NJPW Wrestling Dontaku Tour 2017

[Raziel]

So, I'm doing a main thread for the tour this time, as they split the main title matches over the last 3 cards of the tour, instead of the PPV final show.  So I'm just listing the highlight matches for the 3 main shows:

4/27 in Hiroshima:

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship

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

 

NEVER Openweight Championship

Hirooki Goto (CHAOS) (c) vs. Minoru Suzuki (Suzuki-gun)

 

4/29 in Oita

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship

Hiromu Takahashi (L.I.J.) (c) vs. Ricochet

 

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. "King of Darkness" EVIL (L.I.J.)

 

IWGP Intercontinental Championship

Tetsuya Naito (L.I.J.) (c) vs. Juice Robinson

 

5/3 in Fukuoka

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship 3 Way Match

War Machine (Hanson & Raymond Rowe) (RoH) (c) vs. Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Guerrilla's of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa) (Bullet Club)

 

NEVER Openweight 6 Man Tag Team Championship

Taguchi Japan 2 (Ryusuke Taguchi, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ricochet) (c) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon ("King of Darkness" EVIL, SANADA & BUSHI)

 

Tomohiro Ishii (CHAOS) vs. Kenny Omega (Bullet Club)

 

IWGP Heavyweight Championship

"Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada (CHAOS) (c) vs. Bad Luck Fale (Bullet Club)

 

 

There are also a bunch of neat multiman tags throughout, and 5/3 has David Finlay vs. Cody Rhodes, which could be decent.

[zev]

Looks like the previous 4 Dontaku Specials are freely available for a bit on NJPW World. Any recommendations from any of these shows?

http://njpwworld.com/c/t_0000_2015_41#googtrans(en)

 

[Sublime]

Today's show was pretty fun from top to bottom but I'm going to guess that the main event will be tarnished a bit to some/most people because of the nasty looking unprotected chair shot to the head in it, I know it left a bad taste in my mouth. The two title matches were both good. Desperado was surprisingly entertaining in all his appearances.  

[Jiji]

Okada's streak of classic IWGP title defences ended today. Even by Bad Luck Fale carry jobs, this doesn't rank all that high. He's had better matches with Okada, Tanahashi, and Ishii in the G1 IIRC and the NJ Cup final was much better too. It wasn't bad and the story they told made perfect sense throughout but it just wasn't all that engaging. You just can't have Fale take the lion's share of a match and expect great things.

[Pete]

What a freaking WAR Omega/Ishii was.

[Jiji]

I'm so looking forward to that. I thought the New Japan Cup match between those two didn't quite live up to expectations and they have a classic in them. I wanted to get to the main event first and now I'm going from the beginning.

Why is David Finlay wearing mascara? The ALABAMA SLAM he took on the floor from Cody was absolutely disgusting. Full force and a sickening thud. Sweet second/third generation match-up though.

When does Ibushi drop the Tiger Mask W gimmick? Answer: not soon enough. There are so many generic flippy dudes they could get to do that. It's a shame they're wasting his talents on that. I get that they're not going to commit to a huge Ibushi push while he's doing his crazy freelancing but it still screams missed opportunity to me. It's pretty obvious he's not comfortable in that mask.

[The Natural]

On 4/27/2017 at 5:09 PM, Sublime said:

Today's show was pretty fun from top to bottom but I'm going to guess that the main event will be tarnished a bit to some/most people because of the nasty looking unprotected chair shot to the head in it, I know it left a bad taste in my mouth. The two title matches were both good. Desperado was surprisingly entertaining in all his appearances.  

Read about this and seen the GIF for the first time today. Wasn't a happy bunny.

16 hours ago, Oyaji said:

Okada's streak of classic IWGP title defences ended today. Even by Bad Luck Fale carry jobs, this doesn't rank all that high. He's had better matches with Okada, Tanahashi, and Ishii in the G1 IIRC and the NJ Cup final was much better too. It wasn't bad and the story they told made perfect sense throughout but it just wasn't all that engaging. You just can't have Fale take the lion's share of a match and expect great things.

 

16 hours ago, Pete said:

What a freaking WAR Omega/Ishii was.

Thanks for this, haven't watched them yet. Can't pass comment on Bad Luck Fale matches as I don't remember any.