Today is a different show. We get a classic Young Lion opener and more undercard tags in today’s episode. Does Slick Willy pull off the expected win against Tenzan? Hell, do either of our British bad boys get bit by the upset bug?

Gabe Kidd went from a mess in a match with ELP last year, to now he’s had solid build for the New Japan Cup. I’m excited for Gabe to prove himself tonight. If you can’t wrestle a good match with Zack Sabre, just quit and go bag groceries.

Now let’s get to the show!

Ratings:

• Yuya Uemura vs Yota Tsuji: Tsuji wins via Lucha Cradle @6:56 – ** ½
• United Empire (Great O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) vs Satoshi Kojima & Tomoaki Honma: Cobb wins via Tour of the Islands @12:00 – **
• Bullet Club (Jay White, EVIL, Dick Togo & KENTA) w/Gedo vs Ryusuke Taguchi, Toa Henare, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Juice Robinson: Tanahashi wins via High Fly Flow @13:11 – ***
• LIJ (SANADA, BUSHI, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) vs CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, SHO, Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii): Shingo wins via Last of the Dragon @13:28 – *** ¼
• New Japan Cup: Gabriel Kidd vs Zack Sabre Jr: ZSJ wins via Arm Choke Triangle Scissors @17:21 – *** ½
• New Japan Cup: Hiroyoshi Tenzan w/Master Wato vs Will Ospreay: Ospreay wins via Stormbreaker @13:37 – ****

Results:

Yuya Uemura vs Yota Tsuji

A solid Young Lion bout, where Uemura proved to have multiple ways out of submissions and into his own. Countering Traingle Headlocks with bridges, float overs, different joint locks; but Tsuji’s size and seniority was too much. Yuya had a moment where he was going to go for his Double Overhook Suplex, but off the ropes, Tsuji countered, rolled him up lucha style and pulled off the win.

United Empire (Great O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) vs Satoshi Kojima & Tomoaki Honma

While I’m still a big fan of Kojima, this was another match that on paper was predictable to the point where I lost interest. Kojima is still very impressive for being as far along in his career as he is, and Honma is on the way back but let’s be honest here; when the Empire duo is still in the Cup and the other two are already eliminated, AND, one of them is Honma…the pinfall is obvious.

Cobb did continue to mock Kojima, mimic a few moves and just generally rile up the veteran. So maybe Cobb will have a match like O-Khan and try to take the Machine Gun Chops from Kojima or something. All in all, serviceable match, just did nothing to break away from the obvious finish.

Bullet Club (Jay White, EVIL, Dick Togo & KENTA) w/Gedo vs Ryusuke Taguchi, Toa Henare, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Juice Robinson

There was a lot of fun in the match with Jay continuing to goad and big brother Henare, even KENTA had a chance to shine a little with personality. The best spot was after Taguchi called the locomotion corner play, he propped himself on the top rope, to have his team whip KENTA into the Funky Weapon. But Bullet Club countered, Taguchi looks around that all his friends are wiped out on the outside, KENTA is rubbing his hands together, Jay is sitting on the mat and gives a coy wave as Taguchi turns to meet his fate. He attempts to throw together the Low Sweet, but the BC crew beats him down.

.@taguchiryusuke Too Swee…..🤘😨

Sign up Now & Stay tuned to https://t.co/z1DNREy98D#njpw #njpwworld #njcup pic.twitter.com/oq0IlS0aAX

— njpwworld (@njpwworld) March 7, 2021

Henare got a measure of revenge to bring the perception to more parity, though Henare is still a huge underdog. Tanahashi finished the match against Togo, and even went as far to hit the High Fly Flow, probably to send a message to whomever his second round opponent is (between Henare and Jay White), since he got the Bye. Now we head to intermission.

LIJ (SANADA, BUSHI, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) vs CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, SHO, Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii)

Shingo steps up to Goto to start things off and we get a small taste of the second round match up. SANADA and Ishii also square off before their match, and the story there really seems like SANADA needs to find a way to make Ishii feel pain. Every chop SANADA threw, Ishii would shrug off, and the look on his face was that of “Really?!”.

The amusing dynamic is that the leaders of both stables are eliminated and nursing injuries. So the fact that LIJ focuses on Okada’s back, and Naito gets some leg attacks, it’s interesting to see the troops leading the charge in the tournament, so to speak.

SHO held his own against Shingo, which is always nice to watch since it harks back to their story thread that isn’t really over yet. But even with a few instances of everyone hitting the ring and trying to hit moves to help their side, Shingo is just too much. Yukon Lariat, Pumping Bomber and a Last of the Dragon send LIJ into the next day with some momentum.

New Japan Cup: Gabriel Kidd vs Zack Sabre Jr

This was a great show for Gabe, especially when before the quarantine, he was god awfully terrible. ZSJ took the big brother approach to the match, and it was pretty entertaining. He’d allow Gabe to hook a hold, or start off in standing position, just to roll away and counter some attempts.

In typical big brother style, he got caught a few times, which annoyed him, but the smack talk was amusing. I really appreciated the line of “Now you’re with the big lads! 15 minutes, good boy”. ZSJ tends to be a petulant child when things don’t go his way, so watch him play the older sibling was a nice change of pace. Even though Gabe countered a Guillotine with a Brainbuster and showed a lot of clever resolve, I would’ve eaten my hat if he pulled off the upset. ZSJ wrestled the Young Lion down, his arm was pinned near his neck, and the Triangle Scissors forced him to submit.

Really fun match and great showing for Gabe, and it really got over his hybrid World of Sport, LA Dojo and NJ Dojo stylings.

New Japan Cup: Hiroyoshi Tenzan w/Master Wato vs Will Ospreay

This had similar trappings to a few matches where one opponent is in their prime and the other is either very young or a well along veteran. I don’t think many expect Tenzan to win, but he pulled out all of the stops and had a few near falls that were actually believable. We do have to remember that TenCozy did win a recent tag match against United Empire, so that helps the veteran chances.

Tenzan countered one of Ospreay’s aerial attacks with a vicious headbutt, used his True Mongolian Chops, Anaconda Buster, TTD, Anaconda Vice, just a lot of great calls to back when Tenzan used to rule New Japan. Admittedly, this match was well constructed and Ospreay did fantastic. He sold for Tenzan, didn’t move too fast, and made sure everything counted. The deliberate speed and willingness from both to work, was gorgeous. Ospreay even managed to hit a standing Spanish Fly for a near fall. Tenzan kicking out of the Oscutter was big as well, since old veterans aren’t well known for fighting through even secondary finishers.

As much as I said I’m over the feud between TenCozy and United Empire….I may have to rethink that since they work very well together.

Overall Score: 7/10

Well this was a little different than the previous day since the undercard had more matches, but at least none of the matches were very long. So this was easy to follow if not a little too easy to zone out at times.

I really enjoyed the work that big match Billy put in, and it really ended things well. Even Ospreay’s post win promo showed sly heel respect by saying something to the effect of “Most people think you’re washed up, but I think you’ve got a little more in the tank Tenzan-san”. So he put him over, showed respect with the san and it was just nice to see this evolution in his character. ZSJ also did great work making Gabe look good, and today leading into ZSJ versus Ospreay should be great.

Ospreay was my pick to win the Cup before things started, if you don’t believe me check out POD is WAR, so now we’re one step closer to round 2!