Cero Reviews NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2018 - 5.3

[cero2k]

NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2018
May 3rd, 2018
Fukuoka, Japan

Tonight is Bullet Club's 5th year anniversary, they'll celebrate by adding fuel to the fire under their Civil War.

Bullet Club (Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi) w/Miho Abe vs Shota Umino & Yota Tsuji - 5/10
Tsuji started the match strong over Yujiro, but Yujiro turned it around and worked over him a while. Umino came in with the hot tag and pulled off some new spots now that he's becoming one of the more experienced Lions. Owens killed Umino with the Package Piledriver for the win. Young Lions were good.

Jyushin 'Thunder' Liger, Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask vs Yuji Nagata, Ren Narita, & Tomoyuki Oka - 5/10
Story of the match was that Nagata is pushing the Lions to step up to the level and take it to the vets. Taguchi pinned Narita with the Dodon. Good match, the Nagata vs Tiger part was great.

Roppongi 3K vs Killer Elite Squad & Takashi Iizuka - Dud
Fuck, the biggest heavyweight tag team going against CHAOS' junior team, and just like that it's over. Suzuki-Gun as usual jumped the babyfaces and they started brawling outside. Inside the ring, SHO and Iizuka were fighting, with Iizuka being on top. After a lot of biting, the ref told Iizuka to cut it off, so Iizuka went for the ref, SHO got the distraction roll up for the upset pin. I really wouldn't mind watching a proper match between RPG and KES. Commentary sold this off that after losing the title shot, KES were going to lose it ever further. SZKG were pissed off.

Togi Makabe, Michael Elgin, David Finlay, Juice Robinson, & Toa Henare vs CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI, Tomohiro Ishii, & Jay White) - 7/10
Elgin is losing the gut, he still sucks tho. White gets his own entrance, he's one of the top champions in the promotion, but arguably, Goto is too, at least it plays out with White not wanting to be part of CHAOS's funny antics, saying that, I can't wait to see him in Yano's next DVD.

Match saw all types of combinations between the two teams, but Elgin vs Goto took priority over the rest. CHAOS worked over Finlay for a while, eventually Robinson came in and ran wild. Everyone got their spots in. At the end, it was Henare going against White, Henare coming in with everything he had, but ended up falling to White's Blade Runner. Overall a good match, comedy was kept to a minimum. Juice vs White for the US title is imminent.

NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship Match
Bullet Club (The Young Bucks & "The Villain" Marty Scurll) vs Bullet Club (Guerrillas of Destiny & "The Underboss" Bad Luck Fale) (C) - 8/10
Well, if things were already bad between the Elite and the Tongans, this is not gonna help clear the differences. This also, while a small hint to a proper match, does kinda spoil the imminent Bucks vs GoD first match.

Match was a lot of Fale's size vs the smaller Bucks/Scurll team, which led to some comedy between Scurll and Fale, but the good type of comedy that is not even supposed to be comedy but it looks funny. Great action when the Bucks were in there with any of the champions. The meat of the match was GoD and Fale working over Scurll. Bucks got the hot tag and started running wild with some double/triple team moves. At the end, Bucks killed Tonga Roa with some More Bang for your Buck to win the titles. After the Bucks got the hot tag, it didn't really feel that GoD got the upper hand again, so I was surprised that the finish came off a MBFYB, which I hadn't seen in a while. I really liked the match, it was quick and easy.

Post-match - Tongans respectfully gave the titles to the new champs and walked away.

Bone Soldier is Coming. I'm intrigued to see who is under the mask.

Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Zack Sabre Jr, & Taichi) vs Los Ingobernables de Japon - 8/10
TAKA did Sabre's intro before the match. I find it really weird when he does that when the rest of the team, especially Suzuki himself, are there.

Match stated with the traditional jumping of the babyfaces and brawl. Consequently, Naito was worked on from the start, with a awesome submission combinations of Sabre and Suzuki, they targeted Naito's already inured leg. SANADA got the hot tag and worked with Sabre, with a Speed vs Submission fight, they hinted doing the Paradise Lock, but I'm still to see a good Sabre counter of it. Finish saw EVIL come in against Kanemaru, worked a nice little fight and ended falling to the EVIL's STO.

Post-match - The newly crowned 6-Man champs finally made their presence felt in the heavyweight division, the Young Bucks came out to challenge EVIL and SANADA for the tag team belts. The champs accepted and The Bucks superkicked them to seal the deal. After the Bucks EVIL welcomed The Bucks to the Darkness World and accepted the challenge.

Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay vs Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA - 8.5/10
We have two big stories going on for each of day 2's title matches. One one side, Ospreay is good, but likes to show off and KUSHIDA takes advantage of that to work on Ospreay's arm, so expect Ospreay to come in with a hurt arm to his title defense, similar to their first matches. Then you have Okada and Tanahashi, with the Ace being the one that for the most part dominates Okada because Tanahashi always gives his 102%, but then again, this is not 'Title Defense' Okada.

Match saw a lot of what I already described, but in addition, we saw CHAOS work over KUSHIDA's head for the first half of the match. Tanahashi came in with the hot tag and battled with Okada, Tana worked the leg, Okada worked the head. After Okada and Tana did their thing, it was Ospreay and KUSHIDA's turn, working t-0he head/arm respectively. Finish of the match saw the pairing that I've been waiting for all of Okada's reign, KUSHIDA and Okada, with Okada pinning KUSHIDA after a Tombstone and Rainmaker.

There wasn't a single pairing that wielded a bad fight, all four men could do a round robin tournament and potentially get all 10/10s.

Post-match - Tana and Okada got face to face. Okada kinda blew off Tanahashi. Tanahashi didn't help KUSHIDA at all.

"The American Nightmare" Cody vs "Golden Star" Kota Ibushi - 8/10
Match started with Ibushi under control, but due to Cody's heel antics like stalling, pretending to be injured, and such, he got the upper hand on Ibushi and started working over his abdomen and back for a while. Ad the match closed in on the finish, there was a ref bump, which Cody took advantage to fetch a table and try superplexing Ibushi through, but Ibushi turned it around and foot stomp after he had laid Cody there, but the table didn't break, so he went for a second one that only made a hole in the table as Cody just folded into it. There was a springboard plancha into beyond the barricade. Finish saw Cody drop Ibushi with the CrossRhodes and an ugly looking Gory Bomb for the clean win. Great match, Cody really needed this win.

Hangman Page vs Kenny Omega - 9/10
Before the match was allowed to start, Cody came out and jumped Kenny. Him and Page ganged up on him and Cody was going for a table when Cody turned it around and took both of them out. Match is officially on.

The match got serious really quick, while brawling, Page dropped Kenny with the Rite of Passage onto the table which be broke with his head, then into a folded chair busting Kenny open on the top of the head. From that point on, Page continued with a strong dominance throughout the match, working Kenny's head. As the match went on, Kenny slowly started to make a comeback, but he was hurt enough that Page was getting over again easily. Near falls with Page dropping Omega with another Rite of Passage and other stuff, but he couldn't put Omega down, and that's when Omega woke up and started the barrage of knee strikes and V-Triggers, ending with the One Winged Angel for the win. Really great match, thanks to Cody's interference at the start, the table spots, and the blood, it really escalated the intensity of the match and gave Page a slight chance at winning credibility that he was most definitely lacking coming in.

Post-match - Kenny cuts a promo saying that the onyl wanted to speak Japanese, but he's head is not in the right place to do a full Japanese promo. He thanks the crowd and says good bye.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
An entertaining show with some great wrestling top to bottom. As a Bullet Club celebration, it wasn't much to it really, they were all here, but given the storylines that they need to fight with each other, it was unfortunate that the Bullet Club didn't all close the show together in the ring.

[Big Red Machine]

You forgot a rating for Tanahashi & KUSHIDA vs. Okada & Ospreay.

[cero2k]

You forgot a rating for Tanahashi & KUSHIDA vs. Okada & Ospreay.

thanks. fixed