Cero Reviews NJPW New Japan Road 2020 9.11

[cero2k]

NJPW New Japan Road 2020 9.11
September 11, 2020
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan

Yota Tsuji, Gabriel Kidd, & Yuya Uemura vs Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima, & Tomoaki Honma - 6/10
The usual Young Lions vs New Japan Dads. All the young guys had a chance to show off, Tsuji had the hot tag, Kidd had the final run vs Kojima before falling to the Koji Cutter and a lariat, and Uemura went against all three at the start.

Golden Aces, Master Wato, & Ryusuke Taguchi w/Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr, Taichi, & DOUKI) - 6.5/10
The pair ups in this match were really interesting for me, it wasn't Ibushi vs Taichi or Sabre, it was Suzuki, and granted they will meet in the G1, but it's not even their first match. Other pair ups were Sabre vs Tana, DOUKI vs Wato, Taichi vs Taguchi, and a little bit of Taichi vs Tana.

The thing to pay attention here, which is gonna come into play on September 23 is this little dissension between Suzuki and Taichi, whether it becomes a battle for power, a simple rivalry based on the G1, there was something there and in their post match promos. It shouldn't be hard to believe that Suzuki will eventually slow down and that someone will take over SZKG.

Post-match - Suzuki and Taichi got in each other's face, Zack tried to play it cool, and Ibushi was happy about it.

Bullet Club (EVIL, Dick Togo, & Yujiro Takahashi) vs Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, & Shingo Takagi) - 7/10
They built Yujiro vs Shingo since they're in the same G1 Block (they wrestle on October 5th), they did more EVIL vs Naito, YET it was SANADA vs EVIL that barely touched, only a suplex and a Magic Killer attempt in the final minutes when things usually break down. SANADA is the one that has kept quiet about EVIL's turn, and was arguably the one that could have known something was off because of the beating he took at the NJCup. Eitherway, LIJ won when SANADA locked in the Skull End on Togo. Good stuff overall.

Post-match - LIJ did the fist bump. SANADA and Naito had a stare down. Later on, in the backstage promo, Naito said he wanted to wrestle SANADA out of everyone in New Japan.

G1 Climax 30 Cards Rundown - Block A is opening with Ibushi vs Okada while Block B is opening with Tana vs Naito. The rest of the nights have at least something worth watching, but I won't make note of them all, it's too much, but keep an eye open for :

9.23 - Ospreay vs Ishii, Suzuki vs Taichi
9.24 - Tanahashi vs Yano
10.1 - Naito vs SANADA, KENTA vs EVIL
10.7 - Ibushi vs Shingo, Suzuki vs Ospreay
10.10 - Okada vs Shingo
10.13 - Okada vs Ishii

Closing nights have Ospreay vs Okada for Block A, SANADA vs EVIL for Block B. I'm hoping for a Jay White vs SANADA finals, but I can totally see SANADA vs Okada/Ospreay.

NEVER Openweight 6-Man Championship Match
CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto, & YOSHI-HASHI) (C) vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano, & SHO) - 9/10
SHO had been antagonizing Ishii for some days now, just getting competitive with him, and this is where it all blew off. The match straight up started with SHO jumping Ishii and taking him out for a bit. Later on when Okada and YH were going at it, SHO and Ishii just started brawling outside the ring.

The rest of the match saw some Okada vs YH and Goto, some good Goto vs Yano stuff, and some Okada vs Ishii stuff before the finally unleashed SHO vs Ishii for good. SHO went after Ishii's arm, while Ishii was trying to slam SHO one way or another, it all led to Ishii beating the shit out of SHO before everyone got involved for the last minutes of the match. Both teams had some pretty cool combos, but at the end, Ishii pinned SHO with a Brainbuster. Ishii gave soo much to SHO who looked fantastic. This was awesome, everyone was on, even YH and Yano looked great in there.

Talking about Goto, I could totally see Goto as one of those guys that will get a pin on Naito during the G1 for that Power Struggle main event match while they build Wrestle Kingdom.

Post-match - Ishii embraced SHO and invited the rest of CHAOS to celebrate together, everyone looked proud of SHO. Ishii cut a short promo on SHO backstage, it gave me the impression that Ishii wants to take SHO under his wing and push him to the limit. It's the usual Ishii 'bring it' promo, but towards someone in his team and someone he probably thinks he could mentor.

Vacant IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Match
Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI) vs Suzuki-Gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) - 8.5/10
BUSHI as he's been using all tournament, had the double mask, but I just haven't liked a lot of the Kamaitachi combos, yet the one he wrestled with that only had the hair looked great. Kamaitachi's mask is all over the place, but this combo one looked nice and under control. Looked more like a Tiger Mask (maybe I'm missing something and it wasn't Kamaitachi).

Aside from this being 99% predictable, I enjoyed the match. Hiromu worked babyface in peril first, later on after BUSHI got the hot tag, he was cut off too and had to hot tag Hiromu after Despy took out BUSHI's leg. The second half of the match was great, it went full Tornado Tag with both teams going and hitting a bunch of double team moves until Despy got a Pinche Loco on Hiromu for the win. I knew that SZKG was winning for sure, but I didn't see Hiromu taking the pin tho, that was surprising.

Post-match - Despy cut a promo telling Hiromu and BUSHI that they'll never get a shot at the titles, that they should have never expected that they had a chance at defeating them. Kanemaru cleared the ring of losers and Despy hit Hiromu with the belt. Backstage, Taichi congratulated them and just like that, Suzuki-Gun holds 5 championships and only DOUKI is left aside.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Pretty good show overall. It's the final stop before the G1 Climax kicks off, the finals of the Jr tag title tournament, and an CHAOS vs CHAOS rematch, so it was packed and worth checking out. The show went off really quick