I tried to watch the NJPW PPV last night, but it was late and I feel asleep after the preshow match, but I did watch the replay this morning so good enough. It was the best quality wrestling stream I've watched and worth the price especially for an over four hour show.
The opening eight man tag is a fun match without a lot of substance to it, but it's does what it's supposed to do which is open the show and get you excited. KUSHIDA does some cool stuff. Jado or Gedo I don't remember which, and I'm not good at telling those two apart to start with, does a much quicker version of the rope drape DDT than Orton that looked super smooth. The crowd loved Nakanishi so he hit his trademark moves and gets the win.
Forever Hooligans vs. Taka Michinoku and Taichi was a great match and Taka and Taichi were cheating dicks in the best way throughout the match. They started it off well by letting Koslov sing the Russian anthem then start singing the Japanese anthem and jump the Hooligans halfway through. Everybody gets to look good in this match and when Koslov is isolated, Taka and Taichi do a great job of ruining hot tags by pulling Romero off the apron. The Forever Hooligans' finisher is a thing of beauty and I'm glad they keep the belts here.
Ishii vs. Suzuki is the kind of match people envision when they think of Japanese wrestling two guys hitting each other as hard as they can and dropping each other on their heads occasionally. At one point Ishii backs Suzuki into the corner and then delivers a violence party that lasts for at least half a minute. Suzuki gets the win, but his mouth is bleeding and his cheek is cut so you know it was hard fought. I really enjoyed this match.
TenKoji vs. Yano & Iizuka was a well planned out match. TenKoji is winning when it's a straight up wrestling match and they can do their thing, but when Yano and Iizuka do their crazy person thing and have all the weapons they want they get the advantage, but that can't last forever and Kojima wrecks both of them with lariats then uses Yano's handcuffs to lock him up in the corner and they Tenzan hits a moonsault for the win.
Tanaka vs. Naito is another good match with Tanaka bullying the smaller man for a lot of the match and of course it back fires on him and Naito puts on a good performance for falling. Naito took a sick kendo stick shot straight to the head at the beginning before Tanaka splashed him through a table. The match goes back and forth after that until Tanaka dumps him on his head with a german suplex and then with a lariat. It takes two diving lariats to the seated Naito to finish him off.
La Sombra vs. Nakamura is my favorite match of the show. Hard hitting action, high flying, and Nakamura being Nakamura. Best spot of the match was Sombra climbing the metal framework that holds up the lighting structure at least as high as the ring post and does a moonsault onto Nakamura and lands on his feet. Nakamura also pulled out a spinning Pescado which I didn't know he did, it was awesome. Nakamura's charging knee to finish the match was fucking brutal.
Bullet Club vs. Tanahashi, Makabe, Liger and Captain New Japan was solid but nothing more. It had it's moments, but it had a lot of big guys hitting their big spots and then some semblance of faces in perils and hot tags, but it lets all the good guys get one over on Bullet Club and with Tanahashi pinning Terrible, who isn't really a member of Bullet Club, they don't really lose too much of their heat.
Goto vs. Shibata was another one of the hard hitting, head dropping matches and they are going at it from the word go with lots of back drop drivers and hard hitting. I wasn't a huge fan of this match and it ending with a double KO after a headbutt didn't do a lot for me. I think they had a match earlier in the year that also had a double KO finish so I assume they're building to something, but it's still kind of blah. Unless you like watching people hit each other really hard, which I occasionally do. Ishii/Suzuki did this better in the night for my tastes.
Nagata vs. Sakuraba is another match I wasn't a fan of, but more because it's not my style. It's a worked MMA fight essentially and the two men can both do that. I like MMA, but when it's worked there's so much that goes against how fighting works in MMA and wrestling that it drives me crazy. They do good submission scrambles and Nagata has some slick throws in the match as well.
Okada vs. Devitt is the main event and it feels like it. Devitt plays the dastardly cheater in this match and does it well. Bullet Club gets involved in the match, but not to too great of a degree and I think it works well in the match. Loved how important the exposed corner becomes especially as I forgot about it after the first spot into it. The crowd was booing Devitt well and cheering very loudly for Okada most of the match which was awesome. Devitt got a bunch of near falls after countering a tombstone into one of his own and then delivering a double stomp with a chair on Okada. Devitt also countered the Rainmaker a bunch of times before Okada hit him with a tombstone and then connected with the rainmaker for the win. A good match that I'll probably like better when I rewatch it without crazy high expectations I had going into it.
The show kind of dragged for me after the intermission until the main event, but I can see those matches working well for people who like that style more. I really enjoyed everything before the intermission and the main event felt like the big match it was so overall I was happy. Definitely a show worth checking out.
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