Super J 6/9

Block A:

Samurai is out due to Kakihara winning and his match going to a draw; you need 8 to be top 3.

Kakihara will end no worst than tied for first.
The four left all control their own destiny. WIN or DRAW and you’re IN, LOSE and you’re OUT.

Top 3 is 3: 44% (no draws)
Top 3 is 4: 44% (one draw)
Top 3 is 5: 11% (two draws)

Head to Head won’t work here, which I’ll explain again later but mostly distills down to “if they tie in the match today, they tie in the standings.” Rankings are a huge toss up as well – if you win, you’ve got a tiebreaker with Kakihara for first. If you tie, you’ve got that tie with your opponent I just mentioned, plus maybe a tie with the other two if they tei as well. It’s a mess.

Block B:

Ignorning head to head tie breakers:
Naruse is IN
Tiger Mask is IN
Dragon is IN with a win or a tie or a Naruse win or a Tiger win.
Dragon is OUT only with a loss and Naruse/Tiger draw.
Heat is IN with a win or (a draw and either a Naruse win or a Tiger win.)
Heat is OUT with a loss or both matches end in a draw.

Head to Head:

• If Dragon and Tiger both lose, they’ll be tied for 3rd at 10. Ultimo won that match.
• If Dragon and Naruse both lose, they’d be tied for 3rd at 10. Naruse won their match.
• If Heat draws and Tiger loses, they’ll be tied for 3rd at 10. Heat won that match.
• If Heat draws and Naruse loses, they’ll be tied for 3rd at 10. Heat won that match.

But I still don’t believe they’ll use them.

PREDICTIONS
Liger over MA-G-MA
Tiger over Naruse
Dragon over Heat
My head says Kanemoto over Dragon, but my heart says Dragon draw Kanemoto. So undecided.

If Dragon draws there, that’d give us this ranking
1 Liger 9 (drew Kakihara)
1 Kakihara 9 (drew Liger)
3 A Dragon 8 (drew Kanemoto)
4 Kanemoto 8 (drew Dragon)
5 Samurai 7 (beat MA-G-MA)
6 MA-G-MA 7
7 Inoue 4 (beat Inoue)
8 Taguchi 4

Which means direct confrontations are out the window and your playoff for the last spot is a rematch of the guys who just went to a draw. So unless they hit the 20 time limit, realized what it meant, and decided “No Time Limit! Keep On Going!”, I don’t think you’d actually book that. So someone’s going to have to lose clean in this match – and other Block A match, but I’ve had that result in pen since day one.

I’m probably wrong, but I’ll pick Dragon. Shakes things up more. If I’m right, we end up with

Block B 2nd (Ultimo Dragon) vs Block A 3rd (American Dragon)
Block A 2nd (Liger? because Kakihara is reigning champ?) vs Block B 3rd (Tiger)
Block A 1st (Kakihara) vs winner of Dragon/Dragon
Block B 1st (Naruse) vs winner of Liger/Tiger
Final

Dragon/Dragon! Awesome. I didn’t guess it that way. Given these brackets I’d guess Tiger over Kakihara but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.