Cero Reviews NJPW New Japan Cup 2019 - 3.9

[cero2k]

NJPW New Japan Cup 2019, Day 2
March 9th, 2019
Dolphins Arena, Nagoya, Japan


Bullet Club (Chase Owens & "Bone Soldier" Taiji Ishimori) vs YOSHI-HASHI & Tomoaki Honma - 4.5/10
Match is building Owens vs YH, but the match saw more of Owens working over Honma's neck, which he eventually took out with the Package Piledriver for the win. Another win for Owens, but I take it will be his last for now.

CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) & Satoshi Kojima vs Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, Davey Boy Smith Jr, & Taichi) - 6/10
This is building three matches, and if anything else, I'm really interested in seeing what Ishii can slap out of Taichi. Yano defeated Davey Boy again tonight, so maybe this time Smith actually gets some wins at the tournament. Kojima vs Suzuki was good, no complains.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL & Shingo Takagi) vs Suzuki-Gun (Zack Sabre Jr & TAKA Michinoku) - 6.5/10
Really similar match to last night with most of the meat being between EVIL and Sabre. Shingo was great and TAKA held his own. Shingo pinned TAKA after the Pumping Bomber.

Hirooki Goto, Kota Ibushi, & Juice Robinson vs Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, & BUSHI) - 6.5/10
LIJ worked over Robinson, BUSHI straight up kicked his ass, no wonder he lost to Chase Owens. The stuff between SANADA and Goto, and Naito vs Ibushi was great, I think the former is going to be a barn burner, full of counters. Naito was really antagonizing Ibushi tonight. Juice pinned BUSHI with the Pulp Friction. This was as good as it could get with so many dudes and so little time.

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, & Yuji Nagata vs Manabu Nakanishi, Ryusuke Taguchi, Colt Cabana, & Shota Umino - 6/10
Seems criminal that they're making Nagata and Nakanishi fight after the gruesome first day they both had.

Shota once again jumped Tanahashi and once again got the upper hand on him, I like this little story that Shota has fire, but when it comes to shove, he'll lack the heart to go long. They had a second good go at each other towards the end. The rest of the match was meh, Colt and Taguchi were funny, but that's about it. Makabe won with the KKKD on Nakanishi.

Post-match - Shota attacked Tanahashi to the point that he had to get dragged away from his Young Lion peers.

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
"American Psycho" Lance Archer vs Toa Henare - 6/10
Match started with Henare catching Archer with a surprise powerbomb that gave him a good head start, but as soon as Archer got his footing back, he killed Henare. From there on, Henare would eventually make some comebacks and kick out from Archer's big moves, but ended up falling to Blackout. This was kinda boring, they're both good, but the combo and story was slow.

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
Hikuleo w/Jado vs "Mean Machine" Mikey Nicholls - 5.5/10
Hikuleo has improved a lot, but his greenness came out in this match at times, not bad, just some spots that seemed like Nicholls directed and Hikuleo didn't fully follow through. Story was just that Hikuelo was too big and that Jado kept interfering, and so Mikey had to beat some odds. Nicholls won with a Mikey Bomb. Crowd was kinda dead since one is a rookie and the other somewhat unknown.

TIL that Tanga Roa and I went to the same University.

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
"The General" Bad Luck Fale w/Jado vs "Sky King" Will Ospreay - 7/10
I liked the match, but they completely botched the finish, I'm even going to blame the camera more than Fale and Ospreay. Just like yesterday, Ospreay tried jumping Fale because this is going to be a speed vs power match, and the man with the power is kinda huge. Story here is that Fale went after Ospreay's ribs and back that he was hurting since the Anniversary show, so Will had to fight from beneath and kick his way into victory.

At one point, Ospreay went for the Os Cutter, but Fale pulled Red Shoes on the way and took one of the worse bumps he's ever taken. Jado obviously took the chance to take a shot at Ospreay, but Will fought back and took the kendo stick from him, using it on both Jado and Fale, which led to the finish with Ospreay hitting the Robinson Special and the Os Cutter, which Fale blocked. Ospreay kicked out of the Grenade and countered the Bad Luck Fall, turning it into a headscissors roll for the pin. Except Will couldn't reach Fale's legs and the pin happened when we visibly saw Fale's shoulders up. I don't fully blame them, Fale is a big guy to stretch like that, hence why I blamed the camera for not cutting to another angle.

Not sure why they had Nicholls vs Hikuleo right before this one, it was technically just a worse version of the big Tongan vs white boy gaijin story.

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
"Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada vs "Unbreakable" Michael Elgin - 9/10
Good match as always between these two. Elgin worked over Okada's arms, which I first thought was to take away the power of the Rainmaker, but later on, Elgin also seemed to be building towards his Crossface which I don't think he's ever used in NJPW. Okada on his side, went after Elgin's neck and shoulder.

Match was really hard hitting, Okada ended with a really bad imprint close to the armpit. There was a lot of chops, clotheslines, and powerbombs. Okada kicked out of all of Elgin's bombs and won with the Rainmaker.

Post-match - Okada offered Elgin a hand shake, Elgin thought about it and took it when the fans chanted. Okada cut a promo saying he's going to win the cup and the championship.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
This was really a one match show, and as great as that one match was, you can totally skip it. I'm starting to think that making the cup 32 men was a bad idea because they filled it out with guys that are just not that great. Tomorrow we get a super loaded card.

This block's next round will be Ospreay vs Lance Archer and Okada vs Nicholls.

[Big Red Machine]

New Japan Cup 2019 First Round Match
"American Psycho" Lance Archer vs Toa Henare - 6/10
Match started with Henare catching Archer with a surprise powerbomb that gave him a good head start, but as soon as Archer got his footing back, he killed Henare. From there on, Henare would eventually make some comebacks and kick out from Archer's big moves, but ended up falling to Blackout. This was kinda boring, they're both good, but the combo and story was slow.

Only kind of boring? You are being WAAAAAAAAAAY too nice.

[Big Red Machine]

Except Will couldn't reach Fale's legs and the pin happened when we visibly saw Fale's shoulders up. I don't fully blame them, Fale is a big guy to stretch like that, hence why I blamed the camera for not cutting to another angle.

Blame the referee. No matter where the camera is looking, at least half of the crowd was going to see that Fale's shoulders were clearly not down. Referees should be counting pins like it's a shoot. If you can't see the guy's shoulders, you shouldn't be counting a pin at all.