NJPW Road to the New Beginning
January 27, 2017
This is the kick-off show to the New Beginning tour that will culminate in two big specials on New Japan World next month. The major focus was on the return of Suzuki-Gun and their first official matches back since the big invasion angle at New Year Dash, plus the build of the title matches for the upcoming New Beginning events.
(1) Yuji Nagata def. Takayuki Oka. Oka is one of the new batch of Young Lions, and is actually under Nagata’s wing ring now.
(2) Tiger Mask & Yoshitatsu def. Jushin Liger & Henare
(3) Gedo, Jado, Yoshi-Hashi (Chaos) def. Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Takashi Iizuka (Suzuki-Gun) via DQ. Iizuka beat up Yoshi-Hashi with a steel chair to get a very rare DQ finish, which you hardy ever see in New Japan. I guess Suzuki-Gun really is back… The trio beat the hell out of the Chaos guys after the match.
(4) The Killer Elite Squad (Suzuki-Gun) def. Tencozy (Tenzan & Kojima). Archer put away Kojima with the Killer Bomb in a good match. Archer and Davey Boy beat down Tencozy and then left a few young lions laying around ringside for fun after the match.
(5) Togi Makabe, Tomaoki Honma, Juice Robinson & Katsuyori Shibata def. Will Ospreay, Toru Yano, Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto. There are actually three title matches being built up here, as Honma/Makabe will go after the tag titles held by Ishii/Yano in a thee-way with the Suzuki-Gun guys, Juice Robinson faces Goto for the NEVER title, and the major focus was Shibata/Ospreay which is going to be insane.
(6) Los Ingobernables de Japon (Naito, Sanada, Evil, Bushi & Takahashi) def. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Michael Elgin, Manabu Nakanishi, Kushida & Ryusuke Taguchi. They’re really building up the Naito/Elgin title rematch here. Sanada got the win via submission with the Skull End.
(7) Minoru Suzuki, Taka Michinoku & Taichi def. Kazuchika Okada, Rocky Romero & Baretta. Really good match. It had a big match feel as it was the first match Suzuki has worked for New Japan in a long time.
