Andrew’s New Japan Cup Results & Match Ratings: 3.15.2021

Our final round 2 day of the New Japan Cup! Does YOSHI-HASHI continue his over hyped push? Can Tanahashi show Jay White the BYE didn’t make him soft?

Jay has been calling Tanahashi fat, so I guess the not so subtle implication is the Ace is soft and won’t be able to keep up. Jay has also been on a crusade to apparently help Tanahashi by splitting the newly unified belts. So he’s trying to make himself out to be better.

Let’s see if we get anything worth discussing today!

Ratings:

• Bullet Club (KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & Jado) vs Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, DOUKI & El Desperado): Despy wins via Numero Dos @8:02 – ** ¾
• The United Empire (Will Ospreay, Jeff Cobb & Great O-Khan) vs Suzuki-Gun (Taichi, ZSJ & Yoshinobu Kanemaru): Cobb wins via Tour of the Islands @7:10 – **
• LIJ (Shingo Takagi, BUSHI & SANADA) vs Yuji Nagata, Hirooki Goto & Ryusuke Taguchi: SANADA wins via Japanese Leg Clutch @6:26 – **
• NJC: David Finlay vs YOSHI-HASHI: Finlay wins via Prima Nocta @16:12 – *** ½
• NJC: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Jay White: Jay White wins via Blade Runner @19:54 – *** ½

Results:

Bullet Club (KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & Jado) vs Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, DOUKI & El Desperado)

Now this layout is different. With Despy involved you might think Taiji will pin DOUKI to start a Junior title claim, but with Jado involved in the match – WHO IS THE FALL GUY!?

Ahh…Jado is the fall guy. HAHA! Anyway, we did get a small interaction with Taiji and Despy, which will be great when it does happen. KENTA and Suzuki keep going after each other, and it’s amazing. I think Suzuki has helped to spark a little more of old KENTA since they have ties back to NOAH together and Suzuki has ties to his old NOAH seniors. If this is the return of the striking menace that KENTA used to be, I’m not mad; though I still hold to what I said before that anime KENTA, or ultimate memelord is pretty awesome too.

Despy submitted Jado with Numero Dos, but it was really the small threads that helped this match be entertaining.

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

I enjoyed that ZSJ and Ospreay were selling damage from yesterday’s match, notably Ospreay was very mindful of his nose. Taichi continued to go wild Iizuka style chokeholds, even scaring Bea back to the hallway when he acted like he was going to come out of the ring to get her.

A few combination moments, but once Cobb and Kanemaru got in the ring together, there’s just too much of a difference in size. Heel Master or not, Cobb was just too much, muscled him around and took him on a Tour for the win.

LIJ (Shingo Takagi, BUSHI & SANADA) vs Yuji Nagata, Hirooki Goto & Ryusuke Taguchi

Another weird pairing of a faction facing a throw together with Goto. You’d have to assume that LIJ will win since SANADA and Shingo are both still alive in the Cup…but BUSHI could always eat a pin if need be.

There wasn’t really a lot to take from this, let’s be honest. Shingo and Goto did some decent striking, Nagata got a few moves in, BUSHI existed and Taguchi tried to get cute with SANADA; but come on now. A sidestepped Funky Weapon, and an attempted Japanese Leg Clutch from Taguchi telegraphed SANADA’s finish since you knew he wasn’t going to lose to that and be insulted. So he had to show how it was done.

Passable, but a very nothing match.

NJC: David Finlay vs YOSHI-HASHI

Unsurprisingly this was a very hard fought match. Finlay is probably seen as slightly higher on the card since he has an IWGP Heavyweight Tag reign and now current Impact Tag Champions; but neither are exactly big players.

Now I will admit, this match was much better than I expected, but it’s also like the Jets playing the Lions, even if it’s a good game, you really don’t care about the people playing. Finlay did a lot more than sell and comeback, this was a pretty even exchange. Strikes, Blue Thunder Bombs, Trash Panda and multiple Prima Noctas from David Finlay. YOSHI pulled out a lot of his moves, Headhunter, Fisherman Buster and attempted Karma a few times.

Very good stuff, the Prima Nocta counter out of the Karma was nice. If things play out the way I expect, Finlay winning telegraphs Jay White winning since Finlay and Jay have history as Young Lions.

NJC: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Jay White

This is the sixth installment of their singles matches, with Jay ahead 3-2, but Tanahashi has that first Wrestle Kingdom win when Jay came back. Jay told Tanahashi to lay down and Tana obliged for just to bait him into a School Boy pin attempt.

Tanahashi had a good run keeping Jay on the ropes until Tsuji got too excited. Tanahashi posed for the crowd, and Tsuji fanboyed a little, which caused Jay to attack him. Tana tried to rush to the Young Lion’s aid, and Jay slowly turned things around.

The match followed the usual flow of Jay gets cocky, Tanahashi hits a Dragon Screw or Twist and Shout, then we change who’s on top for a while. While not a bad match, it was really just a run of the mill match between the two. Advantageously for New Japan, the Blade Runner victory does allow Jay to challenge for the NEVER if his Cup is cut short.

That’s good because Tanahashi tends to turn things up a little at bigger shows. Maybe he’ll get in better shape too so Jay has better smack talk than fat shaming.

 Overall Score: 6.5/10

Now this was nice, since it was a shorter card. It’s almost like they were reading my last few articles that inane undercard tags that build worse than soggy Lincoln Logs aren’t worth the air time. The bad of course was the fact that well, the big Cup matches weren’t exactly stellar. Oddly a 3.5 for HASHI and Finlay is punching above it’s weight, but the same for Jay and Tana is a little lame.

Can’t really expect too much from Jay honestly building the match on nothing more than his snide charming arrogance and body shaming Tanahashi. Finlay did show enough in the HASHI match to maybe prove things could be different. In their career, Jay stated they are 12-1 with Jay on a 12 match winning streak. I don’t feel like combing through things, but that sounds about right. Can Finlay break the cycle?

Aside from that, KENTA and Suzuki has legs, Despy is probably looking at Taiji as his first challenger and maybe, JUST MAYBE, Dangerous Tekkers face Cobb and O-Khan soon. But time will tell…at least we’re circling around to round 3…wait…EVIL vs Yano is the first match ain’t it? *breaks out the seppuku kit*

*keeps reading*

FINE – Shingo versus KENTA will stop the seppuku for now.