Archibald

I'll watch it when it gets uploaded on NJPW World, but from what I heard highlights are young lions match, LiJ vs Kongo and main event.

Random thoughts: Yoh/Sho was disappointing. Going in it looked like it was supposed to be a feud ender, but it was just a match. Weaker than their first and definitely weaker than their BotSJ match. And next day Sho did beat Yoh in tag match. Baffling decisions. I don't think that there is anything wrong with Tananashi tag team match ending with a DQ. It is a preview match for another day so it should build towards it and a lead up to NO DQ match ending in a DQ to me makes perfect sense. Ishii/Evil was so bad it was funny. But then I stopped laughing and wanted to cry. Yoshi/Goto vs Taichi/ZSJ was great and I'm very happy that Yoshi got this. He was the heart behind their great trios title run and worked his ass off in WTL. Nice to see that hard work pays off. Shibata/Narita, Desperado/Hiromu, Cobb/Naito, both Okada main events were great. Tanahashi/KENTA was absurd. If nobody is injured then images of Tanahashi jumping from the ladder and bloody table will likely become iconic images going forward. I usually don't like bullshit matches, but that ending was so insane that it is likely my MOTY at the moment.

Pretty good list, only two matches that I feel like aren't Top 20 material are Tanahashi/Omega and Nakamura/Sakuraba. I think that I'd add G1 semi-final Naito/Omega match to the list. Maybe one of Naito/Ibushi matches, but I can see why someone would skip them on principle.

What kind of a tournament it is? Tag teams?

I think that nobody from UE getting booked is a bit weird. You'd think that Cobb/O-Khan or Cobb/O-Khan/Henare would be better than having 3 Suzuki Gun matches. 2 Bullet Club matches probably could also be combined into one.

Card announced for NJPW/NOAH show and it is all tags with one single match between Sho and Atsushi Kotouge.

Either surprise Ibushi return or an outsider. Nothing else really comes to mind? Yoh/Sho and Naito/Cobb are looking like #1 contender matches for New Beginning shows.

So looks like we are getting: Tanahashi/KENTA no DQ match for USA title Eagles/Tiger Mask vs ELP/Ishimori vs Taguchi/?? 3-way for Junior tag titles Goto/Yoshi vs ZSJ/Taichi for tag titles Hiromu/Desperado for Junior title Naito/Cobb because why not Sho/Yoh part 3 and Shibata match

Tanahashi has called out KENTA in his last comments for USA title and ZSJ obviously got tag team match. Scary thing is that Ishii is NEVER champ and at the moment doesn't have any obvious opponent. I think it would be very Shibata to go straight to the type of match that everyone wants him to avoid. And you are probably not going to convince Shibata and Ishii that they shouldn't do couple of headbutts. It would be totally random, but I probably would prefer if we got Shibata/Khan instead of Shibata/Ishii. Khan/ZSJ from G1 was one of the best matches this year (at least for me) and I think he could work similar match with Shibata.

How is that supposed to work when Impact is running shows and RoH isn't?

Card for WTL/juniors finals: https://www.njpw1972.com/tornament/104935?showCards=1 Looks like the role for House of Torture is to get far enough to annoy people and then lose. Happened with Evil in G1. Sho in BotSJ and now here probably same is going to happen. Either way big news is that Shibata is going to have some announcement on this show.

Why even bother then.

LA Dojo vs UE multiman was one of the better multimans I have seen in a while.

Yeah, but I guess that it wouldn't be financially viable to book (get visas and so on) so many new guys for one show.

Aren't they waiting a bit too long for that Moose/Alexander rematch? As I understand Hard to Kill will take place in January, no?