The Best And Worst Of NJPW: Road To Power Struggle 2018, Part 1

Previously on NJPW: We could now see an official Bullet Club shirt that says “Gedo Club” on it with a skull with a headband over its eyes, our arthritic Ace got one step closer to his complete comeback, and the Golden Lovers? More like Red Flags, amiright?

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And now, the best and worst of Road to Power Struggle from October 16-17 2018, at Korakuen Hall.

Best/Worst: Grizzled Young Vets And Vice Versa

After the many Big Moments and overall weirdness of the Destruction tour, Fighting Spirit Unleashed, and King of Pro Wrestling, we returned to regular NJPW programming with a very shaken up landscape. As we start down the Road to Power Struggle, we see new enemies and alliances in the heavyweight division interact in tag team matches, plus a variety of junior heavyweight tag teams show their stuff in Super Junior Tag League matches. Overall, this made for some entertaining [internet] wrestling TV.

Both of the Road to Power Struggle shows started with a Young Lion eight man tag and a pre-Wrestle Kingdom main event six man tag. They’re almost rematches except for Henare and Honma switching teams. It turns out they worked out a joint custody plan for partnership with Togi Makabe between King of Pro Wrestling and the Power Struggle tour, and I’m imagining it was through either an extremely emotional, untelevised singles match that went to a time limit draw or a Judgement of Solomon situation. I’m putting these matches in this cop-out Best/Worst category just because I think the opening matches on the 16th were noticeably better than the ones the next day!

Narita, Umino, and Henare vs. Uemura, Tsuji, and Yoshida puts what Kevin Kelly describes as “a lot of future money in that ring” for a classic of the Young Lion match genre, if that’s a genre for which anyone is putting together a canon. Everyone’s super fired up and playing to their limited strengths. The beefier boys, Henare and Tsuji, having a yell-heavy, baby tough guy fight, and the Narita vs. Uemura mini-rivalry focuses on mat wrestling (and Narita especially with submissions.) The sequence of Narita and Uemura trying to tap each other out with Boston Crabs is also a good exhibition of how these trainee wrestlers are forced to get extra creative to make their limited-moveset, minimal character matches engaging.

Lion’s Gate rivals Umino and Yoshida have more to do in the next show’s opener and continue to look like the most obvious future main event wrestlers of the bunch. This match switches out Henare for Honma, and whenever the veteran deathmatch wrestler tags in things slow way down and lose that desperate energy that tends to be a big factor in making YL matches compelling.

For some reason, I think just the perils of Twitter, I saw that Tanahashi was facing Ibushi instead of Omega in preview tags on this tour before I watched the KOPW main event and I got all annoyed about Ibushi’s booking and the current IWGP Heavyweight Champion’s work schedule. And then I watched the KOPW main event and this made perfect sense! Tanahashi mentioned that Ibushi is being held back by Omega after their G1 Final match, then Omega blatantly cheated to prevent Ibushi from taking his title and now, despite seeing the champ cheat to prevent him assuming his position, Ibushi is filling in for his duties on this tour because Omega, like L.I.J. called out during Kizuna Road, doesn’t want to work the smaller shows when he doesn’t absolutely have to. (In contrast, we see his WK challenger high-fiving fans around the entire venue after undercard tag matches on a Road To.)

Anyway, Ibushi leads the least Bullet Club Elite BCE team possible (Ibushi is the least BC and responds to Too Sweets with high fives, and Chase Owens and the Tokyo Pimp basically proletariat) (also, if that Last BC-style Shirt thing by the BTE guys is a legit storytelling device, it looks like Owens could be a sleeper OG) against a much more aesthetically and morally consistent veteran team. The crowd is extremely into the Ibushi-Tanahashi super babyface handsome battle/G1 Final rematch when they tease it briefly, then bring it back later in the match. Tanahashi, still pursuing that complete comeback, has basically the same energy as the Young Lions in the opener.

We also continue the story of Ibushi’s mysterious inner turmoil. We see Chase and Yujiro engage in their usual goon shenanigans and Ibushi refuse to help out with anything against the rules of sports, but also not respond to Tanahashi’s gesture to join his squad (now potentially Ibushi, Yoshi-Hashi, Hangman Page, and maybe GBH; I’m not sure how separate this would be from Taguchi Japan.)

The semi-rematch the next night with Henare switched out for Honma is a bit weaker because of some goofy spots with him and the clash within the Elite team throwing off the flow of the match a bit more. But man, when Ibushi and Tanahashi are in the ring again it is very hot fire, and we also get to see Chase Owens pick up his first win in a while.

Backstage on the 16th, Tanahashi continues to try to be a home wrecker for a good cause. He says that “All the pro-wrestlers I know want to make themselves number one!” which I think is probably directed at Ibushi, or at least referencing his situation, saying he’s denying a central part of being a pro wrestler by letting Omega be above him. He makes things a little clearer on the next show, and brings back that talking point about “elegance” in pro wrestling, which I’m not sure is an exact translation, but was also the word he used to describe the opposite of the “cruelty” in wrestling he talked about in his press conference with Kenny.

It’s still a little cryptic, but I think he’s basically talking saying that elegance in pro wrestling is using fighting spirit to push through and win rather than underhanded tactics, and also maybe setting a good example? Whatever Tanahashi’s talking about exactly sounds like some pretty stand-up babyface values, and they definitely seem to have some appeal to Ibushi. I’m invested!

Best: *Extended Air Horn Blast*

The two matches between Chaos (Best Friends, Yano, Okada) and the Bullet Club OGs (G.o.D., Fale, Jay White, accompanied by Gedo and Jado) (it still feels very weird to type about Gedo and Jado being in Bullet Club) further the feud for the inevitable Okada vs. White II: The Revenge and let us get to know our half-new heel faction. Here’s the first thing we learn: Jado’s new outfit reminds me of those David S. Pumpkins skeleton dudes and he has a kendo stick and an airhorn now and he just blows the air horn ONE TIME before the rest of the team enters, not even doing the triple blast that DJs put in songs, just one, extended air horn blast. I respect the heck out of this very annoying creative choice.

Kelly talks about this BC team as a temporary alliance, but also points out “for the long hall, as long as they all stay working together” they’re “built for long-term success.” For the first tag match, Jay White still does his own individual entrance, which seems very much not in the OG spirit and supports Kelly’s doubts about the team, but the rest of the guys don’t seem to mind, and he comes out with the rest of the team on the 17th. Backstage, after Fale yells the slogan of the Tongan rugby team, White plays way nicer with his new brothers than he ever did with his Chaos stablemates. He emphasizes the one for all, all for one BCOG mentality and even calls G.o.D. the “best f*cking tag team in the world.” So maybe they’ll feud and break up at some point in the future, but the new squad seems pretty functional for now.

The BCOG team also has good chemistry in the ring and displays a solid mix of good tag wrestling and obnoxious cheating, include Jado hitting someone in the back with the kendo stick, a thing that no ref should ever let someone bring to ringside, ever! And though they do some comedy spots, they don’t have that ironic performative vibe you get from the BTE guys sometimes, and overall have definitely established themselves by now as their own group.

But the main purpose of these tag matches is to stoke the flames of the already very hot rivalry between Switchblade and the Rainmaker. Okada still has the balloons and he’s still a weirdo (he’s always been a sleeper weirdo), but he looks way more alive now that he has the clear motivation of revenge against Gedo and Jay White. He wants to fight White right at the beginning of the first tag match, but the OGs intentionally deny this faceoff beyond a really satisfying dropkick. They fight in the crowd and finally start to really go at it in the ring on the 17th, but the match ends before we can get anything resembling closure. White holds Okada back for Gedo to punch him with brass knuckles for a very intentional, statement DQ.

To add insult to injury, White sets up a Blade Runner on Okada right after this, but TANAHASHI runs in to make the save! Okada and Tanahashi both say they’re not allies or friends at all and are just taking care of business, but also they’re both making sure to say THIS MEANS NOTHING (Tanahashi: “What can I say? I just didn’t want to owe him one.”) so much that I think/really hope we could be building to a temporary Okada-Tanahashi alliance tag team or something.

Fale and Jay White also theorize about this mega powers situation backstage and Fale guesses that “maybe they’re Golden Lovers like the other fellas,” with this hand gesture to insinuate gay stuff, for some reason:

I wouldn’t go that far, but if Jay and Fale are reading this and would like to send me their additional theories/ fan fiction, my DMs are open!

Worst: Mononymy Is Unrealistic

Beretta looks good in these Chaos vs. BCOG tag matches, and takes the opportunity backstage and while sitting in on English commentary to challenge Cody for the United States Championship. Why? Because “when I was in a different company… Cody Rhodes beat me on their TV show in about two minutes. This was eight years ago, and it’s bothered me ever since. Because I knew then and I know now that I am a better wrestler than Cody Rhodes, it’s that single. Cody, United States Championship. I won a shot. That’s it.”

This is the lamest championship feud setup in the world! Greg is referencing a match from the April 4, 2011 episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown back when he was a jobber and Cody was a handsome legacy wrestler and both of them had both first and last names. It lasted 1:29, according to cagematch, and Beretta also lost to Cody in 0:52 on March 15 of the same year. Cody is never on New Japan programming and has interacted with almost no one outside of his own faction in 2018, so now they have to go back deep into the archives of another wrestling company for feud material. This is even dumber than Juice suddenly caring a lot about Wrestle Kingdom 11.

So far, Cody has responded to this challenge via Twitter poll.

If they could either take this title off Cody ASAP or have him work here a lot more so he can actually have good feuds with people, I would really appreciate it!

Best: Y2JWYD

In other remote, half-ex-WWE guy feud news, Chris Jericho cut a video promo on Evil! The content of it is way less crazy that his previous NJPW promos (a little disappointing, but quoting Psalms and then putting a printed out render of Evil in his mouth at the end showed that extreme midlife crisis spirit is still in there), but way more racist! He insulted Japan backstage at KOPW, but here says he respects the King of Darkness because he “showed some balls. Something that most Japanese never do, the most timid race in the entire world. Japanese, scared of their own shadows.”

It’s really interesting to me that in the biggest year for New Japan’s expansion so far, it seems like they’ve been using foreign talent to hook the foreign audience (I know Jericho vs. Omega at WK 12 was a huge draw of new eyes to the product, and deservedly so), but have still done Foreign Outsider vs. Japanese Hero angles. Dominion saw a huge amount of non-Japanese wrestlers win titles, and those that still have them are heels in basically those types of storylines, though in different ways. But still, the role and reception of foreign wrestlers is way different than it was back in the days of the Antonio Inoki vs. Tiger Jeet Singh feud and the audience rioting when Big Van Vader defeated Riki Choshu and Inoki. I think it partly has to do with some non-Japanese wrestlers training in the dojo, being recruited by Japanese wrestlers, and/or sticking around in the company for long periods of time, helping make them more marketable as babyfaces or more complex heel characters in Japan, but I don’t really know. I really don’t know anything about Japan, but I know I find this “have your foreign heels and market them to their home countries too” situation pretty fascinating.

All this aside, the next step in the Evil-Jericho feud is obviously for Evil to sneak on the Jericho Cruise in disguise and throw its frontman into international waters!

Worst: Harmful [To] Ribs

The majority of the Road to Power Struggle so far has consisted of the Super Junior Tag League, and it’s been pretty freaking great. We have a variety of tag teams new and old and because they’re doing this as a round-robin league this year rather than a single elimination tournament, there are more opportunities for more surprising match results while still allowing us to see all these teams wrestle a bunch.

I think the only really weak match of the tournament so far was Super 69 (ACH and Taguchi) vs. the BCOG team of Robbie Eagles and Taiji Ishimori from October 17. We see some good comedy and serious wrestling from Taguchi and some high drama and athleticism moments between former tag partners (and finals of the 2016 tournament) Ishimori and ACH, but things get weird and concerning after Ishimori counters a plancha from ACH outside the ring.

Commentary really emphasizes how badly ACH’s ribs could be hurt, and the OGs continue to target that area. But it looks like ACH might be shoot struggling, and his opponents shift their focus to one of his legs. It doesn’t make a ton of sense as a kayfabe gameplan. There’s good stuff in the match, but it feels a little off. Ishimori ultimately pins ACH after a Bloody Cross for the win, and ACH looks like he’s crying or close to it, and gets examined by trainers. He eventually throws off the ice pack and limps out of the ring.

Backstage, ACH continues to look legitimately upset in a different way from how he acted sad about losses during BOSJ. He cuts the most serious and convincingly intense promo than I’ve heard from him. I hope he’s physically okay and I’m just getting worked by very good acting and selling, because I’m legitimately concerned about this dude’s body now, and am rooting for this tour to go well for him and lead to him getting more opportunities to show up in NJPW. The dude is really good and it seems like he should be getting featured in a high profile wrestling promotion!

Best: Good Lucha Things

I thought the rest of Super Junior Tag League so far was really entertaining, and also able to be split into mid-tier good matches and very good matches. Here are what I thought were the mid-tier good ones!

The tournament opens with Taiji Ishimori and Robbie Eagles defeating Tiger Mask and Jushin Thunder Liger. I hadn’t seen much of Eagles, who’s worked with Will Ospreay on the indies and did the New Japan Australian house show tour, before this, and he looked pretty good here. He’s also obnoxious in the same way as the rest of his new team, and I appreciate that he puts a scope on his finger gun because he’s the Sniper of the Skies.

Overall, Eagles is like if the Miz was born ten years later and got really into Machine Gun Kelly and doing flips and maybe drugs, and it’s fun to see him get kicked really hard by Tiger Mask.

Tiger Liger is initially a way more cohesive tag team, but our Bullet Club boys get it together by the end of the match. After Ishimori focuses on one of Liger’s legs, Eagles hits it with a 450 splash and then taps him out with an Inverted Figure Four. It’s not the most impressive tag team debut ever, but it’s pretty good.

This is followed by a comedy-lucha combo match in which the CMLL guest star team of Volador Jr. and Soberano Jr. defeats ACH and Taguchi. Kevin Kelly tells those who don’t know that Volador is a recent hair match victim and talks a lot about the breakdown of his tag relationship with Matt Taven, but doesn’t talk about the actual important outcome of the 85 Aniversario de CMLL main event match, which was Rush not losing the best head of hair in the wrestling business. I don’t watch a ton of CMLL, but if you put this man’s hair on the line, I will TUNE IN!

ACH and Taguchi doing rugby and butt-based comedy spots is fun, although ACH getting winded running around is a lot less believable than when this happens to Taguchi. Volador sells Taguchi’s hip attacks like he’s getting punched in the head, which is great. Soberano does some really cool high-flying, and ACH and Volador are crazy athletic in a similar way and make an exciting combo to watch. The recently shorn luchador hits a super Frankensteiner for the win. Also, his ear stitches come out and it looks pretty gross.

Backstage, Volador says his messed-up ear doesn’t even hurt because of his MEXICAN PRIDE. Like most CMLL guest stars in NJPW tournaments, they say that they’re here to represent their home promotion and country and win! They probably will not even get close to winning, but they bring some cool stylistic variety to the tournament. And about halfway through their match with Tiger Liger, I wrote in my notes “I want to watch more Soberano matches,” so I guess they’re doing a good job achieving their promotional goals.

League competition starts on the 17th with this match, and it’s pretty fun. Tiger Mask and Liger don’t have the mobility or speed that they used to, but their experience working with luchadors still shows. Volador and Soberano both do some really entertaining high-flying (backed by Rocky Romero dropping some interesting lucha knowledge on color commentary.) They focus in on the same knee of Liger that the BCOGs targeted the previous show, but the vets ultimately pick up the win after a series of signature offense, with a Tiger Suplex finally putting Soberano Jr. away.

Best: Super Juniors Saiko

The semi-main and main events for both shows feature that next level good junior heavyweight tag team action with the bonus of much more immediate significant consequences for the weight class.

On the 16th, we see the debut of the extremely wholesome fusion of the Time Splitters and Motor City Machines Guns, the team of pin-eater guest star Chris Sabin and IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Kushida. They’re called either Time Machine or The Tag Team of the Future, and they got Alex Shelley’s blessing and a song dedication on Twitter.

Their very different opponents, our sleazy jerk Suzukigun tag champs Kanemaru and El Desperado, kick them in their guts right as their names are announced, and are not at all messing around in this match. Both teams work together really well and Sabin and Kushida show off double team offense reminiscent of both the Time Splitters and MCMG. Things take a turn in Suzukigun’s favor when they beat up our heroes out in the crowd, but Sabin and Kushida recover and are just so good at wrestling. Sabin hits the Hail Sabin cradle shock but ohhhh my gosh the ref is pulled out. I was enjoying the tag team wrestling and the new team so much that I didn’t realize this happened at all! They really got me.

After whisky and a spear and Pinche Loco, Desperado pins Sabin for the win. Sabin and Kushida had a really good debut, but Despy and Kanemaru show that combination of smarts and low moral fiber that’s allowed them to hang on to these championships for so long. Backstage, we get a rare glimpse of Kushida speaking English, and Kanemaru tells us this match was probably 2 deep 4 us.

Step aside, Kenny Omega! There’s a new groundbreaking storyteller in town in the form of Suzukigun’s drunk uncle!

The next night, Sabin and Kushida perform well but lose again to Shingo Takagi and Bushi because of course they do, the L.I.J. guys have the power of red eyeliner, a combination skull-pumpkin-punk-cat (?) entrance mask, and Takagi definitely being physically a heavyweight on their side!

Takagi vs. Kushida is unsurprisingly super good, with Kushida scientifically working on Shingo’s arm, which he sells for the rest of the match. L.I.J. matches the time travel enthusiasts in terms of teamwork and everyone looks their best in a really entertaining and well-done match before Takagi pins Sabin after a Last of the Dragon (the new name for the Last Falconry.) If you haven’t watched these shows and only have time to watch like three under-thirty minute wrestling matches this week, I would definitely recommend this match and the next two I’m going to talk about!

The main events from both these shows absolutely feel like main events, like the best and most important matches on their cards to which everything else has been building. On the 16th, Shingo Takagi and Bushi defeat last year’s tournament winners, Roppongi 3K. Takagi’s very Dragon Warrior pre-match attire is super cool, but ladies visibly swoon over Sho and Yoh so they still win the entrance game.

Sho and Shingo have a fired-up, definitely future heavyweights fight. L.I.J. gains the upper hand by taking their opponents out in the crowd, then double-teaming Sho back in the ring, but Roppongi 3K starts to shine soon. The match is full of hot tags and cool moments for all the wrestlers individually and as teams. Takagi comes out of it looking extra impressive when he gets the pin.

L.I.J. has now defeated the last year’s tournament winners and multiple time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, and the crowd is into them. Takagi clarifies again that he is NOT here to replace Hiromu, but he’s very much part of the team and starts the Ingobernable Fist.

At first, Bushi denies it because SURPRISE, Naito and Sanada were here the whole time in FULL SUITS to support their teammates, and Evil’s here too in his G1 press conference rock star outfit, holding Hiromu’s jacket. Kelly, the next night, describes L.I.J.’s fashion game as “so much money just dripping off of ’em,” so, you know, L.I.J. drip go tranquilo on a bitch, or something like that. Basically these guys just keep being the coolest squad.

After this loss, Rocky cuts a serious and good promo on behalf of his team. Roppongi 3K can be goofy, and they’ve been extra goofy for a while, but they’re very serious about competing at a high level in the junior heavyweight tag team division and this is the time of year in which that means the most.

The following night, they finally, in terms of win-loss record against non-Young Lions, get out of their funk when they defeat the tag champions that have been cheating to beat them and making fun of them for most of the year.

Suzukigun jumps Rocky as Roppongi 3K enters, then goes after his boys when they go to save him. But Romero does a cool-looking job of saving himself because, as Chuckie T on commentary points out, “people take advantage of him because he’s wearing jeans right now, but he’s one of the baddest juniors ever.”

The actual wrestling starts with Sho vs. Kanemaru, and soon ends when the champs take Sho and Yoh out into the audience to beat them up. Kanemaru keeps Sho occupied and far away from tag range while Desperado and Yoh face off in the ring. Roppongi 3K continue to be basically murdered for a while until Sho finally gets tagged in and goes high voltage. Despite some shenanigans that stop the set up for a 3K, Yoh is able to pick up a creative W after he pushes Kanemaru into Desperado, then rolls him up and bridges back into the Five Star Clutch.

Suzukigun almost immediately start stomping on Sho and Yoh, but our winners still look confident, knowing they just earned a title shot and their first points of the tournament, as they stare the champions down and during their promos to the crowd and backstage. Things are finally looking up for the very lovable and talented Roppongi 3K.

After October 16-17, the Super Junior Tag League points look like this:

0 points – 0-2 – Super 69, Time Machine
2 points – 1-1 – Tiger Liger, Team CMLL, Suzukigun, Roppongi 3K
4 points – 2-0 – BCOGs, L.I.J.

I’ll see you back your later this month after we get more of the high drama in the heavyweight division and probably cool tag matches for the smaller guys (and Shingo) on the next Road to Power Struggle shows. There’s nothing televised until October 26, but the rest of the SJTL matches should be uploaded on NJPW World about a day after they take place between now and then.