Here are the results from Day 7 of NJPW’s New Japan Cup tournament. The event took place at ZIP Arena Okayama in Okayama, Japan, and featured two second-round matches for the yearly tournament.
United Empire (Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) vs Tomoaki Honma & Toru Yano
- O-Khan forces Honma to tap out to an abdominal stretch
This match went as expected. Yano did his comedy wrestling, while Honma took the majority of the attacks from United Empire. It was a short encounter that saw O-Khan win the bout, making Honma tap out.
CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI) vs United Empire (Callum Newman, Francesco Akira & TJP)
- Goto pinned Newman after hitting him with Shoto.
United Empire failed to make it two wins in two here with a loss to CHAOS. It was an alright match, with some good sequences between the six men, although nothing to write home about.
House Of Torture (Jack Perry & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs Ryusuke Taguchi & Shota Umino
- Perry pinned Taguchi with a knee trembler
Finally! A HoT match without an offensive amount of interference. Sure, there was some, but it wasn’t completely ridiculous! It was a decent match which only served to build up to a rematch between Perry and Umino. HoT beat the young star down after the match.
Perry is set to face SANADA in the next round of the New Japan Cup.
Just 5 Guys (DOUKI, SANADA, Taichi & Yuya Uemura) vs BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens, David Finlay, Gedo & KENTA)
- DOUKI submitted Gedo with the DOUKI-chokie
Another standard multi-man tag match. BC isolated their opponents at times in the match, which is fine for a bit but does get boring after a week straight of this.
Just 5 Guys weren’t putting their all into their comebacks, clearly seeing this as a bit of a break. A disappointing watch overall.
House Of Torture (Ren Narita & Yujiro Takahashi) vs TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Zack Sabre Jr)
- Sabre Jr. pinned Takahashi after a PK
Two HoT matches without endless, pointless interference? Gedo has blessed us on this day.
Yes, they still cheated endlessly, but it is an improvement. The four men wrestled a decent match which saw TMDK continue their win streak as a team on the tour so far.
Zack Sabre Jr. will face Ren Narita in the first round of the New Japan Cup, making this match a preview for that.
Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Tetsuya Naito & Yota Tsuji) vs Guerrillas Of Destiny (El Phantasmo & Tanga Loa), El Desperado & Togi Makabe
- Tsuji pinned Makabe after a Gene Blast
A rather boring ten-man tag match rounded out the non-tournament matches. LIJ beat their opponents in a standard match that the crowd seemed happy with, especially seeing Naito in the ring. This match seemed to try and set up ELP vs Tsuji in the next round of the New Japan. However, it didn’t make anyone seem all that interested in seeing them face off.
New Japan Cup Second Round: Hikuleo vs EVIL
- EVIL pinned Hikuleo with an Everything is Evil
This match wasn’t great. It started off okay, with EVIL targetting the knee of Hikuleo that he injured along with the HoT yesterday.
The giant Samoan did manage to fight back, but interference from Dick Togo and the rest of HoT soon put a stop to that. GoD did run in to fight off the group, but it was not enough to stop EVIL pinning Hikuleo to win the match and advance to the quarter-finals.
New Japan Cup Second Round: Shingo Tagaki vs Gabe Kidd
- Shingo pins Kidd after a Last of the Dragon
Despite a disappointing New Japan Cup so far, Kidd and Tagaki pulled off one of the better matches so far in the tournament. The exciting brawl between the BC members and the former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion did not disappoint.
With lots of exciting action, including a piledriver onto a pile of chairs, it brought huge excitement to the live crowd in Okayama.
Shingo won the match to advance to the quarter-finals of the New Japan Cup.
