on the pre-show, which is “worse than not getting booked at all!” and flips a table.

Will Ospreay really tries to sound badass, which has yet to work for him ever, saying everyone wants him to be a “flippy dippy” guy, but he’s really a “hard f*cker” from Essex and doesn’t want to be pushed around. The part of his career plan where he fights all the heavyweights of the world sounds good to me though, because my favorite of this dude’s matches are against dudes who make him fight for the flippy stuff.

Kanemaru & El Desperado and Bushi & Shingo Takagi want to fight each other again one-on-one because New Japan wrestlers really do not respect the results of triple threats, and also because L.I.J. does still want that definitive victory over Suzukigun.

Everything about Zack Sabre Jr.’s promo makes it sound like 2019 will be another really good year for him. His character work is flawless, he’s a credible threat as a heel looking to take over, and he’s a good choice for RPW champ (I think for both them and NJPW) because, if you look at what they’re advertising for this year, he’ll be in RPW a lot more than their past two champions and have big title matches in the UK (like at Live At The Cockpit 37 against PAC) while also showing up as a heel with clout in NJPW and representing RPW at the same time.

The Good Guy Tama Tonga gimmick, which it is still wild to me is happening on the actual wrestling show and not just Twitter, is made way better by Tanga Loa CLEARLY just going along with this in order to support his brother and HATING it. This seems to be in the C Block and Daryl Takahashi realm of NJPW wrestlers giving themselves goofy-but-in-character subplots when they’re going to be out of the title picture of a while (or relegated to the comedy-ish trios title picture.)

Beretta decides to be the “f*cking change” he wants to see in the world and interrupts Juice Robinson’s excellent babyface promo to bring him a beer, remind his now-stablemate of his canceled U.S. title shot, and set up a friendly (for now!) championship match.

ISHIMORI HAS KIDNAPPED MR. BELT. GET WELL SOON, HIROMU TAKAHASHI.

Jay White and Gedo refusing to start until the press applauds for them is extremely annoying and good, as is White describing his tactics as “I hit them on the inner thigh, my hands slip when I’m holding a chair.” Like he showed with his argument last year about how he’s the best wrestler in the world because he beat Omega, who then beat best-in-the-world Okada, White is also very good at using other wrestlers’ records to his advantage, pointing out that it usually takes Okada half an hour at least to beat people, while he pinned him in like half that. He also teases that he’ll challenge for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

Chris Jericho throws a tantrum, is very selective about how people should be allowed to win a No DQ match (a stipulation he requested) and insults Japanese people some more. In another great moment of heel-pocracy, he says the fact that he was the “longest reigning Intercontinental Champion of 2018” (with his months-long absence and one successful title defense), means he deserves a Heavyweight Championship match, the real-life timing of which probably depends on contract contents and hopefully won’t result in anyone treading water like Naito did for the better part of a year to wait for a 48-year-old cruise MC.

Tanahashi’s gotten his anger at Omega out (in contrast to Omega, if we take that Tokyo Sports interview as kayfabe, being a big baby and quitting because he lost) and wants to have a rubber match with him, another plot point that may or may not depend on contractual agreements.

But look who’s here right now! It’s Jay White and he has another of his bottomless supply of long, mean rants to deliver while dressed exactly like every boy I had a crush on through at least tenth grade. It’s pretty much up to Tanahashi at this point if he wants to accept his challenge since White doesn’t have a recent win over him. Tanahashi rejects that this is White’s era, but says he is “the key man in New Japan” right now because he united him and Okada (and also disrupted the entire faction ecosystem except for the unshakeable L.I.J. and Suzukigun.)

Now, Let Us Dash Into The New Year!!

This all brings us to New Year Dash!! at a packed Korakuen Hall on January 5, 2019. In recent years The NJPW After Wrestle Kingdom has brought big, game-changing surprises like Kenny Omega beating up AJ Styles and declaring himself leader of Bullet Club, Suzukigun returning from exile in Pro Wrestling NOAH, and Jericho surprise-attacking Naito and Jay White pretending to join Bullet Club and then attacking Omega. Wrestling-wise, it’s a show with a lot of multi-man tag matches.

Kevin Kelly says “anything could happen at any time here at New Year Dash” about halfway through the show, but nothing crazy does. The most surprising things are 1) Yoshi-Hashi can wrestle again!, and 2) the Elite aren’t there. I expected at least some of the Elite to show up and get turned on by Chase and Yujiro at some point, but they just peaced out after Wrestle Kingdom. Even that wasn’t really surprising because these guys have barely worked in NJPW since June.

The promotion went on without them, even while some of them continued to hold championships in absentia, which is partly why parts of the Wrestle Kingdom card felt so low-stakes. With the creative retooling we saw this fall to make up for some prominent characters not being around, NJPW set several of the big angles for early 2019 in motion before Wrestle Kingdom, and the rest begin at New Year Dash!! with normal pins in matches and/or challenges.

Best: Scary Monsters And Superkicks

Although the stuff NYD set in motion for the New Beginning tour mostly looks really promising, the actual show, I think partly due to that lack of a big surprise people expected, wasn’t a piece of must-see wrestling TV in itself.

The opener, in which Yoh, Sho, and Rocky Romero defeat Lance Archer, Davey Boy Smith Jr., and Takahashi Iizuka, sets the tone. The crowd, hot for most of the night, enjoys Iizuka’s entrance more than usual, the first part of the match is based around how Romero is half the size of Archer, and K.E.S. gets to no-sell even most double team moves from our shiny, junior heavyweight heroes. They eventually make an offensive comeback, but it looks like it might not be enough until Yoh pins Iizuka with a surprise roll-up and they put the “dash” in “January 5 Korakuen Hall show” as the cannibal gives chase. It’s a fun monsters vs. underdogs match and it gets the crowd going.

Worst: None Elite Wrestling

This is followed by the jobbingest tag match possible in New Japan without Yoshi-Hashi in which Chase Owens and Yujiro Takahashi defeat Tomoaki Honman and Toa Henare. Commentary tries to say there was always confusion about where the first team stood in the Bullet Club civil war, but Owens threw out his Honorary Tongan shirt and there were multiple tag matches based on G.O.D. being mad at Yujiro for coming to help Kenny in San Francisco. But I guess they were never in the Elite because the Elite characters are bad friends and never gave them new t-shirts, which is how they express all inter-personal connections.

Now Owens is wearing his BC vest, so we know they’re definitely going back to BC and not ditching the Elite/responding to being ditched by the Elite by joining Suzukigun or something. There’s a peak Chase Owens moment of him rolling away from the kokeshi twice and a peak Honma moment of Owens doing a Kokeshi better than him. Overall, this is a pretty skippable, average tag match that also puts Owens and the Pimp higher on the NJPW jobber hierarchy than Honman and Henare because Owens wins it with the package piledriver.

At one point in this match, Pieter, who looks amazing and has her whole entire ass out, actually gets involved for once and slaps Henare, which earns A LOT OF APPLAUSE. Henare responds to this by calling her a bitch backstage, evaporating all my goodwill towards this character as an underdog babyface, even if he does have better gear now! Maybe his frustration with never winning and Makabe leaving him and Honma for Yano will turn him heel? Who knows, but it seems like he has to get a win over someone who isn’t a Young Lion sometime this year.

Best/Worst: New Year, New G.o.D.

The NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship match between the Guerrillas of Destiny (whose new theme song intro reminds me of the intro to ye olde Jado & Gedo theme song (not the very good “Sharp Dressed Man” one from the early ’90s, but the more recent rap rock one), which might be a reach but also might not be since they inherited the Super Powerbomb) and Taiji Ishimori against the reunited MVP (Most Violent Players) (Togi Makabe and Toru Yano) and Ryusuke Taguchi turns out to be more importantly a setup for matches between the two established tag teams, and most importantly a setup for an IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match.

Taguchi looking like he might have Ishimori’s number is the real wrestling highlight of this match. The Coach actually fakes him out with the Bum-aye and locks on an ankle lock made even scarier-looking than usual by Ishimori selling the heck out of it. The contrast of the super serious Bone Soldier who tries to be scary all the time with Taguchi, who’s goofy all the time until he gets maybe even scarier is a dynamic I’m definitely interested in watching more. The backstage promos in which Taguchi is both here to issue quite a formal challenge and also put Ishimori on crutches for real and Ishimori disrespects the Funky Weapon only confirm this.

In heavyweight news, MVP seem like they’re breaking bad again, and G.o.D. is trying so hard, until it gets too hard, to break good. Tama Tonga gets introduced as “the Good Guy” and refuses to hit Yano on the ground (prompting a “good guy” chant; good job, Korakuen), and gets a sizable round of applause for whipping Yano into the unexposed corner. Tanga Loa and Makabe have less silly but still fun, tough guy chemistry with each other. An MVP chairshot to Loa would have won the match if not for Ishimori pulling out the ref (to boos), and with no rule of sports law everything breaks down even further. Chase and Yujiro end up the deciding factor in the match’s finish, stopping a King Kong Knee drop and weakening Makabe for Apeshit with a package piledriver.

Everything is really too sweet between the reunited Bullet Club, with hugs all around and the Good Guy giving the Pimp heart hands. The lovefest continues backstage, where Tonga is so sincerely emotional that Owens is put-off, but still happy the family is back together. Yujiro swears this time they’ll “never break up,” and I wish he had said that in Japanese so I would have a handily subtitled screencap for when this team inevitably breaks up in like two years.

Best/Worst: A Few More People Care About Chuckie T’s Mental Health Crisis This Time

Here are the best parts of FinJuice vs. the Best Friends:

• Beretta’s basically coast-to-coast, painful-looking double stop to Finlay draped over a barricade
• It shows that Beretta and Juice’s title match will probably be good (and I’m guessing on one of the New Beginning in USA shows since it hasn’t been announced yet, or maybe in ROH), and feature an extra-motivated Beretta
• The applause for Beretta’s mom, Sue, and Beretta going up into the stands to hug his mom, Sue

https://twitter.com/BulletClubIta/status/1081492852180434944?s=09

The perfectly fine tag match is cut short by interference from Chuckie T with a chair, which gets him disqualified, and actually gets some reaction from the audience this time. For the entire World Tag League and really the whole NJPW Best Friends run this year, these guys have not received loud crowd reactions for almost anything, but especially this angle. I think the most audible reaction they got was when Tanga Loa took two insane, unprotected chair shots to the head and got busted the heck open, and those were reactions to the blood/craziness. Kelly describes the quiet as “the fans at Korakuen don’t really know what to make of it,” because yeah, this isn’t Gedo turning on Okada, a lot of the fans in Japan aren’t all that invested in the Best Friends relationship yet.

Some things that are slightly different this mental break around is that Beretta takes a chair from Robinson when he’s about to hit Chuckie to save Finlay, and a brief, incredibly dumb moment where they hint that T might head towards Beretta’s mom. With Chuckie increasingly delusional and violent and now Beretta increasingly bitter backstage, maybe this will lead to a heel Best Friends. Maybe this will all be resolved after the US title feud. Whatever happens, I’m not sure that the live audiences will care.

Actual Best Wrestling Part of The Show: Aged Ace Age

The one really good match on the card is the six-man tag in which the Chaos team of Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto, and Will Ospreay defeat the team of nice guys who could destroy most people in a shoot fight, Yuji Nagata, Jeff Cobb, and Kushida. Ishii getting Kushida to bring it is SO GOOD and reminds you that KUSHIDA SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE TRUE OPENWEIGHT NEVER OPENWEIGHT CHAMPION, and Goto and Kushida really bring it to each other too. Cobb and Kushida’s teamwork is great in a way that makes you sad they might not be in the same ring for a long time; Ishii and Ospreay’s teamwork makes you glad they probably will. Ospreay ultimately wins the match with a kick (after we see him think about blindsiding Kushida with the Concussion Elbow) followed by a Stormbreaker.

The most exciting, least expected part of this match is the start of what feels like ONE LAST RIDE for Blue Justice (or at least a ride definitely on the tail end of his career) starting when Nagata breaks Ishii’s single leg crab on Kushida, they exchange strikes from the ring to the apron, and Ishii HEADBUTTS NAGATA OFF THE APRON. When Nagata is actually tagged in against Ishii later in the match they have one of those exchanges that makes you think “SINGLES MATCH IMMEDIATELY, PLEASE,” and Ospreay even gets booed for breaking them up. Fortunately, they exchange blows after the bell in a way that shows they definitely are going to go one-on-one. Nagata’s “DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THIS OLD MAN” and Ishii’s I’M NOT; FIGHT ME RIGHT NOW promos backstage even improve this a little more. Ishii might be the actual best wrestler at having feuds.

Worst: While You Were Not Concussing People, I Studied The Hidden Blade

Will Ospreay has played with people’s concern about him and injuries sustained while wrestling before, but it’s mostly been in response to people thinking they’re going to see him flip onto his neck and paralyze himself or die in front of their eyes. Here, he takes what he was already doing on Twitter in regards to working Ibushi’s concussion into his new, more badass persona a step further into the worked shoot realm, and I think it falls apart. The “I find it very funny that I have to explain my actions in a combat sport” is a perfect opening. When he references the dojo I thought he might actually bring up the guy who died there to point out his wrestling isn’t the most dangerous thing that’s happened in New Japan (but actually brought up Kanemitsu’s spine injury, which also works.)

But then he talks about there being no safe way to wrestle and accidents happening, which doesn’t fit with the whole kayfabe combat sports thing. I can suspend my disbelief and buy into someone having this ultra-concussing super elbow or that people walk away from five V-Triggers in a row without being knocked out, or, preferably, that there are just few-to-no concussions in the imaginary super-athlete world of pro wrestling. But why would this badass fighter care about hitting someone so hard in the head when it wasn’t even a KO or ref stoppage? Maybe he’s not that merciless after all?

But then the magician has to reveal his secret, that this is all a worked shoot, and really own all us fans with, “You have all invested into my story of using Ibushi as a stepping stone.” Someone needs to tell every wrestler that no matter how smart they think they sound, they always sound so dumb when they talk about storytelling in wrestling while on actual wrestling shows.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written about wrestling, I hope you can tell I love it and respect it as an art form and have a lot of respect for the performers involved. But when someone feels the need to break character/the fourth wall to say “RESPECT MY WRESTLING ART, PLEASE,” it breaks the fun, escapist, gut-level-reaction-producing suspension of disbelief people have while watching wrestling and makes that performer look like a tool. Wrestling is not that complicated or intellectual of an art form. The stories being told, the ones that really work, at least, are not all that complex, especially compared to any book or play or almost any movie or TV show.

Ospreay’s remarks also connect to the current trend of people who do not wrestle feeling the need to be very Pubicly Concerned on the internet about which wrestlers are Dangerous, as if the coworkers of these performers who have a way more hands-on knowledge of wrestling don’t know or care about this, so it’s up to the fans to Protect Them. Pro wrestling is dangerous and mistakes and injuries are going to happen. Rey Mysterio killed a guy. You could say Katsuyori Shibata killed a guy. Samoa Joe ended Tyson Kidd’s career. These people and others involved in serious injury incidents are all still working in prominent positions in the wrestling industry. It might be a good idea to consider that before becoming convinced people should lose their jobs.

On the performers’ end, it must feel terrible to get people telling them they’re going to kill somebody and/or should quit their job in their mentions, even if they’re in response to what’s at least partially a work. But when a performer acknowledges that they’re shaken by it, when they feel the need to shoot defend themself as well as work it into the storyline rather than choosing one or the other, it ultimately makes both the wrestler and the story look bad rather than just making people angry. Fully commit to the bit or don’t do it at all! Basically, the initial channeling of Nia Jax’s concussion heat worked so much better than Ospreay’s, and that’s why.

Anyway, now Ospreay’s going to work for a British company for a while and demands a challenger when he comes back. It seems like he’s trying to be less likable, and he’s succeeding, but hopefully the issues with this new elbow of doom and altered persona are at least partially worked out by the time he comes back.

Plot-Forwarding Multi-Man Tag Bests: Yoshi-Hashi And Suzukigun Are Back With Varying Degrees Of Vengeance And Success

The show closes with two matches that are very much of the Plot-Forwarding Multi-Man Tag genre, Suzukigun vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon and Bullet Club vs. the Mega Powers and their emotional support wrestler (the wrestler is with them for his own emotional support.)

We saw two separate, lengthy arcs of L.I.J. vs Suzukigun tag matches last year, and NJPW’s most stable factions are now AT IT AGAIN, but in different combinations. I love how clearly they all pair off in the post-match beatdown: Taichi vs. Naito for the IC title, the junior tag team vs. the other junior tag team, and the Heavyweight Tag Team Championship feud also including Suzuki vs. Sanada and (FINALLY) Evil vs. Zack Sabre Jr. singles matches.

The Sanada and Suzuki feud (aka please both fix your hair; you guys are stressing me out) heightens so quickly in this match and could be a really good thing for the Cold Skull. The thing about Sanada is that he’s technically skilled and super athletic and funny and handsome and popular and has good t-shirts and had some really good moments in the 2018 G1, but he still hasn’t really broken out as a singles star. It’s possible that letting this dude shine as a hero against a big villain will be the opportunity he needs to make it to the next level. It’s not like feuds or matches with Suzuki are infallible in terms of getting babyfaces more over, but they work out really well for some people.

If not, Sanada’s already a heck of a tag wrestler. And if this doesn’t take him to the next level, at least this feud has already given us the amazing moment of Suzuki baiting Sanada into thinking he could put him in the Paradise Lock, which would have been the greatest moment in pro wrestling history, but actually locking him in an armbar.

The main feud here, which starts the match with a (light) unprotected chairshot to the head, though is obviously Naito vs. Taichi, renewing the Holy Emperor’s first rivalry as the heavyweight that made people realize he kind of owns when he’s playing with the big boys. Naito sells Taichi’s attacks amazingly (as usual, this dude is incredible at getting the crowd’s sympathy), and falls to the combination of a ref distraction, a strike with the white belt, and the Black Mephisto.

And if 2019 is going to be the year of any wrestler in New Japan, Switchblade excepted, it’s going to be the year of Taichi. A year into his move to the heavyweight division, it’s clear his cult popularity is not a flash in the pan. He even gets HUGE APPLAUSE from a crowd with a lot of L.I.J. merch for telling L.I.J. fans to never show up again. He’ll have to do something to Naito as bad as he did to Goto in their first NEVER Openweight Championship match to not get cheered a lot for winning the IC title, if he wins the IC title.

Our main event features Yoshi-Hashi returning just to job, which is peak Yoshi-Hashi. It also sets up White vs. Tanahashi for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and Fale vs. Okada because sure, fine. Highlights of this match include the top of Jay White’s white t-shirt being see-through because of his sopping wet hair, another pop for the reveal of the short boys, and a bigger pop for Yoshi-Hashi being tagged in. The Mega Powers set White up for him with their one (1) tag team move, the double back elbow, and Yoshi-Hashi dropkicks him, which is a good moment, but sadly the extent of his revenge on the guy who yelled at him a lot and created the circumstance in which he devastatingly tripped.

After some more victimizing of Yoshi-Hashi by Gedo, Okada is tagged in for a few crowd-pleasing moments, but White vs. Tanahashi is where we see the passion of a renewed one-on-one feud. White doesn’t get to make a statement against the Ace personally, but after kicking out of Yoshi-Hashi’s new move and preventing Karma, Blade Runners the Head Hunter for a pinfall victory while looking right at Tanahashi.

On the mic, White taunts Tanahashi, calling him old, to try and provoke him into a title shot, and also to lure him into a gang beating. Backstage, Tanahashi, somehow managing to play a broken old man and a beautiful demigod at the same time, promises to tour all of Japan with the Heavyweight Championship. But when White, after dropping Ye Olde Bullet Club Catchphrase, swears to strip the belt, among other things, from Tanahashi and his broken body, I’m not totally convinced he won’t become champion. (It might depend on when Chris Jericho’s available.)

But before that or anything else previewed at New Year Dash!! happens, I will see you back here to talk about Fantastica Mania 2019, when CMLL guest stars come over for a tour with lots of lucha libre.