Andrew’s New Japan Cup Results & Match Ratings: 3.13.2021

We’ve got two great killer New Japan Cup matches today! Hirooki Goto vs Shingo Takagi and Minoru Suzuki vs KENTA! Can KENTA get revenge from his embarrassing defeat 16 years ago in NOAH?

Now unless today is made of tacos, rainbows and magic…the undercard tags will probably be skippable and I’ll hate the first 80 minutes or so of this. But hey, as long as the semi-main and main event are good I can get the dagger in the seppuku box for later.

Too dark? Do we not like dark humour here? Fiiinee…

Either way, KENTA and Suzuki have history, Goto and Shingo have three previous matches that set things on fire; so we should be in good shape for an exciting finish to the show.

Let’s get to it!

Ratings:

• Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Tomohiro Ishii vs David Finlay, Gabriel Kidd & Yota Tsuji: HASHI wins via Modified Butterfly Lock @11:17 – ** ¼
• United Empire (Will Ospreay, Great O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) vs Suzuki-Gun (ZSJ, DOUKI & Taichi): O-Khan wins via Eliminator @7:51 – ** ¾
• LIJ (BUSHI, SANADA & Tetsuya Naito) vs SHO, Kazuchika Okada & Yuji Nagata: SANADA wins via Skull End @11:43 – ** ½
• Bullet Club (Jay White, Bad Luck Fale & EVIL) w/ Gedo & Dick Togo vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toa Henare & Juice Robinson: EVIL wins via Everything is Evil @11:41 – ** ¼
• NJC: KENTA vs Minoru Suzuki: KENTA wins via Go 2 Sleep @16:50 – *** ¾
• NJC:  Shingo Takagi vs Hirooki Goto: Takagi wins via Last of the Dragon @23:51 – **** ¼

Results:

Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Tomohiro Ishii vs David Finlay, Gabriel Kidd & Yota Tsuji

A whole team of guys who were or still are in the tournament, against Finlay and two Young Lions; I wonder who’s winning this (obvious sarcasm is obvious)?

The match was still serviceable, Gabe shone a little brighter than everyone else when he went after Ishii and had HASHI in the Boston Crab for a decent length of time. But I can’t remember the last time a Young Lion upset a tournament player in one of these, so it was a false finish just for the sake of going through the motions.

YOSHI-HASHI eventually fights back, puts on the Butterfly Lock and adds the hammerlock modification to get the verbal submission from Gabe. No one submits to that…and Gabe just did. Poor kid had such a good match and then loses to the worst submission from the worst guy. He’s officially the Detroit Lions of the Dojo.

United Empire (Will Ospreay, Great O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) vs Suzuki-Gun (ZSJ, DOUKI & Taichi)

O-Khan comes out with his altered look since Yano forced him to cut some of his hair to beat the Count in their Cup match. Taichi continued his chokehold angry Taichi thing where he’s just backing down and choking everyone. ZSJ and Ospreay had a little time together and it was mostly interesting counters. Their familiarity with one another should breed a good match.

DOUKI though…we knew he was there to eat the fall. So while the match was fun at points, as soon as DOUKI got the tag we knew things were winding down. DOUKI tries to slingshot back in, gets caught and Eliminator dropped, so the United Empire has some momentum.

LIJ (BUSHI, SANADA & Tetsuya Naito) vs SHO, Kazuchika Okada & Yuji Nagata

SANADA and Nagata started off, so we got a short preview there and then this broke out into the pairings we’ve usually seen during the undercard CHAOS vs LIJ matches. SHO and BUSHI had their moments, Okada and Naito seemed to cut one another off and keep things interesting, but the wrinkle came from the fact that SANADA and SHO ended up together for the finish.

SHO didn’t quite take the Backflip into the Skull End perfectly, but SANADA saved it enough, locked in Skull End and SHO tapped.

Bullet Club (Jay White, Bad Luck Fale & EVIL) w/ Gedo & Dick Togo vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toa Henare & Juice Robinson

These repetitive, uninspired matchups are really starting to wear on my enjoyment of the undercard. The only thing that was amusing is Jay White and Tanahashi. They even had a weird little Irish Whip reversal exchange that looked more like Square Dancing from corner to corner instead of trying to hurt someone.

Juice and Toa existed, but didn’t matter. The fact that the finish sequence was with Henare and EVIL it was obvious. Henare fights off the Everything is Evil once, Gedo and Togo hit the ring, typical stuff, Jay slides in for a quick Sleeper Suplex to weaken Henare and then an Everything is Evil to end things.

God, these matches have really lost their charm.

 NJC: KENTA vs Minoru Suzuki

KENTA…is a genius. He walks out with a newspaper tucked in his trunks and gets comfy in the corner to read the paper during Suzuki’s entrance. Suzuki allows KENTA a little fun before grabbing the paper and that becomes the story early. KENTA powders to go get it back, then Suzuki grabs it again and puts it in the middle of the ring. Suzuki attacks KENTA when he comes in for his paper, but it’s a really great back and forth.

KENTA just wanted to read his Funnies, but they go at it nicely. Suzuki introduces a chair, which gets turned against him. We see KENTA hit the Hesitation Dropkick, Double Footstomp and even attempted Game Over but Suzuki blocked.

Suzuki however goaded KENTA into strike exchanges testing his toughness and that was fun. During a Go 2 Sleep attempt, Suzuki slips out the back and locks in the Sleeper Hold which was how he beat KENTA in their only previous single match in 2005. A little more struggling, Suzuki tried it again, then tried to spin into the Gotch – BUT NO! KENTA lifts him and hits Go 2 Sleep for the pinfall victory!

NEW JAPAN CUP 2021 2ND ROUND@suzuki_D_minoru vs @KENTAG2S

Sign up Now & Stay tuned to https://t.co/z1DNREy98D#njpw #njpwworld #njcup pic.twitter.com/UwMYldcxqT

— njpwworld (@njpwworld) March 13, 2021

Definitely makes up for their lackluster first encounter in NOAH and sets up hopefully for a G1 rubber match.

NJC:  Shingo Takagi vs Hirooki Goto

Shingo had the big upset over Okada, and now he gets Goto. Goto has won a few of these New Japan Cups himself, so this shouldn’t be dismissed; especially with their previous encounters always being great.  Shingo had the slight record advantage in their previous 3 meetings at 2 wins and 1 loss, but that’s not enough of a margin of error to laugh at.

Early on both were intense and throwing attempts at big moves at one another. Goto tried GTR, but Shingo countered, Shingo tried his Takagi GTR in the middle ropes, but Goto slid through to the outside using the ropes to his advantage. Just big attacks and a lot of intensity, especially when Shingo went for the Apron Death Valley Driver, but Goto countered it sending Takagi down instead.

Goto hit Ushigoroshi, and the match slowed a little, Takagi hit Noshigami and we started diving into desperation territory. Great strike exchanges, lariats, ways to catch one another in moves. Made in Japan and GTW gave big excitement moments to the crowd for both men, but the highlight was a Shingo adjustment to me. Shingo went for the Takagi Style GTR again, but adapting from his initial folly, he used the top rope to make it harder for Goto to wiggle out of it, and drops Goto down. A huge Pumping Bomber gets a near fall, and then Last of the Dragon means that Shingo will be facing KENTA in the next round! Dragon Gate versus NOAH!

Overall Score: 7.25/10

Now I fed up with the undercard matches, but I understand that it’s a Japanese style of card layout and they’re still working within roster restrictions. So that aside, the undercard tags did a decent job at setting the table for the future matchups in the tournament.

But let’s be serious, the two tournament matches delivered big time if you knew the history between both or don’t mind KENTA’s more flippant personality that he’s adopted in New Japan. Anime KENTA might actually be my favorite version of him, just offhandedly making comments like a dating simulator, talking about how he dyes his hair and just disrespecting someone as fear inducing as Suzuki with a newspaper. The match picked up really well and we had something that both can build upon for the rest of the year…or at least next few months.

Shingo versus Goto always delivers; I don’t think we can even try to doubt that anymore. Even if Goto is seen as a glorified Gatekeeper anymore, putting on amazingly tough and hard hitting matches like this; will keep him ingratiated into the hearts of the fans.

Tomorrow should have good tournament matches as well with Nagata vs SANADA & Ospreay vs ZSJ. So at least the Cup is a highlight now instead of part of the hindrance.