Cero Reviews NJPW Best of the Super Jr. 25 - 5.22

[cero2k]

NJPW Best of the Super Jr. 25, Day 4
May 22, 2018

Flip Gordon & Tomoyuki Oka vs Taiji Ishimori & Chase Owens - 5.5/10
Ishimori has been limping since yesterday, hopefully it's not bad. He moved ok during the match, but I've seen wrestlers that can't move outside the ring give a 180 turn once the bell rings. Match was usual prelim with the heel team working over Oka, Gordon got the tag and did a little bit with Ishimori, then Oka went in to get killed by Owens.

ACH & Umino Shota vs Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru - 6/10
Suzuki-Gun worked over Umino for a while, ACH got the hot tag and at first made the incredible mistake of hitting Suzuki, but then he made the incredible mistake of hitting Suzuki and calling him out, and thus got his ass kicked until Suzuki got bored and allowed ACH to tag in Umino, who also made the incredible mistake of going for Suzuki ( he actually did better than ACH), but after dropkicking Suzuki off the ring, tapped out to Kanemaru's Boston Crab.

Post-match - Kanemaru attacked ACH some more, hitting him with a chair right on the injured shoulder.

Will Ospreay & Gedo vs YOSHI-HASHI & YOH - 6.5/10
CHAOS collides! The match was for the most part friendly, competitive, babyface wrestling, even if Ospreay and Gedo can be dicks now and then. Action between Ospreay and YOH was pretty good. Finish saw YOSHI tapping Gedo out with a Butterfly Lock.

Tiger Mask & Toa Henare vs Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI - 6/10
Since early on, BUSHI was going for Tiger Mask's mask, but in return, Tiger Mask was like fuck this dweeb and went for his mask too, but Henare stopped him and decided to get in the ring himself. Naito obviously kicked his ass and thus LIJ started cutting the ring on Henare for a while. Tiger got the hot tag and managed pretty good against both guys. BUSHI and Tiger did their quick part and got Naito and Henare in for the finish with Naito pinning Henare with a Destino.

Post-match - Tiger attacked BUSHI, and in return for his troubles, BUSHI ripped Tiger's mask off. BUSHI threw the mask into the crowd. That's a $100+ mask he just threw. While celebrating, lights went off and on the screen we got a video of Jericho and a turtle, volume was really low, but the jist of it was Jericho telling Naito he is going to 'fuck him up' and take the IC title from him and bring it to the US. He said 'fuck' or alterations of the word a lot. Naito took a nap during the video, once the video was over, Naito cut a promo saying that he actually expected Jericho to be there in person. He said that it was really rude language and rude for the person that played the video, but today it was about putting over the Junior Heavyweights and that's were everyone's attention should be. He put over BUSHI.

Best of the Super Jr 25 Block B Match
Chris Sabin (2) vs SHO (0) - 8.5/10
Competitive match between two babyfaces. SHO worked over Sabin's arm, chasing a submission win, which he at points even tried with the legs, but overall it was the arm that Sabin was hurting from. Sabin kinda worked the neck. They had a chop battle, and after that, SHO just went aggressive with the suplexes and armbars, but Sabin kept getting away, so SHO went for the Shock Arrow to finally defeat Sabin. Great match, I think SHO has been watching Kurt Angle tapes because a lot of this moves are getting similar to Angle's

Best of the Super Jr 25 Block B Match
Ryusuke Taguchi (2) vs Dragon Lee (2) - 8.5/10
TAGUCHI JAPAN COLLIDES! Match had a lot of competitive comedy between both guys, obviously all based on Taguchi, but Lee got him back on some jokes here and there. The second half of the match was pretty great wit good back and forward action, Taguchi looking for the leg submissions, Lee hurting the upper body of Taguchi. Dragon Lee won with the Desnucadora for the win.

Best of the Super Jr 25 Block B Match
KUSHIDA (0) vs "The Villain" Marty Scurll (0) - 9.25/10
Scurll is now dressing up as EVIL, it looks cool but I feel he's moving more and more away from the 'Villain' that I loved back when he first hit the US scene.

Match started with a lot mat chain-wrestling, British style wrestling, tons of submission work, but as it went on, Scurll started working KUSHIDA's arm relentlessly. KUSHIDA would make a comeback and start working on Scurll's arms too. From there on, they started going back and forward both working the limb, but also going for bigger impact moves, starting to chase their respective submissions. Finish saw KUSHIDA go for the Kushida Lock at the top rope, but Scurll broke it off and broke KUSHIDA's fingers, once in the floor he had Scurll set up for the Kushida Lock again, but he couldn't lock the fingers anymore out of pain, so he resorted for a Back to the Future instead for the pin. Awesome match.

Best of the Super Jr 25 Block B Match
Hiromu Takahashi (2) vs El Desperado (0) - 9.5
Desperado came out with a beautiful white mask and an awesome attire. He was holding both Jr. Tag belts. Hiromu jumped Desperado, ref tried to stop him and even shoved the ref. Hiromu took Desperado on a tour around the hall, kicking his ass on every stop. Back in the ring, Hiromu even went for Desperado's mask, ripping it apart. At this point the match became a brawl.

They brawled around hitting each other with chairs, ramming each other everywhere. Desperado removed the turnbuckle protectors and whipped Hiromu into it, trying on several occasions to get the count out victory. Hiromu would make a comeback, but Desperado would eventually turn it around again. Great action towards the end with a really hurt Hiromu going everything to take out Desperado, he even hit his finisher, but Desperado hadn't taken enough offense yet, but Hiromu was coming close enough that Desperado started going for the cheats again, but to no avail, even one that backfired and got a superkick when trying to hit Hiromu with the title belt. Hiromu was getting close when he finally got a low blow in and hit La Guitarra de Angel for a near fall, but Hiromu was hurt and easy pickings to hit Pinche Loco and pin Hiromu. Another awesome match, I loved it.

Post-match - Desperado cut a good faking out the crowd unmasking and then says that face it, he's stronger than Hiromu.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
A really great show for the tournament, probably the best so far, at least Desperado vs Hiromu was my favorite match so far.

Block A:
Taiji Ishimori - 4
Tiger Mask - 4
ACH - 2
YOH - 2
Flip Gordon - 2
Will Ospreay - 2

Block B:
Dragon Lee - 4
Ryusuke Taguchi - 2
SHO - 2
Chris Sabin - 2
Hiromu Takahashi - 2
KUSHIDA - 2
El Desperado - 2