Recapped: 01/23/2016
What happened: Dragon Lee (quickly) defeated Virus to keep the lightweight championship – but was immediately attacked by Kamaitachi, secretly in Japan all along. Kamaitachi wanted a title shot, and seemed to indicate NJPW had already set it for tomorrow night.
The Panther & Guerrero Maya Jr. also kept their tag team titles over Bobby Z and Okumura. Mephisto beat Volador leading in to their title match.
What was good: f you have your expectations lowered for Virus/Dragon Lee, it’s still good for the time they had. I enjoyed the opener and the main event was not bad, but it’s the Barbaro Cavernario/Nakamura vs Taguchi/Stuka match you need to see.
Where can I watch it: It’s on NJPW World.
Match 1: Máscara Dorada & Titán vs Sho Tanaka & Yohei Komatsu
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan, 01/23/2016
Winner: tecnicos (Titan modified figure four Tanaka)
Match Time: 7:38
Review: [good] entertaining opener, with Titan and Dorada free to go all out against the youngsters. They most could keep up and added a few big moves of their own, but are going to have to learn how to catch dives when they get to Mexico. Dorada and Titan had some good team work, and I hope Dorada’s partnered up a bit with the Guadalajara crew when he gets back to CMLL.
Match 2: Fuego, Juice Robinson, Kushida vs Gedo, Hechicero, YOSHI-HASHI
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan, 01/23/2016
Winner: rudos (Hechicero inverted suspended crab Fuego)
Match Time: 8:07
Review: [ok] A Hechicero/Fuego showcase, which is about half what I thought this match would be. Hechicero continues to get in a lot of his offense and get wins, being spotlighted on this tour without actual having any important matches. I guess Fuego doesn’t actually need to win to stay over, he just can do the dance and this crowd is with him. These guys meshed well enough with the NJPW wrestlers, though only KUSHIDA made any strong positive impact.
Match 3: Guerrero Maya Jr. & The Panther © vs Boby Zavala & Okumura for the Arena Coliseo (DF) Tag Team Championship
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan, 01/23/2016
Winner: tecnicos (Guerrero Maya sit down piledriver Bobby Zavala)
Match Time: 10:47
Review: [OK] fine enough tag match but missing some sort of spark. Okumura and Zavala didn’t have anything special as a team and Panther & Maya needed something bigger to play off. This match had a lot of appearing to the crowd to get reaction, which got a little old on TV by the 30th time (thought the crowd was still receptive.) Panther & Maya did have some good dives and Maya’s big finishes looked good, but this was alos a lot of spot, break up spot and didn’t flow as a match.
Match 4: Ryusuke Taguchi & Stuka Jr. vs Bárbaro Cavernario & Shinsuke Nakamura
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan, 01/23/2016
Winner: rudos (Cavernaria on Stuka)
Match Time: 7:49
Review: [good] as hgih quality match you’re going to get out of an eight minute semi-comedy match. Nakamura & Cavernario were great wacky friends, and this match was a win as soon as they came made the duel caveman entrance. The NJPW crew getting fully into the CMLL guys antics really is what makes this tour work, and this was the best example of it. Stuka didn’t add a whole lot, but he hits his necessary spots and was a foil at the right time, but this was more the wacky chemistry of the other three guys. Definitely something you should seek out.
Match 5: Atlantis, Jyushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask vs Bushi, EVIL, Tetsuya Naito
Winner: Ingobernables (Naito cradle Tiger Mask)
Match Time: 6:20
Review: [ok] my feed was stuck buffering for a long time and I missed a big portion of this match, but I don’t feel like I missed much. This was all the other Ingobernables matches but even less to it – which is fine, because I rather they spend the time in other places. Ivan’s intro might have been half as long as the match.
Match 6: Dragon Lee © vs Virus for the CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan, 01/23/2016
Winner: Dragon Lee (German suplex)
Match Time: 7:05
Notes: Seconds are Mascara Dorada & Hechicero. After the match, when Draogn Lee was posing for photos, Kamaitachi appeared and gave him a giant German suplex. Kamaitachi declared he wanted the belt and would challenge for it tomorrow.
Review: [good] hard to give this match a fair shot for what it was because of what it was not. A sub ten minute match for these two is vastly short changing what they could do. It’s also not like they were working at an insane pace for the time; it felt more like they did the first five minutes of a long match, then had to rush to the finish. This was their 2016 Best of the Super Juniors match instead of a title match. As it was, there’s not many GIFs for this match more because I was so into the match that I didn’t stop to take notes for them for a while. Virus got to do a few of the things that made him special; it actually felt like it hurt Dragon Lee more because he could’ve used the big showcase and only got a hint of it here. Perhaps tomorrow will make up for it.
Match 7: Hiroshi Tanahashi, Mistico, Volador Jr. vs Kazuchika Okada, Mephisto, Último Guerrero
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan, 01/23/2016
Winner: rudos (Mephisto Super Devil’s Wings)
Match Time: 18:14
Notes: This was the annual Black Cat tribute match. Mistico wore a half Dragon Lee mask.
Review: [good] Standard build to tomorrow’s big singles matches, though both builds felt a little bit of lesser repeats from earlier matches on the tour. UG and Mephisto have their set offense to get thru. Barely makes good for me based on the sharpness of the action, but what they built to was very familiar. Mistico continues to do well in these matches. Tanahashi and Okada had one good run at each other, and Okada took a Mistico headscissors.
