BRM Reviews NJPW New Japan Cup 2023 Final

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews NJPW New Japan Cup 2023 Final

Post by Big Red Machine » Mar 26th, '23, 14:19

NJPW New Japan Cup 2023 Final (3/21/2023)- Nagaoka, Japan


HIROSHI TANAHASHI & YUTO NAKASHIMA vs. JUST 5 GUYS (DOUKI & Taichi)- 6.5/10
Basic undercard tag stuff.

RYOHEI OIWA & SHOTA UMINO vs. TMDK (Zack Sabre Jr. & Kosei Fujita)- 6.5/10
More basic undercard tag stuff. ZSJ and Umino had a face-off after the match.

TAMA TONGA, TOMOAKI HONMA, & TOMOHIRO ISHII vs. BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens, El Phantasmo, & KENTA)- 5.75/10
More undercard tag stuff.

RYUSUKE TAGUCHI, TORU YANO, & STRONG STYLE (El Desperado & Ren Narita) vs. HOUSE OF TORTURE (Dick Togo, Yoh, Yujiro Takahashi, & EVIL)- no rating, decent segment
This got started with a brawl in the aisle, which was a desperately-needed change of pace at this point. House of Torture won after hitting Taguchi in the head with a wrench.
The heels beat the babyfaces up after the match and spray-painted something on Narita’s stomach. Then they ripped off El Desperado’s mask. El Desperado was in Suzuki-Gun for many years and was Kanemaru’s tag team partner for a long time, but no one came out to defend him from this grave show of disrespect. What bad friends they are.

UNITED EMPIRE (Aaron Henare & Great O-Khan) vs. LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi)- 7/10
Good stuff to set up an RPW British Heavyweight Title match, as Naito pinned O-Khan with a roll-up countering the Eliminator.

UNITED EMPIRE (Jeff Cobb & Aussie Open) vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, YOSHI-HASHI, & Hirooki Goto)- 7.5/10
United Empire get the win, setting them up as challengers for the tag titles.

IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Hiromu Takahashi(c) vs. Lio Rush (w/Yoh)- 8.5/10
Kevin Kelly claiming that after winning the Top Prospect Tournament, Lio Rush “went on to do great things in ROH” is a statement so false it offends me, and what’s worse is that it’s such a completely f*cking pointless lie. You just put him over by saying he won the Top Prospect Tournament. You don’t need to make something else up after that.
I haven’t been paying much attention to New Japan for a while, and the buzz about match was a large part of the reason I chose to check this show out (curiosity over the main event was also a draw, but nowhere near as much as this match). And I will admit that I am disappointed. Yes, the match was awesome, but it was much more of Lio Rush doing a Japanese style match (and the heavyweights and the junior heavyweights are basically doing the same thing now, with the juniors just being more flippy) rather than Hiromu and Lio having a match that mixed that style with the unique athleticism that Lio has in terms of his lateral movements and the defensive style it lends itself to that drew me to Lio the first time I saw him and have kept me interested in him ever since. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not holding that against this match. I’m just saying that I don’t see what all of the hype was about, as this didn’t feel much different from any other IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title match I have seen over the past five years.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Robbie Eagles has joined United Empire and is getting a title shot next, even though his most recent singles match in New Japan was a loss to Kyle Fletcher, he has lost the vast majority of his matches for the past year, and his last singles win over anyone who has any real credibility was towards the end of Best of the Super Juniors ALMOST TEN MONTHS AGO.

NEW JAPAN CUP FINAL: Sanada (w/DOUKI, TAKA Michinoku, & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs. David Finlay (w/Gedo)- 7/10
This black dye-job of Finlay’s was a bad idea. It makes it look like he’s trying to be Fake Jay White. He’s even doing the repeated barricade spot. Is he going to talk with a Kiwi accent, too?
Leaving LIJ has not made Sanada any smarter, as he is still letting go of a perfectly effective submission hold to try to hit a moonsault, which was, of course, countered. They hit each other in the head a lot. The match was just not very interesting. I don’t care about either guy, as Finlay has never done anything interesting and still feels like an undercarder, while Sanada feels like his generation’s Hirooki Goto, except that unlike Goto, who loses his biggest singles matches because he tries really hard and comes up short, Sanada loses his biggest singles matches because he’s a moron who locks in his signature submission, and once he feels it starting to put his opponent out, he gives up on the hold to a try to hit a high-risk moves instead of continuing to do the thing that is working. I realize that I hard on this a lot, but it really is an impediment to me ever seeing the guy as a top-level star. Being the head of Suzuki-Gun’s leftovers doesn’t help, either, but I will at least say that giving him his first big singles tournament win right after his change of scenery is good booking.


This was an okay show from New Japan. The undercard was better than I was expecting, even with its repetitiveness, but the main event failed to deliver. While Hiromu vs. Rush didn’t match the expectations I had set for it, it was still awesome, and I’m not going to hold that disappointment against this show.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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