May 14, 2019
Sendai, Japan
Suzuki-Gun (Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, & TAKA Michinoku) vs Tiger Mask, Jonathan Gresham, & Yota Tsuji - 4.5/10
SZKG worked over Gresham's injured hand from last night. Tiger Mask came in with the hot tag, but they took out his knee again and worked on it a bit before Tsuji came in. Tsuji had a good showing, but ended up tapping out to Taichi's Seiteijyujiryou.
Post-match - Taichi held the lock on Tsuji, so Uemura came for the save. Kanemaru went after Tiger's Mask taking it off.
SHO & Shota Umino vs Dragon Lee & Juice Robinson - 5.5/10
We got the 'the video' at the start of the match this time. Kinda wished they had segmented the video so we wouldn't see the same thing every time. Video killed the crowd for a bit.
The stuff between Dragon Lee and SHO was great, but somewhat similar to SHO vs Shingo since it was lariat and forearm heavy. Juice and Shota had a good exchange with Juice obviously winning a modified Boston Crab.
Post-match - SHO and Lee brawled pretty heavy into the crowd and the commentary tables. It shut Caprice up for a while, so I liked it. Seems like tomorrow's main event will be heated.
Bullet Club (Taiji Ishimori & Gedo) vs Villain Enterprise (Marty Scurll & Brody King) - 5/10
BC jumped VE, with Gedo getting rid of King for enough time for him and Taiji to get the upper hand on Scurll and cut the ring in half on him. Brody King came in with the hot tag (without actually being tagged) and the fans loved him, they seemed impressed with his ability to flip. Once King came in, he made quick work of both BC guys, and Scurll won with the Black Plague. Ok match, good short debut for King. Scurll never tagged out.
Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi) vs Titan & Toa Henare - 5.5/10
Quick match. Shingo and Titan did their thing, there was a slight size difference, but Shingo played well with Titan's speed (he wrestled Masato Yoshino for years for god's sake). Naito pinned Henare with Destino. A lot of mind games going on here.
Best of the Super Jr 26 Block B
Ren Narita (0) vs Douki (0) w/Taichi - 6.5/10
The two substitutes clash on their first night. Douki's style was made for Suzuki-Gun, using chairs, pushing the ref around, so I expect a lot of people will hate him, but Chris Charlton sold his backstory and gimmick nicely, and the match for that matter. The idea is that Douki never wanted to be a Japanese wrestler, he wanted to be a luchador and thus left for Mexico when he graduated from high school. Now he has come back, he is an enigma with barely any footage to study, and thus the wrestlers won't be able to anticipate his moves. He hates the idea that the Young Lions are well taken care off and thus his disregard for everything that is sacred in NJPW.
The thing that worked so nicely in this match is that his hate for Japanese wrestling is also his weakness, because he will lack the schooling of working with the New Japan's Dojo basics, and that was what Narita had on him. The match itself was a lot of Douki working on Narita until the latter got space to hit his dropkick and get some offense in, get some near falls, and then fall to the Suplex de Luna. Good match, I think that if this had happened later in the tournament, Narita had a chance at winning here.
Post-match - Douki and Taichi beat up Narita with a pipe. They faced off with Liger on commentary.
Best of the Super Jr 26 Block B
Robbie Eagles (0) vs Rocky Romero (0) - 7/10
Match started pretty fast paced, but as Eagles worked on Rocky's knee, the match slowed down a bit. Rocky's whole arsenal was submission based, while Robbie showed a lot more striking and athletic stuff, even if he did have a good near fall with a submission towards the end of the match. Romero kicked out of the Turbo Backpack, but then hit the Warp 4.5 on the injured leg, locked in an inverted Figure 4 and submitted Rocky.
The match was good, but I just didn't get into it. Wasn't a big fan of Rocky kicking out of the Backpack on the first night of the tournament, especially if he lost anyway.
Best of the Super Jr 26 Block B
Bandido (0) vs El Phantasmo (0) - 7.5/10
Phantasmo flipped off a little kid in the crowd. That's some heel shit right there. A lot of the match was that, Phantasmo showing off both moves and how heel he can get. Match didn't really get juicy until both men hit their own version of the Canadian Destroyer. They started hitting some big moves, at one point Phantasmo kicked out of the super Spanish Fly Slam, which again I wasn't a fan off. Finish saw Phantasmo mess with Bandido's mask, allowing him to hit that Facebuster Pedigree move he used on Ospreay (not sure what it's called yet).
The match wasn't bad by any means, and it seemed like an excuse to show off Phantasmo, but the truth is, I don't think these guys had good chemistry.
Best of the Super Jr 26 Block B
BUSHI (0) vs Will Ospreay (0) - 9/10
I'm kinda surprised that this didn't main event the show. I thought the same from SHO vs Shingo, but at least Dragon Lee is the champion on that block.
They played a lot with them knowing each other well, they used Ospreay's hurt neck from yesterday for BUSHI to focus on. They hit a bunch of big spots, BUSHI going for the neck over and over again, and Ospreay managing to counter as much as possible. Big climax came when BUSHI hit the same Draping DDT on the apron as yesterday. BUSHI chased MX, but Ospreay dodged, blocked the Green Mist, hit the Hidden Blade and the Stormbreaker for the win. Ospreay gets his BOSJ win back from BUSHI. Great match, BUSHI looked great in defeat.
Best of the Super Jr 26 Block B
YOH (0) vs Ryusuke Taguchi (0) - 9/10
I liked this match a lot, it showed the brilliance of Taguchi. Half of his match was working the hip attack arsenal, which wasn't working that well for him, and thus he decided to change his attack plan into YOH's leg, but with the work done on the head, it was the Torture Rack version of Dodon that finished off YOH.
YOH's story here was mostly going after Taguchi's legs from the get go and follow with that, which worked well until Taguchi transitioned his attack to the legs.
Post-match - Taguchi thanked YOH for the match and put him over. He said that the best Juniors come out from Miyagi. He thanked the fans, sent good vibes to the tournament, and danced off to close the show. Backstage, he talked about having to pull out the special Dodon to win the match. He promoted Toru Yano's Cheese Curry.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
A slightly weaker show to open up Block B, but good nonetheless. I wasn't a big fan of some of the pair ups tonight, I think it was a mistake doing Phantasmo vs Bandido tonight since those are two guys that should be allowed to rank up some wins before either of them took their first loss. Likewise Douki and Narita, the former should lose in his debut, but he is also a strong contender for Narita's only win IF any.
POINT CARDS
Block A Block B |
Marty Scurll [2] Bandido [0] |
Shingo Takagi [2] BUSHI [0] |
Taiji Ishimori [2] Douki [2] |
Tiger Mask [2] El Phantasmo [2] |
Titán [2] Ren Narita [0] |
Dragon Lee [0] Robbie Eagles [2] |
Jonathan Gresham [0] Rocky Romero [0] |
SHO [0] Ryusuke Taguchi [2] |
Taka Michinoku [0] Will Ospreay [2] |
Yoshinobu Kanemaru [0] YOH [0] |
