NJPW Road To Power Struggle 2017: Super Jr. Tag Tournament, Day 3

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NJPW Road To Power Struggle 2017: Super Jr. Tag Tournament, Day 3
October 30, 2017

Suzuki-Gun (Taka Michinoku & Taichi) vs Jyushin 'Thunder' Liger & Tiger Mask - 4/10
Still pissed from last night, Liger and Mask chase down Taka and Taichi, but these jump them with chairs, so we got a really early countout tease. From this point on, Suzuki-Gun-Jr worked on Liger for a while, Taichi doing the hammer shtick. Tiger Mask was about to make the hto tag but he got beat up once he took it. Finish saw Taichi toss Tiger Mask underneath the ring for the countout, but Tiger just crawled to the other side, blindsided Taka with a crucifix pin and the win. It was an ok funny match with a good win for the old timers.

CHAOS (Toru Yano & Hirooki Goto) vs Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka) - No Rating, Good Segment
Could we at least change Iizuka and Goto for two other dudes? Anyway, last show Yano stole Suzuki's title belt, so I'm totally ok with Suzuki jumping him this time, he kinda earned it tonight. Also differently in this match, Suzuki was able to tie Yano and himself with the bull rope as they brawled around the crowd. Goto and Iizuka also brawled around, but there wasn't much focus on them. Once inside the ring, Suzuki was choking and beating the shit out of Yano, the ref tried to stop him and Suzuki took him out with a kick to the face, and as Yano was already choked out, Goto went for the save, just to be caught by Suzuki's sleeper hold and the Iron Finger.

Suzuki hanged Yano how he had been hanging young lions. Tiger Hattori came out to DQ Suzuki, but at this point it was like the match never even started. This Suzuki vs Yano has hit its peak. This had zero comedy.

Bullet Clun (Kenny Omega, Marty Scurll, & Chase Owens) vs CHAOS (Beretta, YOSHI-HASHI, & Will Ospreay) - 5/10
Bullet Club came out dressed as Aladdin's characters. Marty is Aladdin with an Apu on his shoulder, Kenny is Jasmine, and Owens was Genie; Kenny is so big for the costume that he had the whole back taped off. CHAOS immediate reaction tothe costumes was great. This match was all comedy combined with wrestling, there were some interesting spots with a flying carpet. Wrestling wise, the only relevant part was seeing Beretta and Kenny properly mix it up for the first time with Beretta really bringing it to Kenny and show that on a one-on-one situation, he is not to be taken lightly; EXCEPT, Kenny was all comedy tonight, Beretta didn't kill Omega when Omega was joking, so how can I expect Beretta to have a chance when Kenny is in big match mode. Unless that's the story, that Kenny doesn't take Beretta seriously and is going to get a surprise on Sunday.

Post-match - Kenny and Beretta got face to face, Kenny was finally acting serious, and Beretta took him out with a piledriver on the apron. It kinda redeemed Beretta.

Titan, Dragon Lee, Kota Ibushi, David Finlay, & Juice Robinson vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hirai Kawato, Katsuya Kitamura, Togi Makabe, & KUSHIDA - 6.5/10
It's a 10-man match with all babyfaces, but the Ibushi team worked more heelish, working over Kitamura for a while with double teams and cutting the ring in half. This was the type of match where everyone got a chance to show off a little bit, but at the end, it was all about Ibushi vs Tanahashi, who had some good sequences together. After tons of fighting, it was Finlay that put down Kawato with a stunner for the win. Fun match.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, & SANADA) vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, & Gedo) - 6.5/10
I really bothers me that if EVIL and Naito get their entrances, why doesn't SANADA, it's just one more. Ishii worked most of the match, he had an awesome pair up with SANADA mostly doing the chop me chop you stuff, then he got some EVIL, and at this point he was more like the babyface in peril. Okada and Naito also had their chance to do their thing (I mean, the whole match is about building their rivalry up anyway), but the numbers game also ganged up on Okada. Finish saw a really good sequence with Gedo fighting off against EVIL and SANADA, awesome effort to not give up, but at the end he tapped to the Skull End. Pretty good match, even for Gedo.

Super Jr. Tag Tournament Semifinal
SUPER69 vs Suzuki-Gun (Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado) - 7.5/10
ACH has a bandage on the ribs from last night's match, but I honestly can't remember him getting that injured last night, it was Taguchi who took the worst parts of the match. Anyway, they played around with some spots from the Super69 match with the other half of Suzuki-Gun-Jr. Story of the match was mostly the viciousness of Desperado and Kanemaru brought out the mean-slightly-more-serious side of Taguchi and ACH. At the same time, you had Suzuki-Gun working ACH's ribs for most of the match, he kinda was babyface in peril in two separate occasions, but he also made two good comebacks to get Taguchi back in the match.

Finish sequence saw ACH and Taguchi hit their respective finishers on Kanemaru, but then they finished him off with something like a Code Red into an X-Factor. Taguchi felt really absent in this match.

Super Jr. Tag Tournament Semifinal
Roppongi 3K vs Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI) - 9/10
USHI came out with a mask that was supposed to be Venom, but he looked more like a huge fly. Before the match starts, BUSHI is casually sitting in the corner where RPG3K has to stand for their entrance, with a slight notice, Romero sprays him with that smoke gun and BUSHI just jumped away like crazy.

This was a back and forward match with two teams that are super over with the crowd, so at no point did the match feel overly one sided, even with LIJ working more heelish when they had Sho as the babyface in peril. I didn't mention it in the last match, but I now see in here too, they managed to make the losing team look a lot stronger during the whole of the match (if not tournament), even slightly better than the winners, so that by the time the finish comes, the winners look like underdogs that really had to dig deep and win. Hiromu and BUSHI looked like veterans against RPG, it just seemed like they had everything under control, but they just couldn't put them down for the pin, and with that going Sho and Yoh just had to keep fighting and fighting until they finally had a chance to get rid of Hiromu enough to put BUSHI down for the 1-2-3.

Yohei ended with a hand imprinted on his chest.

Post-match - Rocky Romero cut a promo hyping Roppongi 3K and talking a little bit of shit to Taguchi Japan and Super 69. Neither Taguchi nor ACH came out to face them. Romero's Japanese sounds great, but then again, I have no idea.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
A two match show, but overall enjoyable and easy to watch. Everything is set for Power Struggle.