Andrew’s New Japan Cup Results & Match Ratings: 3.5.2021

Even though the first two matches happened on the Anniversary show, this is the first official show dedicated to the Cup.

With one huge upset already, do we get any more shocks to the system? And no, if Yano wins (which he probably will) that’s not an upset. He has a surprisingly good record in tournament first rounds.

So let’s all revel in the goofy way Yano invents to move to round 2!

Ratings:

• Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr, DOUKI) vs Gabriel Kidd, Yuya Uemura & Tomoaki Honma: Suzuki wins via Gotch Style Piledriver @10:46 – ***
• Bullet Club (EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, Chase Owens & Taiji Ishimori) w/ Dick Togo vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tiger Mask IV, YOSHI-HASHI, David Finlay: EVIL wins via Scorpion Deathlock @11:40 – ***
• TenCozy & Master Wato vs The United Empire (Jeff Cobb, Great O-Khan & Will Ospreay) w/Bea Priestley: Cobb wins via Tour of the Islands @9:14 – ** ½
• New Japan Cup: Toru Yano vs Bad Luck Fale: Yano wins via Countout @5:50 – **
• New Japan Cup: Hirooki Goto vs Taichi: Goto wins via GTR @22:43 – **** ½

Results:

Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr, DOUKI) vs Gabriel Kidd, Yuya Uemura & Tomoaki Honma

This was fun and definitely had better energy than a lot of the preliminary matches New Japan has done before bigger singles. Honma and Suzuki took shots at each other often, with Honma getting the best of Suzuki often. But Honma never backed down, we’re slowly getting back to the underdog Vampire Chicken that people were initially introduced to.

ZSJ did a great job putting Gabe over in this match as well. They started with a lot of World of Sport fast paced counters, ringers, spins and what not, but surprisingly, Gabe and the face trio got the best of ZSJ at different times. Zack was actually on the receiving end for a bit, but after Yuya is tagged in legal, and the tandem locomotion corner spot, we knew it was a matter of time.

After ducking a lariat, ZSJ quick tags Suzuki and then heads out, which allows Suzuki to make quick work of Yuya, continuing to add on that story they had going earlier in the year.

Just very fun with good energy, and this is how prelim tags should work.

Bullet Club (EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, Chase Owens & Taiji Ishimori) w/ Dick Togo vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tiger Mask IV, YOSHI-HASHI, David Finlay

Tanahashi starting the match against Ishimori was great. This could lay the ground work for a future Openweight challenge, especially since Ishimori got the best of the Ace. The moves were basic, but as soon as Tanahashi start flexes and doing body builder poses, Ishimori returns after he hits a few moves and also highlights his washboard abs; causing Tanahashi to grab his stomach and get flustered since he’s not 6% body fat like Ishimori.

So with the little taste of comedy, we then see YOSHI-HASHI come in and get beat on by everyone at some point. Bullet Club even pulls off an amusing human chain during an Abdominal Stretch. After HASHI eventually tags out, then we see Finlay and Tiger Mask gets some shine. Finlay actually looks really good, hitting a cool Spinning Backdrop to bring in Tiger, but Tiger isn’t quite back up to snuff.

Even with him still recovering, he pushes things to needing EVIL to tag in, and Dick Togo has to cheat to help BC win, but generally speaking, it was a fun match where Tiger taking the fall proves he’s still on the way back.

TenCozy & Master Wato vs The United Empire (Jeff Cobb, Great O-Khan & Will Ospreay) w/Bea Priestley

This feud has gone on a bit long, and I’m not a big fan of Tenzan using the Mongolian Chops even though he lost a match saying he can’t. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission I suppose, but I’m still not a fan.

This was a solid trios match with a fantastic finish, but it didn’t really excite me like the first two multi-tags. Cobb catching Wato mid Satellite DDT, to throw him into Powerbomb position, to block a Frankensteiner, toss him like pizza dough and catch him in the Tour of the Islands position, to hit his finisher. It was just a thing of beauty.

When Cobb tries, he’s a great wrestler, and he’s been much more consistent this year. I also liked that Cobb was talking smack to EVIL on the camera, but EVIL and Dick Togo jumped him to try and get a small advantage in their upcoming New Japan Cup match. It’s a good spot before intermission.

New Japan Cup: Toru Yano vs Bad Luck Fale

Now this was pretty amusing. Fale attacks Yano in the middle of his announcement, but not with a strike, with a Roll-up. Sadly for Yano, this causes the KOPW trophy to break, but he doesn’t notice right away.

Yano spends a good bit of the match running from Fale saying he’s scared. But we get to the typical Yano stuff and he tries to tape Fale to the guardrail, but Fale is keen. So he shoves Yano back, and uses the tape to tie Yano’s hands around the ring post.

As the countout starts, Fale tries to pepper in a few free shots, but Yano is kicking him away. Fale gets mad and charges, Yano shields himself with the post and then it seems like one of his defensive kicks…goes a little low. Marty Asami allows it since it look unintentional just trying to keep someone back. So Yano manages to swing his legs onto the apron and scoot halfway into the ring while tied to the ring post. Marty decides that’s good enough and counts out Fale.

The Sublime Master Thief pulls out some TOTAL BS, but it’s still funny. Afterward, he gets the broken trophy and starts crying like its Hardball and G-baby just got shot.

New Japan Cup: Hirooki Goto vs Taichi

This match had stage, Taichi was up to his old tricks of slow moving, malicious outside tactics with cables and general cheating, but that makes sense with all of the things Taichi went through to get Iizuka’s fingers back.

Red Shoes is ever lenient, and Taichi was doing it just to be a brat, every choke count he would smile bigger; hell even the crowd seemed to find it devilishly charming. But when Goto fired up, it seemed like it woke something up in Taichi. Taichi and Goto traded strikes and it was fantastic especially when they both just slumped down. Both men pulled out classics, I love when Goto does the Shouten Kai, even Taichi pulled out the Dynamic T Chokeslam! Kawada classics like the Step Kicks and the Jumping High Kick, Goto threw everything at Taichi, but they both did a good job avoiding the finishers most of the match.

It was a great back and forth where both men knew the other’s offense and it showed. Serious Taichi is more and more like Kawada, it’s fantastic, but Goto when Goto countered the counters and finally hit GTR, it was all over for the Holy Emperor!

The wrong man won, but it was a great match.

Overall Score: 7/10

Well the Yano match was enjoyable, but if you dislike his style; that was going to do nothing to change your opinion. Taichi and Goto definitely deserved to be the main event, which was beautiful. Even the undercard tags were done well and the participants seemed to have a little more fun and remember the point of those.

Even if my personal taste is that the TenCozy/Empire feud is starting to wear out its welcome, it wasn’t offensive of anything, I’m just over it. I’m also looking forward to see if Cobb can continue this streak of evolution or if the new EVIL will just make me hate that match.

So there we go, another solid show…so now I’m gonna try my best to forget Castle Attack.