NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 9 In Tokyo Dome - 04.01.2015
15 Man Battle Royal
Captain New Japan vs. El Desperado vs. Hiro Saito vs. Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Manabu Nakanishi vs. Sho Tanaka vs. Taichi vs. TAKA Michinoku vs.Tama Tonga vs. The Great Kabuki vs. Tiger Mask vs. Yohei Komatsu vs. YOSHI-HASHI vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Yuji Nagata
It was not good but eh... FUJIWARA BITCH! It was nice to see Saito and Kabuki too. At least the right guy won.
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title Four Way Match
reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly) (c) vs. Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson), Forever Hooligans (Alex Koslov & Rocky Romero), Time Splitters (Alex Shelley & KUSHIDA)
Not a very good version of your classic jr opener spotfest, it somehow felt long at times. Still watchable but let's be honest the first 3 matches are not why you watch this show.
**1/2
BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Jeff Jarrett & Yujiro Takahashi) vs. TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) & Tomoaki Honma
HONMA WINS! AFTER HITTING HIS HEADBUTT!
**********
Suzuki-gun (Davey Boy Smith Jr., Lance Archer, Shelton Benjamin & Takashi Iizuka) vs. TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste), Naomichi Marufuji & Toru Yano
I kwow they did it for the NOAH/NJPW "partnership" but it's the less interesting match on the show. If that means TMDK will be back in NJPW tho, it's all good. Nothing match except the Lance Archer Chokeslam, one of my favorites moves in wrestling right now.
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Minoru Suzuki
I needed to rewatch it to like it, I didn't expect this. I thought they were going for a full UWFI match and I was really excited for it, I'm a big shoot wrestling fan and I was disappointed. I still that's what they should have done especially with so little time. But to be fair this is a really good match anyway. WHITE SUZUKI ~
***1/2
NEVER Openweight Title Match
Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. Togi Makabe
Makabe is now better when is not against brawlers, he really is to slow and it's a little hard to think his elbows can be as devastaing as the ones from Ishii, Shibata, Goto, ... But eh they hit each other hard (that last lariat OUCH), they no-sell a bunch of things, exactly what you'll excpect. Makabe targetting Ishii's shoulder was nice. It's a good match, you just want more from an Ishii title match.
***1/4
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match
Ryusuke Taguchi (c) vs. Kenny Omega
I don't remember much about this one and I don't really want to watch it again now. The two competitors were bland and it just was not interesting.
**3/4?
BULLET CLUB (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson) (c) vs. Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata
They had even less time than Suzuki and Sakuraba but they did a lot. Great match, seeing team best friends do all of these double moves was awesome. And it's Shibata winning his first gold! It's shame these two didn't have a long reign (I still hope they will).
****
AJ Styles vs. Tetsuya Naito
Not as good as their G1 Climax match but this was still awesome. They have great chemistry. I hope Naito will challenge for AJ's IWGP, these two could have an all time great match together. Naito escaping the Styles Clash at all cost was amazing. Bonus points for the Rush apron dropkick.
****
Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Kota Ibushi
HOLLY SHIT
*****
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match
Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada
Everything that makes their previous matches great + a huge dive, a little more roughness with Okada channelling his inner Claudio Castagnoli, somehow an upset and this fucking post match! If you didn't understand the importance of that match before, there's no doubt possible after.
I see why they did it but I liked that the Rainaker was the killmove no matter what (except when there is arm work and long wait before the cover but that was not the case here). Okada wasn't on the top of his selling game, he was still really good but we know what he's capable of and stronger leg selling at the end could have make it even better. It's probably nitpicking but their series of matches are so great that's what you got to do. Judging by my star rating alone it's not even in their top 3 together, that's pretty crazy. Greatest rivalry of all time? Idk but the question deserves to be asked.
****1/2
So yea(o)h, it was a great show...
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