Cero Reviews NJPW New Japan Cup 2019 - 3.10

[cero2k]

NJPW New Japan Cup 2019 Day 3
March 10, 2019
Amagasaki Gymnasium, Hyogo, Japan

Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki & TAKA Michinoku) vs Satoshi Kojima & Yota Tsuji - 6/10
Tsuji commited the terrible error of pissing off Suzuki, so half of the match was Suzuki just beating the shit out of this guy. Suzuki and Kojima did a short run and then TAKA came in to submit Tsuji. Fun torture session.

Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, Hikuleo, & Taiji Ishimori) vs YOSHI-HASHI, Yuji Nagata, Juice Robinson, & Manabu Nakanishi - 4/10
Ok match. Owens vs YH was the big deal, but we also got some Chase eyeing Juice's title and some Juice vs Hikuleo. Juice Robinson won with Pulp Friction over Hikuleo.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA, Shingo Takagi, & BUSHI) vs Hirooki Goto, Tomoaki Honma, & Ren Narita - 5/10
There were some problems with the entrance, they restarted SANADA's song like three times. I'm getting seriously tired of Kevin Kelly's shit joke "Oh hey, it's Honma!" FUCK KK!

Goto vs SANADA was good, they kept building to SANADA locking in the Paradise Lock. Honma did his shtick. Shingo pinned Narita after the Pumping Bomber. Rocky Romero pointed out that Shingo hasn't been pinned or submitted yet, but the BOSJ is coming.

Suzuki-Gun (Taichi & Killer Elite Squad) vs CHAOS (Will Ospreay, Toru Yano, & Tomohiro Ishii) - 6.5/10
Archer vs Ospreay, Yano vs Davey Boy, and Taichi vs Ishii are being built here. I'm already starting to hear "Heavyweight Killer" as Ospreay's nickname.

Each pairing got to do their thing. Ishii vs Taichi wasn't as good as yesterday. Ospreay vs Archer looks promising. Yano vs Smith was a lot better than I expected. Yano got taken out with the Killer Bomb and pinned by Davey Boy, putting them 1-1.

Michael Elgin, Mikey Nicholls, & Colt Cabana vs Kazuchika Okada, Togi Makabe, & Toa Henare - 6.5/10
New CHAOS member Mikey Nicholls goes against Okada on round two, so Okada is gonna get a first hand shot at trying him out. They had a good team members challenge. Henare and Elgin got a good striking exchange. Cabana did some comedy hitting a Brain...Buster on Henare that led to Cabana vs Makabe, which even with comedy, I still have hopes for a good hoss fight. Nicholls picked up the win over Henare after the Mikey Bomb. Fun match.

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
"Funky Weapon" Ryusuke Taguchi vs "Fierce Bull" Hiroyoshi Tenzan - 5/10
Romero brought up something that I had never realized, Tenza has never been part of Taguchi Japan. It's unfortunate that Taguchi's match in this New Japan Cup was against Tenzan since he can't really go super serious, not because Tenzan can't be serious, but because he just can't hang with Taguchi. We still got little comedy when Taguchi finally started targeting Tenzan's ankles.

As mentioned, Taguchi worked the ankles, Tenzan worked the neck chasing the Anaconda Vice. Tenzan was going for the kill when Taguchi rolled him up for the pin. Just like Nakanishi, I don't know why they had to protect Tenzan that much. Taguchi got as much of a match he was able from Tenzan.

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
"The Ace" Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Shota Umino - 7/10
Shota Umino is the first ever Young Lion to enter the New Japan Cup. This was great, Shota Umino was already having great young lion matches, so this was like a young lion's match on steroids. The story obviously was that Shota is a young lion getting the shot of his life and doing everything he could to take on, literally, the one and only Ace of New Japan. There was a HUGE near fall with Tanahashi kicking out at 2.9 from Shota's roll up. Tanahashi tapped out Shota with the Texas Cloverleaf to win the match.

Romero and Kelly kept bringing up that since Red Shoes is Shota's father, that there was something else there, but I didn't really get that from Red Shoes. If anything else, this felt like Shota's graduation match, he NEEDS to go into excursion following this performance.

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
"Technical Wizard" Zack Sabre Jr w/TAKA Michinoku vs "King of Darkness" EVIL - 9/10
This was similar to their previous bouts in the sense that Sabre worked all limbs, looking for a submission or the Zack Driver; whereas, EVIL wanted more of a striking and tossing battle. They played off from their previous matches too, mostly when it came to counters and reversals, which was kind of the theme of the match. EVIL went for Darkness Falls and Everything is Evil over and over again and Sabre kept turning it into something. At one point, EVIL used Red Shoes to hit a Magic Killer on Sabre. Finish saw Sabre submit EVIL to Napalm Death. Great match

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
"Golden Star" Kota Ibushi vs "El Ingobernable" Tetsuya Naito - 9.25/10
Naito at one point hit a Tombstone Piledriver on the apron, so yeah, that was the level of craziness of how Naito worked over Ibushi's head. This was followed by Ibushi hitting a reverse Dudebuster, which was also the level of which Ibushi worked over Naito's head. This was short, but they went all out on all moves.

The finishing sequence was a straight up overkill by Ibushi on Naito, hitting Bomaye, an Ibushi Driller, dropping Naito on his head, and Kamigoye for the win, but he had already hit the last ride a few minutes earlier. Ibushi did kick out of one Destino, but it wasn't the proper Destino position. Great match.

Post-match - Ibushi cut a promo thanking Naito and the crowd.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Finally a better show for the New Japan Cup. Undercard was about the same it's been, but the tournament matches tonight were great, i'll even say that Tenzan vs Taguchi was better than what I could had expected given the players. Tomorrow is the final day of the first round. From tonight, we get Sabre vs Ibushi and Tanahashi vs Taguchi, both matches should be good.