New Japan Pro Wrestling returned to Hiroshima this week for another “Road to” show on their path to Wrestling Tokyo Province on 4/29 and Wrestling Dontaku on 5/3. While the “Road to” events are generally just house shows, this was something a bit more special, broadcast live on New Japan World with two championships on the line.
We’ve had a lot of people asking why these title matches weren’t held off to make the upcoming shows on 4/29 and 5/3 that much bigger, and the simple answer is ticket sales, as well as creating more content for their network. The two major shows already have the Heavyweight, Intercontinental and Juniors singles titles being defended, as well as key Kenny Omega and Hiroshi Tanahashi return matches from the New Japan Cup in the semi-main slots. The tour started with two legit sell-outs, and will end with two legit sell-outs, so the idea is they could spread out the title matches and end up with five sell-out shows on New Japan World during one tour.
They did something similar with the New Japan Cup this year, spreading it out over more days and actually holding all four of the quarter final matches on four separate house shows, with the tournament matches being uploaded to New Japan World. The result is that the bigger cards have a few more multi-man tags, and all the key matches you really want to see are more spread out, but with business being up right now, it’s hard to argue with their strategy.
Roppongi Vice took the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championships from Suzuki-Gun in what was an excellent tag team match right before intermission. The team has now held the titles four times, putting them in a three way tie for second place in all-time number of title reigns. Only the Young Bucks have had more at five. For Rocky Romero, this is actually his eighth reign as champion, winning the titles twice with Alex Kozlov as the Forever Hooligans, and twice with Davey Richards as No Remorse Corps.
Minoru Suzuki, leader of the Suzuki-Gun stable, defeated Hirooki Goto to capture the NEVER Openweight Championship in the main event. Goto has had a string of excellent matches since winning back the title at Wrestle Kingdom, including a recent match against the newest Suzuki-Gun member Zack Sabre Jr., which actually set up this bout. It’s almost heard to believe, as he’s one of the most respected and dominant stars in Japanese wrestling, but this is actually Minoru’s first ever singles championship with New Japan Pro Wrestling, and his title with the promotion in any capacity since 2004, when he and Yoshihiro Takayama dropped the IWGP Tag Team titles.
NJPW Road to Wrestling Dontaku
Hiroshima, Japan
April 27, 2017
1. Tomoyuki Oka, Hirai Kawato & Jushin Thunder Liger defeated Syota Umino, Katsuya Kitamura & Tiger Mask
The only Young Lions match on the card, featuring the main four being groomed right now, captained by two veterans. This got a surprising amount of time and was a lot of fun for what it was. Liger and Tiger started things off with a nice back and forth exchange to show them how it’s done. Kawato tagged in and played the sacrificial lamb for quite a while, being manhandled by the jacked Kitamura, then Tiger Mask, then triple teamed by everyone. He eventually hit a great looking dropkick and made the hot tag to big man Oka (he’s almost literally young Ishii) who went back and forth with Kitamura like two giant bulls. A brawl broke out between all six guys, and Oka put Umino in the Boston Crab for the submission win.
2. Will Ospreay & Toru Yano defeated TAKA Michinoku & El Desperado
This was mostly a comedy match with a few Ospreay highlights, and was kept very short. There was a funny moment early on when Ospreay did his tope suicida fake-out into the Terminator pose, which he usually does, but Yano also did the pose. Desperado took out Will with a spike to the eye, leaving Yano to do his thing, removing turnbuckles, distracting the referee, etc. He held off long enough for Ospreay to recover, hit the corkscrew roundhouse kick, then the OsCutter for the win.
3. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima & David Finlay defeated Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa & Chase Owens
Another relatively short match. Tencozy teamed up to take out GoD early on, but Finlay got triple teamed and dropkicked over the barricade. Bullet Club beat down Finlay mocking Tenzan’s Mongolian chops, then Kojima’s machine gun chops. Eventually Kojima made the hot tag and did the real machine gun chops to all three. Tenzan got his revenge as well. Tencozy hit the Ten-Koji Cuter on Owens, and Tenzan made him tap out with the Anaconda Vice.
4. Roppongi Vice defeated Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taichi (c) to become the NEW IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS!
This was an excellent tag team match. Suzuki-Gun of course did their usual antics – Desperado, the valet, brawling in the crowd, the bell hammer – but it was a bit more limited here, with the babyfaces having more comebacks and getting in a lot more offense. Gedo and Jado came out to run off Desperado halfway through the match. With all the distractions removed, it broke down into a really good back and forth match. There were false finishes on both sides; Taichi even tapped his hammer to his boot and blasted Beretta while the ref was down. All four fought for position on the top turnbuckle, which turned into a huge Tower of Doom spot with everyone crashing down. It looked like the champs had Beretta dead to rights, but Rocky came back and took them both out, flying all over the place, and Beretta pinned Kanemaru after Strong Zero.
After the match, Rocky Romero said that New Japan fans didn’t want Suzuki-Gun anymore. He called out the Young Bucks, wanting to prove they’re the real best tag team in the world.
5. Juice Robinson, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ryusuke Taguchi, Ricochet & Yoshitatsu defeated Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi, Bushi, Evil & Sanada
Even after that tag title match, this was still the best match of the show so far. These two groups know each other so well by this point, they’re putting on nothing but awesome matches. Naito came out wearing a “Carp de Japon” shirt in reference to the Hiroshima baseball team, and got the biggest pop of the night because of it.
The match was non-stop action from start to finish. Naito and Juice brawled into the crowd while Yoshitatsu got assaulted by the rest of LIJ. There was a funny moment where Taguchi had everyone doing splashes to Sanada in the corner, set up for a butt attack, but when he turned around it was all five LIJ members and he tried to call a “time out”. They took turns picking apart Taguchi until Ricochet made the hot tag and took all of them out, with a summersault dropkick to Sanada, a springboard cutter to Bushi, a crazy series of kicks to Evil and Naito, and the 619 into a flying forearm to Hiromu; just an insane sequence of moves. Tanahashi and Evil went back and forth taking each other out. The crowd popped big when Juice and Naito tagged in, with Juice getting two very close nearfalls. He and Sanada went back and forth countering each other’s finishes a half dozen times. Eventually Juice hit Pulp Friction for the pinfall as Naito was being held back on the apron.
6. Bad Luck Fale, Kenny Omega & Yujiro Takahashi defeated Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi
Usually when these guys lock up at a house show you’re going to see Okada saved until the very end, and Ishii tease lifting Fale about a half dozen times until he finally makes it happen. This time we got a pissed off Okada, who went immediately after all of them, clearing the ring and trying to get at Fale from the start. Ishii did try to lift the big man, but was never successful; in fact they continued making Fale look like an unbeatable monster for the most part. Takahashi and Yoshi-Hashi had good offense but were just there because somebody needed to get pinned. Omega was largely directing traffic, had some good exchanges with Ishii to build their match, but the real story was Fale and Okada. Bad Luck Fale pinned Yoshi-Hashi with the Tombstone Piledriver to send another message.
After the match Fale destroyed all three of them in a brawl around ringside. He stood on Okada’s neck holding up the IWGP title as Omega choked out Ishii with Takahashi’s pimp cane.
7. Minoru Suzuki defeated Hirooki Goto (c) to become the NEW NEVER OPENWEIGHT CHAMPION!
They started with a slow exchange back and forth until Minoru baited the champion into an armbar over the top rope. He brawled with him into the crowd and beat him down with chairs, laughing at the referee because he knew he’d never stop the match (to be fair, I wouldn’t either if I knew Suzuki would murder me). Desperado came back and continued the chair assault as Suzuki stalked the ref back to the ring. Suzuki dominated the bulk of the match working over Goto’s arm and continually going back to various armbars. Every time Goto struggled to break free or found some momentum, Suzuki would attack the injury or Desperado would cause a distraction. Late into the match Goto fired up and the two went back and forth with elbow shots; some fantastic imagery as Suzuki kept smiling through the pain, and Goto just kept getting back up and asking for more. The champ hit a Ushigoroshi and locked in a modified butterfly lock, then rocked him with a headbutt that sent him into the corner. He tried for a second Ushigoroshi but Suzuki kept countering into submissions, first a front-mounted sleeper, then his standard sleeper. Desperado tried to get involved again, but Goto sent him crashing into the barricade. Suzuki hit a big dropkick out of nowhere and started levelling him with punches, throwing the referee down when he tried to stop it. He backed the ref into the corner and held him down, allowing Desperado to hit Goto with an unprotected chair shot to the head. Suzuki lit him up with a series of slaps and chops, then a second series, locked in the sleeper hold, and hit the Gotch-style piledriver for the win.
