NJPW Best of the Super Juniors XXI: Day 1

NJPW Best of the Super Juniors XXI: Day 1NJPW Best of the Super Juniors XXI: Day 1

By Big Red Machine
From May 30, 2014
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NJPW Best of the Super Juniors XXI: Day 1 (5/30/2014)- Tokyo, Japan

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS BLOCK A MATCH: Mascara Dorada vs. TAKA Michinoku- 5.25/10
Great for such a short match.

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS BLOCK B MATCH: Rocky Romero vs. Tiger Mask IV- 6.75/10
Rocky pulled out his old Black Tiger mask, making this a grudge match… but he put a Forever Hooligans eye-patch on it. AWESOME! Rocky tried to rip Tiger Mask’s mask off, but Tiger Mask wound up ripping Rocky’s off instead. It took me a few seconds to remember that this was totally legal (I actually had Steve Corino’s voice in my head saying “not a DQ”).

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS BLOCK B MATCH: Taichi (w/TAKA Michinoku) vs. El Desperado- no rating
I have decided to rate this as a segment instead of a match because what they did with the time they had was so great that I would feel bad rating is as a match (if I did, the highest I could give it would be about a 4.25/10). As a segment, this was GREAT! Taichi was the best, most despicable heel ever. The match only went five minutes, but that was because of the beating Taichi laid in on Desperado in the beginning. Taichi also got the win with a Gedo Clutch (after a weapon shot), so that might be leading to something.

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS BLOCK A MATCH: Jushin “Thunder” Liger vs. BUSHI-7/10
Great stuff, and hopefully the beginning of big things for BUSHI. Seeling Liger play the heel role in a match was very odd.

THE BULLET CLUB (Tama Tonga, Yujiro Takahashi, Bad Luck Fale, Doc Gallows, & Karl “Machine Gun” Anderson) vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Jado, Tomohiro Ishii, & YOSHI-HASHI)- 7.25/10
Nakamura and Fale are in each other’s faces to start things off. I cannot BOlieve that FALE is the guy they are putting with Nakamura at Dominion. We saw this match in the New Japan Cup Finals and it was WAY below what a major title defense should be, and Fale has not improved in the last two months. Okada was facing off against Anderson instead of the guy who cost him the IWGP Heavyweight Title, Yujiro.
Then they started and Nakamura and Fale actually had a good exchange of strikes. They tagged out to Jado and Tonga, and the way that Tonga no-sold Jado’s strikes, combined with his mask, looked really, really bad-ass.
A very fun tag team match in which everyone got a chance to shine. It also did a great job of building up a few of the matches for Dominion. Yujiro, being a douchebag, gets the pin of Okada’s little buddy YOSHI-HASHI in a very disrespectful manner.

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS BLOCK A MATCH: Ricochet vs. Alex Koslov- 6.75/10
Koslov seemed to hurt his arm doing that wacky flip dive from the middle rope that ACH does, but his armed got popped back into place and the match kept going. They did some good stuff, with one or two cool spots and a great nearfall… then the match abruptly ended when it turned out Koslov’s arm wasn’t as okay as everyone thought.

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS BLOCK B MATCH: Alex Shelley vs. Nick Jackson (w/Matt Jackson)- 6.75/10
Good wrestling and obnoxious heel antics. Not as good as Taichi, but certainly enough to make me pop huge when Shelley got the roll-up win. Matt Jackson jumped in the ring and jumped Shelley afterwards, so KUSHIDA came out to make the save, transitioning into…

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS BLOCK A MATCH: Matt Jackson (w/Nick Jackson) vs. KUSHIDA (w/Alex Shelley)- 7.25/10
Matt works over KUSHIDA’s back, then KUSHIDA makes a great comeback. The Bucks’ Spike Tombstone Piledriver of death on the floor should have been the finish, though. I thought that was going to be a big injury angle to eliminate KUSHIDA from the tournament or something; not a move that KUSHIDA would ever get any offense at all after.
Nick attacked KUSHIDA after the match, but then went to check on his brother instead of continuing the heel beatdown. Also, props are due to the Bucks for being smart enough to not wear matching tights for a tournament in which we are supposed to be following them as singles wrestlers.

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS BLOCK B MATCH: Kenny Omega vs. Ryusuke Taguchi- 8/10
Kenny Omega’s ‘fro is gone! WTF?! Missing afro aside, this match was awesome.

A great show from New Japan. Great Jr. Heavyweight action all up and down the card, and big tag team match with the heavyweights to help set up their big June PPV as well. If this is what we can expect from the rest of this year’s Best of the Super Juniors Tournament, I will be very happy.

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