The Best And Worst Of NJPW: Road to Power Struggle 2018, Part 2

Previously on NJPW: Suzukigun stayed ichiban at cheating, the Bullet Club Elite rebranded online, and the spirit of Alex Shelley blessed Kushida and Chris Sabin with a victory.

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And now, after a period of untelevised house shows that included Super Junior Tag League matches, the best and worst of Road to Power Struggle from October 26-27 at Korakuen Hall.

Best: Dad Issues

In the second match of each of these Road to Power Struggle shows, Minoru Suzuki and Tomohiro Ishii continue their evergreen rivalry. On the first night, they go so hard and so consistently with the elbows that they look like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.

Suzuki tags in Taka Michinoku after spitting on Ishii. Michinoku’s offense does borderline nothing to the Stone Pitbull, and Suzuki slides back in the ring after Ishii knocks him off the apron. The ref just can’t stop them from fighting. Yano eventually rolls up Taka for the win, but it’s pretty much irrelevant because the other two just get back in the ring and start elbowing each other again.

They keep fighting backstage for an unspecified length of time. The next show, Suzukigun brings TAICHI, who shows up looking like a mid-2000s Ed Hardy-enthusiast douchebag and gets on commentary.

The Holy Emperor, still not on the card for Power Struggle at this point after Will Opsreay’s injury, promotes TakaTaichi 5 as the other two Suzukigun OGs take on the Chaos thicc, no-nonsense dad duo of Ishii and Hirooki Goto.

Chaos actually jumps Suzuki and Taka Michinoku before they can jump them before the bell, but Ishii is soon in peril. He starts to do the best version of his signature no-selling, where you can see him ABSORB the pain from a kick, and he and the Suzuki start knocking each other so hard they dramatically stagger backward but refuse to fall. They both collapse after slapping each other in the face. Their rivalry is truly beautiful.

Goto is finally tagged in and wins the match with a GTR to Michinoku after Suzuki and Ishii have fought themselves completely out of the arena. Goto, who just looked like a boss completely washing Taka, gets on the mic and challenges Taichi for the NEVER Openweight Championship. Taichi declines the challenge, saying the fans, who are chanting for Goto, don’t think he deserves it.

Goto, in the ring and backstage, says he’s doing this for Ospreay, who would have definitely beaten Taichi for the title, but also mentions that he’s facing Jeff Cobb in America soon and “I can’t face him empty-handed.” Hmm, I suspect that might be more the reason than the need to avenge his little British buddy! After a snarky twitter poll from Taichi, the company approves Goto’s challenge. Goto/Taichi II will go down at Power Struggle 2018, and I’m very interested to see 1) these guys beat the crap out of each other again, and 2) where Goto goes from here.

Best: The Anti-White Alliance

I thought the Bullet Club OGs (confirmed to be the only Bullet Club now via announcement on the Jericho Cruise, which is extremely bad and bougie, but that first part not in the way Migos were talking about) vs. Chaos tag matches might just be entertaining filler until Power Struggle, but NOPE, SO MUCH HAPPENED on the 26th, and then SO MUCH MORE HAPPENED on the 27th! I’m talking, of course, about JAY WHITE PULLING HIS HAIR BACK. Switchblade now uses the same half-ponytail hairstyle I used while playing soccer as an awkward young teen, and the sight of this shook me to my core.

Besides that, we see Jay White, Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, and Gedo defeat Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, Beretta, Chuckie T, and Rocky Romero on October 26. Romero finally gets to get in the ring with the guys he’s been picking fights with on commentary and social media! After a tease of White vs. Okada, the match starts with Tonga vs. Goto, with the son of Meng selling all over the place.

https://twitter.com/GIFSkull/status/1055768179006291968?s=09

The whole match is a lot of fun, with Chuckie T winning over the crowd and looking great, a Roppongi Vice + Best Friends/#DIRL reunion hug, and the BC guys antagonizing Okada both personally and by illegally brutalizing Beretta so much that the Rainmaker barely restrains himself from just running in the ring untagged and fighting.

FINALLY, Okada is tagged in, and at the same time as Gedo. He gets in a series of FOREARMS OF VENGEANCE and then has to deal with his old manager’s whole new squad. The Rainmaker looks great and even heroic, which before this storyline was not a way he’d looked for a long time. Romero also gets some lower stakes revenge against BC with Forever Clotheslines and a series of ranas. Okada protects Romero from a brass knuckles attack by Gedo, but the Roppongi 3K manager soon falls to the Blade Runner.

Backstage, Chuckie T continues to wish actual death by decapitation and/or a car crush on Gedo and Jado, and Beretta hits all the best anti-Cody talking points in a quality promo on the IWGP United States Champion.

On the heel side, Jay White is very angry and at his most tryhard, his voice cracking as he yells his catchphrase. “YOU STILL DON’T REALIZE HOW MUCH OF A THREAT I AM… OKADA, TAKE ME SERIOUSLY. I’M GOING TO END YOUR F*CKIN’ LIFE. I GUARANTEE YOU THAT. WE ARE THE BULLET CLUB, AND THIS IS THE CUTTHROAT ERAAAAAA.” He’s not a cool guy at all, but a guy who’s trying SO HARD to be a cool bad guy! The problem is, as Okada has learned already, beneath the Switchblade act is a good wrestler who’s also good at cheating.

The next OGs vs. Chaos tag (with Yano switched out for Goto, who’s busy getting back into the NEVER title picture) is even MORE eventful and includes an actual historic New Japan moment!

The Bullet Club boys enter very much feeling themselves, and both teams trash talk each other before the match begins. We see Yano vs. Fale, Beretta vs. Tonga, and Okada taking White deep into the crowd to brawl ASAP. Chuckie T is the main guy who gets beaten up by the OGs this match, and his very thorough ass-kicking results in an extra hot crowd for the eventual tag to Okada. Again, the fired up Okada and Romero score some easy-to-root for offense, but the match ends after a Blade Runner to the junior heavyweight. This one was while White was not the legal man though; he just pulled Gedo onto Rocky after hitting his finisher right in front of the ref, so it really seemed like this should have been a DQ or a not-counted pin.

Okada jumps in the ring and starts beating up White as the classic Bullet Club theme hits, but falls to the ol’ numbers game. But as Jay sets up for a Blade Runner, TANAHASHI runs in and fights off everyone and looks super heroic! He urges Okada up, and they double back elbow Tama Tonga together! They try to get White too, but he dodges their attempt and powders out. The Okada-Tanahashi tag team maneuver is a little slow and awkward, which makes sense because if they’ve done this move together before, it hasn’t been since Okada was a Young Lion. The two biggest babyface powers in NJPW are now united against this greasy goth and his jerk friends, and they make it official with THE MOST POWERFUL HANDSHAKE IN THE WORLD.

I love that backstage, pure face Okada is still a brat to the Ace, even as he admits they are now friends.

Jay White is completely shook, which makes him inflate his ego even further and take credit both for this (fair) and the Golden Lovers reunion (a stretch.) “I don’t know what it is. Maybe everyone just wants to increase their worth by being in the presence of the Switchblade…” I’ll go with a hard maybe on that, my dude. But wow, who would have thought at this time last year that Jay White would be the catalyst for something this huge?

Best/Worst: Less Than Fresh Meat

These Road to Power Struggle shows were mostly very entertaining wrestling television, and I didn’t think there was anything really bad about the wrestling parts. But like in the first set of televised Road to Power Struggle shows, I think the less standout good bits were the Young Lion openers and Wrestle Kingdom main event preview tag matches, which saw that same switch of Henare and Honma’s positions between the first and second night at Korakuen.

The opener of the 26th is a fun rookie bout with good energy. It contains a bit of the Shota Umino vs. Ayato Yoshida rivalry that becomes the main focus of the Young Lion match on the 27th. They have a good energy together and it’s easy to see why they’re working together more now. I like Yoshida as a cocky heel too, especially because it’s another piece of evidence to support my case that he should be Suzuki’s next Handsome PK Son tag partner.

It’s obviously not the most dramatic Tanahashi-related development of these nights, but we also see some progress in the storyline involving Ibushi, Tanahashi, and absent Omega (who’s been participating via Austin Aries-tier tweets and calling the shows he isn’t on “terrible” while on a cruise) in the context of some six-man tag team matches. Perfect angel Kota Ibushi again refuses to Too Sweet his sleazy friends, now really procrastinating on his gang initiation. In the first match, Tanahashi and Ibushi are again amazing in the ring together. The Ace pins Chase Owens after a High Fly Flow (set up with a Kokeshi from Honma), then circles Ibushi with his briefcase. Outside the ring, Ibushi can be seen visibly thinking, fist on his chin. Possibly this is how he always looks when he’s thinking and we’ve just never seen him do it before.

Backstage, Ibushi says his feeling on this tour are “getting away from [him,]” and he doesn’t know what Tanahashi is trying to do. Tanahashi continues to get SO CLOSE to saying exactly what bugs him so much about Kenny Omega, but doesn’t “feel like putting it all out there.”

The following night, we learn that Ibushi’s theme song is not great for erotic dancing, but Yujiro’s lady friend tries her best! We also see a nice transition of a rana by Ibushi into a Texas Cloverleaf by Tanahashi, and Chase Owens get his first win in a while over Henare. Tanahashi and Ibushi have another ~moment~ after the match, and backstage Ibushi FINALLY STARTS TO PUT THINGS TOGETHER.

He says he doesn’t know why Kenny isn’t here and why he’s always in the same match with Tanahashi on this tour… but it might be because he’s been relegated Kenny’s “stand-in.” So apparently no one, not even Omega, told Ibushi before this tour that he’d be fighting his partner’s battles. He says he knows the Golden Lovers vs. Tanahashi and Finlay tag match at Power Struggle is “supposed to be Kenny’s warmup match, but maybe I’ll take some kind of action too.” I am very excited for this guy to STICK UP FOR HIMSELF…but hope it doesn’t happen in a stupid way that makes the wrestling match bad, see: the dumb friendship bits of the triple threat, etc.

Worst: 2 Old Scorpio/Emily Is A Coward

I should probably mention that these Road to Power Struggle shows included a temporary new English commentary team of Mavs Gillis, Chris Carlton, and Lanny Poffo – yep, “Leaping” Lanny Poffo, little brother of the Macho Man. Poffo is 63 years old, has never notably worked in Japan, and has no notable experience on commentary. After hearing the bleak opening exchange about Poffo’s travels to New Zealand and someone telling me about the later line, “Ryusuke Taguchi. His name is more difficult to pronounce than Sho and Yoh,” I just gave up and switched to Japanese commentary. This dude got flown out to Japan for this gig! Almost all of the minimum and close to minimum wage jobs I’ve had have involved talking to people with names or accents I had to concentrate to understand, and everyone I knew at these jobs worked harder at not being cultural dumbasses for probably less pay.

It’s bizarre to me that people in charge of hiring English commentary for New Japan keep coming to the conclusion that what the audience wants to hear is a very old wrestling man who thinks most of the roster’s names are weird. (See also: Jim Ross, even after calling NJPW since 2015.) If I’m watching wrestling from a country I don’t live in with English commentary, it really does not make it more accessible for that commentary to have an element of, “People who aren’t from America, aren’t they weird and different?” I honestly think that encourages the English-speaking audience not to engage with the performers who don’t share their cultural background on the same level as the rest of the roster.

But Mavs Gillis seemed informed and like he was doing a good job though, so apologies for abandoning your work, Mavs Gillis! (Kevin Kelly will be back on November 1.)

Best: This Junior Tag League Sure Is Super

Shocking no one, the Super Junior Tag League matches were all good again! I’m going to just write them up in the order of lowest-tier good and least significant to highest-tier good and most significant.

On that lowest tier, in my opinion, we have two entertaining matches that were on the shorter side and had twist finishes: Super 69 vs. Tiger Liger and Roppongi 3K vs. Team CMLL. ACH and Taguchi vs. Tiger Mask and Jushin Thunder Liger, the opener for league competition the 27th, starts with the younger team entering in the veterans’ masks, which Tiger does not think is funny at all. Liger and Taguchi do some more comedy spots, while ACH and Tiger are more sincere and hard-hitting. The match ends when TAGUCHI PINS TIGER MASK WITH A ROLLUP THAT LEGITIMATELY LOOKS LIKE THE 69 SEX POSITION. Tiger Mask acts so seriously all the time that I was impressed to see him do a comedy ass-eating spot.

Backstage, we learn that this rollup was so devastating because Taguchi’s genital region smells disgusting. Though Taguchi says that ACTUALLY Tiger is the one who smells, he confirms this was more of a sex-centric comedy spot than poop-centric comedy spot, because the “position at the end was called Taguchi 69.” ACH understands none of his partner’s gross promo, but he understands that Taguchi’s combination of genius and poor hygiene has won them a chance at the final!

The people who absolutely do not have a chance at the final are our poor CMLL luchadors. Roppongi 3K vs. Volador Jr. and Soberano Jr. includes a Volador Jr. entrance mask-removal perfectly executed to get those higher-pitched cheers in the audience, Soberano Jr. using his gymnastic ability and smarts to counter Sho’s size and power advantage, and then some cool lucha spots less exciting for me by because they’re in almost the exact same sequence they’ve done recently in their untelevised matches. But the sequence from Soberano setting up a superplex on Yoh to Volador leaping over the top rope so fast it looks like he’s falling out of the sky is amazing, and the surprise, no tune-up 3K finish for the win is surprising. It’s kind of a bummer the luchadors aren’t getting more wins because they’re good wrestlers and the crowd likes them, but I guess New Japan has a lot of more regular talent, in the form of both strong heel and face teams for this division, that are higher priorities for them right now.

I thought the fifth and sixth matches on the October 26 show were slightly better than those on the 27th. As Kushida and Chris Sabin defeat Tiger Mask and Liger, they show that they have complementary in-ring styles as tag teams. Sometimes these legends’ ages really show against faster, younger, higher-flying juniors, but the differences in speed and athleticism aren’t as noticeable against the more technical, submission-based Sabin and Kushida. The crowd gets very into a nearfall after a Super Rana to a Tiger Bomb, but the match ends with Outatime. After the match, Kushida shows Liger, his childhood hero, his junior heavyweight championship belt, which now only he and Tiger Mask IV have held fewer times than the Beast God. Liger shakes the future legend’s hand, then Sabin’s, and there’s an atmosphere of competitive respect.

Also after the match, Sabin immediately hugs Kushida, and they hit their new pose which confused me for a second, but that I after that second realized is A TRIANGLE because they form the triangle between the Motor City Machine Guns and the Time Splitters and they are extremely devoted to this weird fusion concept! Backstage, Sabin takes it to an even dorkier level by saying “We harness the power of three… the power of the triangle, the post powerful shape in all of the universe… We harness that trigonometric equation.” If they make the finals, Alex Shelley better show up at Power Struggle. Also, I’m pretty sure this means they’re all in the Illuminati now.

In the show’s next match, Mexico’s high-flying heroes fall to the cheating ways of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team champions. After entering to the theme of New Japan’s most egregious fake luchador, El “Kyosuke Mikami” “Hecho En Mexico” Desperado, Suzukigun jumps their opponents before the bell, as they have been all tour, and attacks them outside the ring. Unlike a lot of SJTL matches so far, Kanemaru and El Desperado take Volador Jr. and Soberano Jr. upstairs to fight on the second-level Korakuen aisle, and Team CMLL turns the match in their favor with some creative counters. The teams are pretty evenly matched, with Volador and Soberano shining more athletically, but the Suntory Surprise and El Es Culero ultimately pick up two more shameful points for Suzukigun.

Our first more important-feeling match is between the L.I.J. team of Bushi and Shingo Takagi and the Bullet Club team of Robbie Eagles and Taiji Ishimori, which begins with the very important development of Robbie Eagles revealing he has a scope thing to wear on his face during his entrance now.

If you’re a recent New Japan watcher, you should know that this dude getting this cyborg mask thing and yet still making a scope with his hand in front it during his entrance pose is very much in the OG BC spirit. Eagles’ combination of heavy dedication to gun imagery and playing gangster-soldier combined with being very smart about some things and very dumb about others is extremely Bullet Club Classic, and I’m into it.

More importantly, oh my gosh, all the Taiji Ishimori vs. Shingo Takagi stuff! These two look excited to start the match against each other, almost as hyped as I am to watch. Not only are these two bodybuilding enthusiasts both great at what they do and the two 2018 Japanese freelancers mainly known for one previous promotion who got that “Maybe New Japan???” buzz before they arrived in the company, but they also, as far I can tell, have never had a singles match. Their one previous in-ring encounter was on the Dragon Gate The Gate Of Generation 2008 show in which Kenta and Taiji Ishimori defeated BxB Hulk and Shingo Takagi to win the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles. They’re also both part of that group of Japanese wrestlers from various promotions who were all born in 1982 and get together sometimes, which also includes Naito and Ibushi. I still hope Takagi does move up to heavyweight, but I hope we see him have a singles match against Ishimori before he does because they are so dang good together.

Both teams overall look great in this match, and it ends with L.I.J. debuting their new tag team finisher, Rebellion, a wheelbarrow facebuster/double knee facebreaker combination, on Eagles for the win.

Tag league victory seems unlikely for the BCOGs, but one of them still accomplished a lot this tournament, because Eagles and Ishimori vs. Kushida and Sabin, if it was called by Michael Cole, would have ended with Michael Cole yelling, “TAIJI ISHIMORI HAS PINNED THE IWGP JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION.”

The match starts with Sabin vs. Ishimori, which is unsurprisingly technical and very good. Ishimori starts fighting dirty, but The Tag Team of the Future aren’t pushover babyfaces, and Kushida lands some retaliatory strikes over the ropes when the Bone Soldier is in their corner. Eagles is more ruthless about his Always Work The Leg strategy this match when he uses it on Kushida, and it’s more effective than usual. But though damaged, Kushida is still able to be awesome and COUNTER THE 450 SPLASH INTO AN ARMBAR. Throughout the match, both teams work well with and against each other and keep the intensity high. While Sabin and Eagles fight outside of the ring, it ends with a definitive, clean pin from Ishimori to Kushida after a Bloody Cross.

Backstage, Ishimori immediately brings up his earned title shot. And it feels like it’s about time, I imagine both to him as a character and to audience members who enjoy his wrestling. Ishimori came to NJPW with the straightforward goal of dominating the junior division. He set his sights on Ospreay, attacking him after his title match, then beat the champ in BOSJ, but didn’t get a championship match because he came in second place in the tournament, losing to Hiromu, who went on to win the title. He started cutting promos on Hiromu, but our beloved Time Bomb got injured. Then there was no junior heavyweight activity for a month because of the G1. Then he won the 6-man tachampionshipsps, cool, but those or the lowest level titles in the company, and the Bone Soldier clearly came in as a singles wrestlers. Then Ishimori wasn’t in the tournament for the vacant Junior Heavyweight Championship because the company only held it between the last four champions. Now finally, with this championship match that could easily happen at the Tokyo Dome, it feels like this guy is again playing the significant role in this division that he must have been signed to play beyond one tournament.

Los Ingobernables de Japon, though, are still contenders to win Super Junior Tag League and earn a title shot, a match which would now see Bushi and Takagi extra-motivated after El Desperado and Kanemaru defeated them with the most disrespectful win of the tournament yet.

Bushi invokes Hiromu with his over-mask, which is half Kamaitachi, and Desperado goes right after his regular fightin’ one at the beginning of the match. The trademark Suzukigun outside-the-ring action goes upstairs, but L.I.J., like the luchadors, use the environment against their oponents when Takagi holds Despy and Kanemaru to eat an extremely cool crossbody from Bushi from the top of the stairs.

Once the teams are back in the ring, both Suzukigun wrestlers manage to keep Takagi down. After a hot tag a long time coming, Bushi fight off both opponents, but Despy and Kanemaru are soon back on Shingo. Takagi breaks out with a Rack Attack 2.0 (HE HAS THE PECS FOR ME TO CALL IT THAT; THIS IS EQUALITY), and soon L.I.J. can set up Rebellion… only for it to be prevented by Kanemaru. Bushi and Desperado both get two-counts, with a backslide after the mist countered by an equally illegal pull of the ref out of the ring by Kanemaru. Bushi dodges the whiskey and things look good for L.I.J., but El Desperado counters his double knees with a kick to the nards and FULLY UNMASKS HIM.

Despy rolls Bushi up while he covers his face and mocks L.I.J. on the mic immediately afterward. Backstage, Takagi is pissed about the cheating of the tag team champions (has he watched the tape of his new faction?), but Suzukigun acts unphased by their large new rival.

While the main event of the October 27 show featured two teams who are very much down for brawling and foreign object interference, October 26 saw ACH and Taguchi defeat Roppongi 3K in a battle of the babyfaces to close the show.

Muscle boys ACH and Sho start the match no-selling each other’s shoulder tackles and attempting to German each other. It made me wish they were in the same BOSJ block. Taguchi and Yoh, when simultaneously tagged in, are much more loosey-goosey, dodging and circling each other. After comedy and/or mat wrestling and/or hip attacks, Super 69 sets up for that signature run-their-opponent-into-person-on-the-turnbuckle’s-ass spot, only for Yoh to reverse it and unleash the foreshadowed Finger Poke of Doom.

The match isn’t just goofy butt stuff from there though. We see ACH bust out an incredible cannonball tope to Sho on the chairs and later the most perfect pescado that has possibly ever happened, more harder-hitting wrestling between him and Sho in the ring, and Taguchi dust off his dreaded ankle lock. Taguchi pins Yoh for the win after maneuvering his arms into an unusual position and hitting a suplex. His BOSJ joke about how he would win matches with a local suplex for every town returns!

They (mostly Taguchi) cut a charming and funny promo with the crowd solidly on their side. Super 69 has had their ups and downs in this tournament, but now they’ve beaten the tag team champions and last year’s tournament winners.

After these shows, here’s how the Super Junior Tag League points stand:

• 2 points – 1-5 – Team CMLL
• 4 points – 2-4 – Tiger Liger
• 6 points – 3-3 – The Tag Team of the Future, BCOGs, Super 69
• 8 points – 4-2 – L.I.J., Suzukigun, Roppongi 3K

So far, Super 69 and Roppongi 3K have earned title shots against the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, and Taiji Ishimori has earned one against the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion. And we’re on the road to the Road to the Tokyo Dome! I’ll see you back here later this week after a few more house show league matches and on more Road to Power Struggle.