Cero Reviews NJPW/ROH Honor Rising 2018 2.24

[cero2k]

NJPW/ROH Honor Rising 2018 2.24
February 24, 2018
Karouken Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Beer City Bruiser vs Henare - 4/10
From title match to opener, BCB is the embodiment of how random these co-hosted shows are. This was a a really short match with Bruiser winning with a Frog Splash. This had some chops and shoulder blocks and that was about it. Different from yesterday, I wasn't a bit fan of Bruiser's performance here, the match was too short for him to need the Frog Splash, especially since the strong style was kinda working for him enough.

Actual conversation that took place in this match:
BCB: Fuck You!
Henare: OOOHH AAAHHHHH!

Bullet Club (Yujiro Takahashi, Chase Owens, & Hikuleo) vs Jay Lethal, Juice Robinson, and David Finlay - 5.5/10
Man, Bullet Club's A team, if only Bone Soldier would come back. Ok match, some of the spots where out of synch. Match saw BC get heat on Finlay for a while until Lethal came in with the hot tag, they ran wild over everyone. Finish saw Juice hit the Pulp Friction on Hikuleo, followed by a Hail to the King by Lethal for the win.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi) vs Ryusuke Taguchi & Flip Gordon - 6.5/10
Oh man, how I feared that Gordon would fall under the "Random Taguchi Tag Team" spot, who [Taguchi] was for some reason wearing Castle's peacock wings tonight. This was kinda like part two of showing off Gordon to the Japanese crowd, but in reality, LIJ just ran all over the babyfaces, they were on another level. LIJ won with a sick looking Doomsday MX, and I say sick looking because Gordon got folded in two in order for her legs to be in Hiromu's shoulders yet his head on the mat. Good showing for LIJ as a team.

NEVER Openweight 6-Man Championship Match
Jyushin 'Thunder' Liger, Cheeseburger, and Delirious vs Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale & Guerrillas of Destiny) - 4.5/10
During introductions Cheeseburger tried to protect the ring announcer from Bad Luck Fale, and thus the match started with BC jumping the babyfaces, once everything settled, BC worked over Liger. Match was incredibly sloppy and slow, especially when Delirious made the slightly warm tag. I'll take it with Liger because he's a legend, but seeing this BC team selling to Cheeseburger was a fucking joke, so you can imagine how bad it was when we started getting near falls with Cheeseburger rolling Tama Tonga up. Tama Tonga pinned Cheeseburger after Guerrilla Warfare.

Bullet Club (Hangman Page & The Young Bucks) vs CHAOS (Jay White, YOSHI-HASHI, & Chuckie T) - 7.5/10
If anything else, this match helped me confirm that the Jay White experiment may actually be working because he really seemed like a star tonight when he was paired up with Page. Match was all back and forward, White and The Bucks were the starts of the match, but since this was to build Page as a contender, he did get a chance to shine, but you can only shine so much when you're teaming up with the Bucks. Finish saw Page finally pin White with his c after The Bucks set him up for Page. We got us a proper challenger now. Great match, even YOSHI was good.

Post-match - Page grabbed a chair from a fan that wasn't really willing, it got awkward. He took out Taylor and YOSHI and as he was about to hit White, the Bucks stopped him. Bucks left and Page again got a chair, dropped White with the piledriver on top of the chair. Page posed with the US title. This gave me the slight feeling that Page is a loose cannon that not even Cody would be able to control.

ROH World Championship Match
Dalton Castle (C) w/The Japanese Boys vs Berreta vs Beer City Bruiser - 8/10
Before the match started, Beer City Bruiser came out, grabbed the mic, and got himself into the match because he promised the missus some gold and since he lost against Goto, he was gonna insert himself. Ref and young boys took him away, but Castle grabbed the mic and agreed to add him to the match, and so we got us a 3-way so that neither champ nor CHAOS babyface have to be pinned.

So, now with Bruiser, what was probably going to be a really good one-on-one match ended up being a lesser quality brawl. Story of the match was that Bruiser would constantly get rid of Castle so he could work on Berreta's injured arms, I guess working towards the idea that Castle could lose the title without even being involved in the fighting. Castle eventually came back and went for Bruiser, with whom he was actually pissed now and brawled with him while Berreta made his recovery. Eventually all three men started going at it in the ring, with Berreta and Castle somewhat working together but not really. There was a good near fall with Bruiser hitting the Frog Splash on Berreta, since as you can remember, he won a match early today with that move. Finish saw Castle pin Bruiser with a Deadlift German since he really can't get him up for the Bangarang.

Don't get me wrong, the match was really good, but I can't imagine that a Berreta vs Castle match wouldn't had been better. Berreta sold his arms quite nicely. After the match, there were hints that Castle and Berreta were not over.

Bullet Club (Cody & Marty Scurll) vs Golden Lovers - 9/10
Well, tonight there is no Chase Owens to steal tags between the Lovers. Before they started wrestling, Scurll pleaded with Omega as to why he had left him behind. Early on also, Cody was avoiding Kenny to the point where Cody straight up sat down in the first row with the crowd, this ended with Kenny doing a springboard on to Cody.

Match saw Lovers control the match at first, BC later on turning things around on Ibushi, until Omega came in with the hot tag and they started hitting all their greatest hits, BC once again would regain control as Kenny saves Ibushi from a CrossRhodes into the floor, but leaving himself open for Scurll to grab the umbrella and hit him as Kenny is going for the One Winged Angel. After all 4 men going at it, finish saw Cody for some reason kiss Ibushi, making him mad enough to take out Cody, leaving Scurll alone in the ring, easy picks for the Golden Trigger and the first win for the Lovers. Awesome match.

Post-match - Omega cuts a promo saying that finally after soo long, the Golden Lovers are back together. He wants to prove that they are the best tag team in the world. This words surely should trigger some people. Out come The Young Bucks. Matt takes the mic and says that they didn't have a problem with them until Kenny decide to say the Golden Lovers were the best tag in the world, because The Young Bucks ARE the BEST tag team in the world! Matt announces that as of now, they are now in the heavyweight tag team division. Perfect delivery by Matt.

Omega ended the show hinting at a Bucks vs Lovers dream match.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Wrestling wise this wasn't a blow out show, skippable actually, but if you're following the Bullet Club Civil War storyline (and you fucking should), this was definitely a must watch set of matches.