NJPW 45th Anniversary Show 3/6

[Raziel]

I was going to skip this, but it has a couple interesting big time matches that are interesting.

 

Main Event: Special Singles Match (Non-Title)

"Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada (CHAOS) vs. Tiger Mask W

 

Semi-Final Match:

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship 

Hiromu Takahashi (Los Ingobernables de Japon) (c) vs. Ryusuke Taguchi

 

Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, EVIL & BUSHI) vs. Hiroshi Tahahashi, Michael Elgin, Juice Robinson & KUSHIDA

 

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship

CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Toro Yano) (c) vs. Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan

 

RPW British Heavyweight Championship

Katsuyori Shibata (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

 

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship

Roppongi Vice (Baretta & Rocky Romero) (CHAOS) (c) vs. Suzuki-gun (Taichi & Yoshimobu Kanemaru)

 

Bullet Club (Kenny Omega, Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi, Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa) vs. Tiger Mask IV, Jyushin "Thunder" Liger, Togi Makabe (GBH), Yuji Nagata & David Finlay

 

CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, Gedo & Jado) vs. Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki, Davey Boy Smith Jr, El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku)

 

Pre-show:

Manabu Nakanishi vs. Tomoyuki Oka

[Raziel]

Lineup updated to with the reshuffle to replace Homna due to injury.  They still haven't said how bad his injury is, just that he has to miss this show to recover.

[Raziel]

Well, if no body watched it, I suggest taking a look.  Pretty eventful.

 

If for nothing else, but the Taguchi/Takahashi match was pretty damn good.  As was Okada/Ibus-I mean Tiger Mask W.

[Jiji]

Still getting around to night 2 of Honor Rising. Taguchi is kind of dull to me but I'll be excited to see what Kamaitachi can do with somebody clearly beneath him in terms of ability. And how they work the main event.

[Cyanide]

I watched the four title matches and the main.

The junior tag title bout left me wanting the titles to be unified more than ever.

Man, ZSJ looked extra skeletal in there for some reason, but I really think his energy and intensity and tenacity once he gets going (and out of his opening match World of Sport roleplay shtick) really does mitigate concerns about his size.  The finish as played out sure was a surprise.

Spoiler

Speaking of surprises, Gedo sure does love his replacement challengers.  Actually liked the tag title match a lot - just simple, good tag wrestling working in everyone's spots and interactions, with a hell of an exciting finish with either team feeling like they could pull it out at any moment.  Setting the over/under on Tencozy defenses at 0.5.

Thought the junior title bout was GREAT.  Fiery, fed-up Taguchi is a treasure, and have loved Hiromu ever since his return.

The main was just alright to me.  First "Tiger Mask W" match I've actually watched, and really just made me want Ibushi proper to be back in action.  Pretty typical Okada fare at this point, with an interesting weirdly heated portion heading to the finish where both guys are just trading straight punches and boots to the head (I presume the protagonist of the Tiger Mask anime would be a face?), and then some meandering through would-be finishers en route to the result.