BRM Reviews NJPW Best of the Super Juniors XXIII: Day 14- Finals

[Big Red Machine]

NJPW Best of the Super Juniors XXIII: Day 14- Finals (6/7/2016)- Sendai, Japan

DAVID FINLAY JR. vs. JAY WHITE- 6.25/10
Yeah… these guys are WAY too good to still be wearing those plain black young boy tights. I know White is heading to ROH, but hopefully they send Finlay somewhere soon as well.

CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN & YOSHITATSU vs. CHASE OWENS & YUJIRO TAKAHASHI- 5.5/10
This was a fun little undercard match. The Captain has acquired gear with a Bullet Club Hunter logo to match his partner. They go out to the apron to do Triple H’s entrance and immediately get attacked from behind so that they look like total idiots. They did stuff for a while with the heels obviously getting the heat on Captain New Japan. Yoshitatsu made a good comeback, but it was all for naught because Yujiro hit Cap in the nuts and then hit his finisher for the win.

MANABU NAKANISHI & YUJI NAGATA vs. KATSUYORI SHIBATA & JUICE ROBINSON- 5.25/10
Stuff happened. Nagata and Shibata a good exchange of forearms, but also an obnoxiously pointless fighting spirit spot in the corner.

HIROYOSHI TENZAN & reDRagon vs. CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Roppongi Vice)- 5.5/10
I know this seems like a totally crazy thing to say, but Rocky Romero’s beard somehow makes him look shorter. Rocky’s comedy spots were terrible and he should stop doing them forever.

JUSHIN “THUNDER” LIGER, TIGER MASK IV, & VOLADOR JR. vs. MATT SYDAL, RICOCHET, & KUSHIDA- 6.5/10
Shorter than I expected, but fun Jr. Heavyweight action all around.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- we’re getting a four way at Dominion for the Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles between Sydal & Ricochet, reDRagon, Roppingi Vice and the Young Bucks. It will be an elimination match this time.

MICHAEL ELGIN & SATOSHI KOJIMA vs. BULLET CLUB (Kenny Omega & Bad Luck Fale) (w/Chase Owens)- 7.5/10
Would have been even better if the referee had done his job and DQed Omega for both using that trash can lid and for kicking him. Elgin and Omega used the ladder to build up to their ladder match and Elgin pinned Omega to really justify him taking Tanahashi’s place in that match.

LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Gedo, Hirooki Goto, & YOSHI-HASHI)- 7.75/10
Great match that really made me want to see Okada vs. Naito at Dominion. Los Ingobernables win, then beat some people up afterwards, too, because they’re dicks.

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS FINALS: Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Will Ospreay- 8.75/10
As you can tell by my rating, the match is worth going out of your way to see. The booking going into this match did a fantastic job of setting up an atmosphere where the match really felt like it was anyone’s to win. Everyone knew that the New Japan office was high on Ospreay after his spectacular match with KUSHIDA at Invasion Attack, and they gave him both the story of the guy fighting in honor of his recently tragically departed friend and the story of the guy making the impossible run from the bottom of the standings all the way to the finals. On the other hand, we had just seen KUSHIDA beat Ospreay for the Jr. Heavyweight Title, so it did feel like it might be little too soon to go back to that match. Then again, the match was amazing, so why not back to it with Ospreay even hotter than before?
Taguchi, for this part, had the story of the guy coming out of undercard banality and going on a complete and total tear, winning matches no one thought he would win, and looking poised to reclaim his former glory. This tournament has been a resurgence for Taguchi, both in storyline and in terms of in-ring action. Not having him win and challenge KUSHIDA at Dominion would almost seem like a waste.
With that underlying foundation, we went into this match where Taguchi seemed to find a perfect balance between his recent comedy dork stuff and his newly rediscovered aggressiveness, with the comedy dork stuff now coming off as the sort of cool arrogance you often see out of a top babyface. Taguchi used the aggressiveness to go after Ospreay’s knee, which Ospreay sold very well… most of the time. They also put in a few cool, fresh spots (or twists on old spots), and had an absolutely phenomenal finishing sequence.


A great show from New Japan, with a very worthy Best of the Super Juniors finals.