Cero Reviews NJPW New Years Golden Series 2022, 2.20

[cero2k]

NJPW New Years Golden Series 2022, Final Day
January 20, 2022
Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center, Sapporo, Japan

Flying Tiger (Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask) & Kosei Fujita vs. BULLET CLUB (El Phantasmo, Jado & Taiji Ishimori) - 5/10
Good short match. Heat on Tiger Mask, Eagles got the hot tag, and Fujita took the fall against Ishimori. ELP teased the superkick but when he was loading it up, he dropped and didn't do it. After the match, there was some distrust from Ishimori that ELP was still loading up the boot, since he knew it was a DQ risk. I don't know what will happen in the long term, but this could potentially have something to do with the Bullet Club further fragmenting itself after White turned on the Guerrillas on Impact.

Ryohei Oiwa & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Suzuki-gun (DOUKI & Taichi) - 6/10
This was fun all around, I really enjoyed every pairing and it made me realize that I want a DOUKI vs Ishii match in next year's TAKATAICHIMANIA. Oiwa too looked good against both DOUKI and Taichi, he got some good offense before falling to Taichi's backdrop.

Six Or Nine (Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi) vs. Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) - 7/10
Couple of things going on here. Six or Nine just won the tag titles last night, so Suzuki-Gun going for the chase works, but prior to that becoming a thing, this was about Wato's chase of Desperado's title. They still had Wato and Despy pair up, but now with the titles and the New Japan Cup coming up, they may put that feud on hold until May since Desperado is surely going to work his program with Lindaman after the Anniversary show.

Match was really good, we had to long pair ups between Wato and Despy, and a latter one with Kanemaru and Taguchi which led to the finish where Kanemaru, who had been working on Taguchi's leg, went for a Figure 4 and Taguchi reversed into a pin for the win.

Satoshi Kojima vs. Great-O-Khan - 7/10
O-Khan jumped Kojima before the bell and locked in an armbar, he followed by hitting Kojima with a chair on the arm, which arguably didn't happen in front of the referee, but it was because O-Khan had pushed down the referee. Kojima made a comeback hurting O-Khan's hand, teasing that it was broken, allowing Kojima to unleash his usual chop and lariat arsenal. O-Khan came back, cut off Kojima, hit the Eliminator, and got the win.

Two good showings for O-Khan this weekend.

New Japan Cup Announcement - We're getting a 48 men tournament this year, meaning that some of the foreigners have to come over.

Great Bash Heel (Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma), Hiroshi Tanahashi & Yuji Nagata vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA & Shingo Takagi) - 7/10
These two teams, facing off with their full gear on, it was freaking glorious! I loved the image of Tanahashi and company waiting in the middle of the ring as LIJ made their entrance.

This was good, it was one of those matches that could have benefited from having 5 more minutes to allow everyone to show off, with 10 minutes, there's just so much that eight men can do. We obviously got more SANADA vs Tana, and a bit more Nagata vs Shingo,

NJPW King Of Pro-Wrestling Trophy Dog Cage Match
Minoru Suzuki (c) vs. Toru Yano (w/Tomu-kun) - 6.5/10
This is virtually an ambulance match but instead of an ambulance, we have a dog cage. In order to win, they must throw their opponent inside the cage and lock it up. And for those wondering, Tomu-kun is Noboribetsu's mascot, a city that is about 2 hours from Sapporo.

Match started like a Suzuki match in the ring, good stuff all around, but it slowly turned into a Yano match more and more until the end. At one point, both men found themselves with their hands handcuffed, so they just started hitting each other with axe handles and headbutts. Finish saw both men brawl inside the cage, where Yano managed to handcuff Suzuki inside, threw poor Fujita in there on top of Suzuki, and managed to lock the cage for the win.

Sadly, Suzuki's reign with the trophy has ended and we never saw the potential of what Suzuki dictating stipulations could had been.

NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championship Match
House Of Torture (EVIL, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi) (c) (w/Dick Togo) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, YOH & YOSHI-HASHI) (w/Tomohiro Ishii) - 7/10
As usual with HoT matches, I really enjoyed all the wrestling, Goto versus EVIL and YOH versus SHO were both great pair ups, but everything breaks down when the cheating starts. Even YOSHI-HASHI's babyface in peril run was pretty good, and I'll even accept EVIL's first use of the chair because YH kicked out, but then SHO using the wrench while EVIL held the referee was what really hurt the finish. Having said that, it was just the finish that sucked.

IWGP World Heavyweight Title Match
Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito - 9.25/10
Just the awesomeness you'd come to expect from this rivalry. From this year's big main events, this falls between Okada vs Ospreay and Okada vs Shingo, and I wouldn't say it was as great as Naito vs Okada's last big match, but this match being up there with those is praise on it's own, this match didn't have a tenth of the build up as those three matches that I just compared it with.

Match was completely paced as your typical main events, with both men slowly working the head towards their signature ends. The last 10 or so minutes were great, with Naito having an incredible amount of offense that led to a really strong near fall after hitting Destino and the Stardust Press. Okada would block another Destino attempt and hit one of his own, which would then lead to the dropkick and Rainmaker for the win.

Post-Match - Okada closed the show with a speech. He put over Naito, talked about the New Japan Cup, talked about facing off against the Jr. Heavyweight champ Desperado. During his celebration, Okada kept teasing Tanahashi about the championship, but I honestly don't know if Tanahashi ever noticed.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Good and fun show, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it rested on the shoulders of the main event. Trios titles and the KOPW trophy are not exactly hot divisions. Nonetheless, the show went by smoothly and quick, perfect to pass the time.