Cero Reviews NJPW Best of the Super Jr. 25 - 5.29

[cero2k]

NJPW Best of the Super Jr. 25, Day 9
May 29, 2018
Tochigi, Japan

njpwworld didn't upload the prelim bouts:
Chase Owens & Marty Scurll defeated Dragon Lee & Yota Tsuji.
YOSHI-HASHI & SHO defeated Ryusuke Taguchi & Tomoyuki Oka.
Minoru Suzuki & El Desperado defeated KUSHIDA & Shota Umino.
Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi defeated Chris Sabin & Toa Henare.

Best of the Super Jr 25 Block A Match
Tiger Mask (6) vs "Bone Soldier" Taiji Ishimori (4) - 8/10
Taiji attacked Tiger during his entrance, he mocked him, and went for the mask. Everyone wants to see Tiger's face this tournament. Tiger Mask made a comeback and started working over Taiji's head and went for his big impact spots.

Taiji regained control and also worked over Tiger's head via submissions. Last few minutes they went back and forward hitting their finishers. Tiger hit the top rope Double Underhook Suplex and transitioned to a submission for a near fall. As Tiger is prepping the Tiger Suplex, Taiji turns it around, hits the Bloody Cross for the pin. Good match.

Best of the Super Jr 25 Block A Match
ACH (4) vs BUSHI (2) - 7.5/10
ACH started with control, chopping the hell out of BUSHI, who later turned it around and started working ACH's shoulder and neck as expected. ACH had a good comeback over BUSHI, mostly with a lot of dodging and working one-arm spots. The rest of the match was a back and forward exchange of spots, neither man could put the other down even though they were hitting their big arsenal. Finish saw BUSHI hit to MXs for the pin. Good looking wrestling all around, but they kinda abandoned the story mid match and just went at it with moves.

Best of the Super Jr 25 Block A Match
Flip Gordon (6) vs YOH (2) - 8/10
Not much of a story here, just straight up good wrestling by both guys. They went back and forward with a lot of flippy moves and kicks to the head. Most of the match kinda hinted that YOH was the underdog, so the finish saw Gordon hit a 450 for a near fall, but get immediately superkicked and bridged into the Five Star Clutch for the 'upset' win.

Best of the Super Jr 25 Block A Match
"Aerial Assassin" Will Ospreay (4) vs Yoshinobu Kanemaru (4) - 7/10
The match started with the usual SZKG shtick, but once they were done with the countout teases and Kanemaru actually started working over Ospreay's head, the match got pretty good for a while. Kanemaru was vicious working Ospreay's neck, and Ospreay himself looked great with small little comebacks here and there, getting several near falls that made it seem like Ospreay was in a hurry to win.

Mid match, Ospreay makes another small comeback, going for the Storm Break, but Kanemaru gets out of it and pushes into Red Shoes that takes a bump, at this point Ospreay gets a visual pin over Kanemaru, but also gets lowblowed. Kanemaru brings a chair to the match that Ospreay is gonna end up using, but ref takes it away, giving Kanemaru the chance to prep the Whisky Mist, but Ospreay also ends up countering it.

Last minutes was more near falls by both men. I'm talking Deep Impacts, Bloody Sundays, Burning Star Press, Brainbusters, these guys were kicking out of everything, at least until Ospreay finally for the Storm Breaker in for the win.

I really wanted to love this match when Kanemaru was working over Ospreay's neck, because I really love vicious Kanemaru, but as soon as the ref bump happened and Super Ospreay just kept blocking everything, I kinda started to lose my excitement over it.

Post-match - Osprey says he has Gordon and Tiger Mask left and that he'll defeat them. Pretty much the same promo from his last show.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
A good show with good wrestling, but nothing worth calling mom about. I came in excited about Kanemaru main eventing, but left underwhelmed.

Block A:
Taiji Ishimori - 6
Tiger Mask - 6
ACH - 4
YOH - 4
Flip Gordon - 6
Will Ospreay - 6
Yoshinobu Kanemaru - 4
BUSHI - 4

Block B:
Dragon Lee - 6
Ryusuke Taguchi - 4
SHO - 4
Chris Sabin - 4
Hiromu Takahashi - 4
KUSHIDA - 4
El Desperado - 2
Marty Scurll - 4