Cero Reviews NJPW Hyper Battle 2022

[cero2k]

NJPW Hyper Battle 2022
April 9, 2022
Ryogoku Kokugikan

Guerrillas Of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa), Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jado vs. BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, Gedo & Yujiro Takahashi) - 7/10
Fun match, weird to say, but I got excited about Jado finally getting his hands on Gedo and the latter getting his comeuppance. Match itself was mostly a brawl with everyone outside the ring, hence the focus on Gedo and Jado in the ring. Match also did a lot of work to showcase Tama Tonga, since he's the new babyface in town and the Japanese crowd has a big connection with him. Finish saw Jado tap out Gedo with a crossface.

Post-match - Tanahashi offered Tama Tonda, Tanga Loa, and Jado a place in Hontai and gave them t-shirts. Tama Tonga seemed excited.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) vs. United Empire (Aaron Henare & Will Ospreay) - 7.5/10
This was really good, like it was nothing epic or a classic, but it was four really strong wrestlers mixing it up and having tons of great sequences. The ending sequence may had been my favorite, from a unique perspective, and the potential of something great down the line. Final minutes came down to Shingo and Henare, with the former having the intensity that made Henare look good in the style he has started to create. At the end, Shingo won with Made in Japan.

Post-match - Shingo seemed to be trying to challenge Ospreay for the RevPro title.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Match
Six Or Nine (Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi) (c) vs. BULLET CLUB's Cutest Tag Team (El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori) - 7.5/10
I think this match is going to be really polarizing because it revolved around Taguchi's hip attacks and ELP trying to play that game. A lot of people don't consider hip attacks as serious enough, or anything revolving butts. These people may be really boring in bed.

Anyway, I thought the wrestling was good and fun, once things sped up, the action and near falls were good. Finish came when Taguchi and ELP started trading near falls and pin attempts, until the point that Taguchi ended up pulling down his pants on a pin and pretty much doing a Dieno pin on ELP to retain. If New Japan and DDT end up doing a show together this year, as part of the 50th anniversary, it be a crime to not give us Dieno vs Taguchi.

NJPW King Of Pro-Wrestling Championship No Ropes Match
Toru Yano (c) vs. Taichi - 6.5/10
It was short, but I really enjoyed this. I really wish we'd get more of this stipulation with other wrestlers, I love love LOVE the idea of an "out of the ring" elimination rule where there are no ropes. The rules of the match were virtually the same as any other match, but both men had Sumo training belts and thus the Sumo out-of-bounds rule into play. Without ropes, there wasn't much Yano shenanigans and thus Taichi ended up tossing Yano out of the ring for the win.

Taichi debuted a robe for this match, I really liked the look.

G1 Climax 32 Schedule Announcement - We're back to the July schedule. Buckle up!

SANADA Announcement - SANADA came out to relinquish the IWGP US title after suffering a broken orbital bone in his match with Ospreay, who came out and demanded that he get the title since he was the one who put SANADA out of commission anyway. Former US champion Tanahashi, who never got his rematch, came out and thus was decided that Tana and Ospreay will battle for the title. Sucks for SANADA, but at least it was the US title.

NEVER Openweight Championship Match
EVIL (w/Dick Togo) (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi - 8/10
Again, similar to my thoughts with the Jr. Heavyweight match, this one will probably have a lot of people undermining it because interference equals bad. I'm personally way more forgiving, but I do think that many EVIL matches tend to suck the energy out of the room towards the end, but this particular match managed stay super energetic even with Hiromu taking the loss.

The match was mostly Hiromu brawling with EVIL, overcoming Togo who kept interfering, and trying really hard to hit EVIL's own EVERYTHING Is EVIL, which he already used to defeat EVIL once. Once that failed, Hiromu started going for his own moves, at one point landing the Timebomb for a big near fall. At the end, EVIL and Togo finally managed to slow down Hiromu's momentum and drop him with the EIE for the win. I thought it was a wasted opportunity to give Hiromu a title to let him play with the big boys, but given that the BOSJ is coming, he may just have enough on his plate anyway.

Post-match - Tama Tonga came out to confront EVIL, but was jumped by Yujiro. Tanga Loa ran down and took out Yujiro, Tama dropped EVIL with a Gunstun. Tama then told EVIL that he betrayed him, and he will pay for it.

IWGP Tag Team Championship Match
Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) (c) vs. United Empire (Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) - 7.5/10
Really good match, but kinda generic. It felt like the main event of a Tag League show, which is not a bad thing, but there just wasn't much drama to it when it ended. I actually think that you could have made this a bit shorter, give O-Khan and Cobb a match where they just straight up overpower Bishamon, and get the titles, setting up a redemption story for Goto and YH towards the Tag League. Instead we just had a back and forth match that ended with Cobb pinning YH with the Tour of the Islands after Goto was taken out by an Imperial Drop.

If you ask me, Cobb and O-Khan should keep the titles until Wrestle Kingdom 2023.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship Match
El Desperado (c) vs. SHO - 8/10
This was kinda similar to EVIL vs Hiromu, but even if there was less interference, and the wrestling was better, I didn't think it was that exciting. I did like that the match revolved around SHO working the arm and Despy working the leg, along with a lot of brawling outside the ring that also played in the limb work. Desperado ended up winning with Pinche Loco after almost falling to a Shock Arrow and a low blow.

Post-Match - Taiji Ishimori came out and challenged Desperado for the title. Suddenly, the lights went black, and then we had the debut of Francesco Akira, (formerly?) of All Japan. He apparently is a pyromaniac now, he took off his jacket and revealed he has joined the United Empire, which also made me wondered if TJP is still with the stable. Anyway, Akira only announced that he's entering the Best of the Super Jrs., which is great news for New Japan. It's gonna be awkward when he represents New Japan in the upcoming NJPWxAJPW show in the works.

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Match
Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. - 9/10
Fantastic match, the combination of Sabre's dominance during the New Japan Cup and last year's G1, the specific wins at both, the fact that Taichi is doing other things right now, and even the coincidence that Katsuyori Shibata was at commentary, really made me think that this may be Sabre's night.

The match was yet another great mix up between the two, but surprisingly, not the best Okada or Sabre match that we've seen in the last month or so. They had an almost perfect match up of Sabre's submission work against Okada's resiliency to turn a match around out of nowhere, and what made it so exciting was knowing that for the last year, Sabre has ended matches out of nowhere, which we knew that wouldn't without Okada getting some of this spots in, but we knew that any submission or clutch after a certain point was as nearest as a near fall can get. Okada ended up getting the pin after a back and forth exchange that he cut off with a landslide and the Rainmaker.

Post-match - Okada cut his winner's promo, he called out Naito, the man who defeated him during the New Japan Cup. They decided to wrestle for the titles at Wrestle Dontaku. Not super excited that they went back to Naito so quickly after he defeated him a couple of months ago, but given the dates, I'm guessing he'll just be another win for Okada and set up a big challenge for DOMINION, especially if foreigners are apparently coming back soon.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Really good mid-level show by NJPW, while people will complain of House of Torture and butts, I thought it was a great show top to bottom, where even the non-title matches were able to offer you either a story or some great wrestling.