Andrew’s NJPW Wrestling Dontaku Results & Match Ratings: 5.3.2021

Night 1 of the NJPW Wrestling Dontaku major event! We get to see Dangerous Tekkers and Guerrillas of Destiny in unique singles action; as well as, the NEVER Openweight Championship main eventing the show!

We get a small Junior title preview today as well including the heavy hitters of Okada and Suzuki! Aside from the expected classic between Jay and Tanahashi; people have to be curious about the ladder match. NJPW doesn’t do them often, hell the last one I can remember was the Kenny Omega vs Michael Elgin match for the Intercontinental Championship…but don’t quote me on that.

Do we see a title change? Do the Tekkers lose the rights to challenge for the Heavyweight Tag titles? Let’s get to it!

Ratings:

• Bullet Club (Taiji Ishimori, Yujiro Takahashi, Dick Togo & EVIL) vs Master Wato, Toru Yano, Tiger Mask IV & Hiroyoshi Tenzan: Ishimori wins via Bloody Cross @9:57 – ** ¼
• Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado) vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, SHO & YOH): YOH wins via Double Underhook Twisting Brainbuster @10:31 – ***
• LIJ (BUSHI, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) vs United Empire (Great-O-Khan, Jeff Cobb, Aaron Henare & Will Ospreay): SANADA wins via Japanese Leg Clutch @11:31 – ***
• Zack Sabre Jr vs Tanga Loa: ZSJ wins via Crucifix Pin @15:12 – *** ¼
• Iron Fingers from Hell Ladder Match: Taichi vs Tama Tonga: Taichi wins @27:11 – *** ½
• NEVER Openweight Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs Jay White: Jay wins via Blade Runner @39:01 – **** ¼ – TITLE CHANGE!!!

Results:

Bullet Club (Taiji Ishimori, Yujiro Takahashi, Dick Togo & EVIL) vs Master Wato, Toru Yano, Tiger Mask IV & Hiroyoshi Tenzan

This went the way of a typical multiman with a heavy handed heel group. Gang tactics, the Abdominal Stretch assist chain they’ve made famous lately, and just generally the normal beats we’ve come to expect. Yano kicked things off with EVIL, a few shenanigans before Tenzan cleaned house a little, Wato put in some work, but Ishimori was able to mostly deal with him.

Tiger Mask has been on the recovery road since coming back from injury. His first few matches were a little clunky at best, and he’s been used very sparingly as he’s proven to not be quite right. This match had a nice fire moment, some solid offense and even a nice Overhead Avalanche Butterfly Suplex on Taiji. Tiger Mask went for the Tiger Suplex, it got broken up, Taiji landed a nice Jumping Knee and then Bloody Cross on the dazed veteran to pick up the victory.

It was nice to see Tiger Mask look closer to where he was before he went out.

Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado) vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, SHO & YOH)

This sets up as a preview for the Junior title match tomorrow. YOH is chomping at the bit to get a hold of Despy, and he charges after Okada tries to hold him back a couple of times. Since YOH charges at Despy, Okada and SHO are forced to follow suit and we get a brawl.

As soon as Despy gets in a little trouble, Kanemaru picks YOH’s ankle, more brawling happens. Okada and Suzuki stay mostly paired together and don’t make too much of an impact beyond a cool minute or so interaction while they’re legal.

The story here was that eventually the Despy game plan was to attack YOH’s bad knee. Stretch Muffler, hyper-extensions and direct kicks and attacks to the knee, left YOH limping. SHO made some nice saves and provided enough support to help YOH get into a position where he could stomach the pain long enough for a couple Superkicks and to hit his new brainbuster variant to pick up the win.

All the momentum is with the challenger! But how will the knee hold up?

LIJ (BUSHI, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) vs United Empire (Great-O-Khan, Jeff Cobb, Aaron Henare & Will Ospreay)

Shingo and Will start off, and it’s a battle of familiarity along with “Anything you can do, I can do better”. Both men block signature attacks, reverse Headlock Takeovers with the Headscissors at the same rate, and just keep the pace blistering early. This forces Will into his corner for a tag as he looks to be assessing the situation, and then the Empire rushes the LIJ and tries to knock Shingo off his game.

It appears that United Empire’s entire strategy was as soon as things start going against them, just rush the LIJ members. BUSHI took some solid bumps, Naito and O-Khan continued to stoke the flames to that budding rivalry, but the real fun was when Will and Shingo were in. Be it as legal competitors, on the outside, or just rushing in during the signature spam moments.

Great striking, desperation and fun to be had from all. Henare eating the pin in cradle fashion as he lost to the Japanese Leg Clutch, helps to continue his persona of proving he’s not just a fall guy, but he’s not there yet. Possibly leading to a big singles match against SANADA, and if Henare could win that, that might be great for his build.

Zack Sabre Jr vs Tanga Loa

Stipulations on this match are simple, if ZSJ loses, than Dangerous Tekkers can never challenge for the Heavyweight Tag Belts again.

A simple design to the match, doesn’t stop it from being pretty entertaining. ZSJ tried to work on Loa’s core and arms to break down his power base, while Loa used his power advantage to break through early submission attempts. This clash of styles match worked fairly well, especially since we all know when ZSJ has difficulty with his submissions he gets annoyed and starts striking (which is very dumb for him).

If anything hurt the match, it was the fact the story was simple, it was placed before the Tama and Taichi match, so ZSJ losing would take away from the next match and some of the pacing was a little slow. Generally speaking it was still decent, just a little below average for a ZSJ match. It does however continue to cement that Loa has become a better singles wrestler and he can only really keep going up from here.

Iron Fingers from Hell Ladder Match: Taichi vs Tama Tonga

This was a spectacle more than a match, which had to be expected since New Japan doesn’t do ladder matches often, much less with a weapon from Hell elevated over the ring. I also liked how Tama played with the concept that Ladder matches don’t happen often, so he went for a pinfall and tried to convince Marty just to count it; but Marty knew the rules. We had DOUKI interfere and eventually get broken through a ladder. Jado brought the kendo stick to play and even taped Taichi to the guardrail. ZSJ came out to save the match at that point, but after ZSJ frees Taichi, Loa comes out to even the odds.

Overbooked, of course it was, it’s a ladder match, and those are never technical masterpieces. This played well on all of the tension between Suzuki-Gun and Bullet Club, everyone involved has been involved in some way and the weapon usage and counters weren’t all cookie cutter. Taichi played anti-hero well, and his comeback was great. As he Superkicks Loa, High Kicks Tama, pants come off and we get serious Taichi.

Tama brings a table in, tries to Power Bomb Taichi, but Taichi grabs at the ladder, fights off and Tama can never quite get his balance as Taichi then gets out of his clutches. This forces Tama to meet him on the other side of the ladder, back and forth, Gun Stun attempt, but Taichi holds on to the ladder and Tama puts himself through the table.

Taichi grabs the fingers, he and ZSJ are over joyed. Taichi grabs the microphone and says something to the effect of “He’s done, the least you can do is play his music”. So Iizuka’s music plays and I think Taichi just officially retired the fingers.

NEVER Openweight Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs Jay White

Tana and Jay start off with their pose down as Jay continues to insult the aging Ace’s physique. The entire story of this match, was both men breaking each other down and playing with the fact they’ve gotten one another to tap out in the past. The Reverse Figure Four of Jay’s that he calls the TTO (Tana Tapped Out) and the Cloverleaf of Tanahashi’s that he referred to as the JTO (Jay Tapped Out).

Both men went after the legs, which is always amusing to watch Tanahashi go after someone else’s knees. Jay locks in his submissions early, but Tana fights out, Tana hits two High Fly Flows on Jay’s legs causing him to audibly scream. Tana locks in the JTO, but Jay fights off. Sling Blades, Dragon Suplexes, Shutdown Suplexes, Blade Busters and Dragon Screws, all helped to tell the story of how they tried to break one another down.

Gedo feigns getting inside, but Tana cuts him off with a Dragon Screw, Jay scoops the Ace in a Roll-Up but only for 2. Tana gets out of it and tries to get position on Jay for a Dragon Suplex, but Jay keeps struggling to the ropes, stops, pivots and hits a Blade Runner out of nowhere! Jay White is the new champion!

Overall Score: 7.25/10

Jay makes some cute parallel history being the first to pull off a particular Grand Slam before Wrestle Grand Slam on the 15^th. Jay is the first person to hold the US, Heavyweight, Intercontinental and NEVER championships. With that, we also saw the end of the Iron Finger saga, as it seems Taichi was satisfied having them back so he could retire Iizuka’s memory as he saw fit. We’ll probably still get a tag team match between Dangerous Tekkers and G.o.D., but at least most of the shenanigans should be over, MOST.

Aside from that, we got a little build in the Junior Division and Shingo/Ospreay was going to be a banger regardless, so today just proved what we already knew in their limited time.

Not a bad show, a few matches were mostly superfluous and I suppose the overbooking of the ladder match may have annoyed some; but seriously what did you expect from Iron Fingers from Hell on a pole basically? Stop having inane expectations. The show met expectations, the main event was pretty damn good if not a little bloated. But yeah, definitely a solid watch.