Andrew’s NJPW Summer Struggle in Sapporo: 7.10.21

The Summer Struggle events start coming to a head with today’s show being built around the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match between Taiji Ishimori and champion El Desperado!

Aside from that, we get a small tweak to the initial card since Kota Ibushi had a small fever reaction to his vaccination shot. So as a precaution, they pulled him from the show just so he could take care of himself.

We also get the reuniting of the Mega Coaches! Rocky Romero is back on the main show for the first time in a hot minute.

So let’s get going!

Ratings:

• Yuya Uemura vs Master Wato: Wato wins via RPP @9:09 – ***
• Bullet Club (EVIL & Dick Togo) vs CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & YOH): EVIL wins via Darkness Scorpion @11:07 – ** ¼
• Bullet Club (Yujiro Takahashi, KENTA & ELP) vs Ryusuke Taguchi, Rocky Romero & Hiroshi Tanahashi: Tanahashi wins via High Fly Flow @15:00 – ***
• United Empire (Jeff Cobb & Great O-Khan) vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada & SHO): Cobb wins via Tour of the Islands @11:41 – **
• LIJ (Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, BUSHI & SANADA) vs Suzuki-Gun (Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, DOUKI & ZSJ): Shingo wins via Pumping Bomber @13:40 – ** ½
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: El Desperado (c) vs Taiji Ishimori: Desperado retains via Pinche Loco @28:54 – ****

Results:

The show opens with Hiromu thinking he was live via satellite but apparently he teleported to Sapporo so he could run out and kick things off in front of the live fans. This all checks out for Hiromu’s…let’s say erratic personality. It was a typical hype man open, but it was filled with Hiromu’s special charm, so it was worth the watch.

Yuya Uemura vs Master Wato

Uemura has been going through the gauntlet of main roster wrestlers, which usually signifies getting ready for excursion. Wato is the lowest card guy to face Uemura because of card changes due to Ibushi’s fever after getting his last vaccination shot.

This was back and forth, Uemura had a few moments where it looked like he could’ve won. Between a Single Leg Boston Crab, German Suplex Hold and an attempt at the Double Over Hook Belly to Belly, but Wato blocked, rattled off a few strikes, laid out Uemura and landed the Spiral Tap (RPP) for the win.

Bullet Club (EVIL & Dick Togo) vs CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & YOH)

So commentary played up the reason why EVIL attacked Ishii, because Ishii is 4-0 in singles contests against EVIL and EVIL needs to get this year set straight. Given that, we all had to realize the Bullet Club team was going to win, just to give EVIL momentum, and this was very paint by numbers.

Ishii helped to add Strong Style moments, Bullet Club took short cuts and YOH brought some heart and Junior spots, but this was really nothing surprising or special. YOH having to eat the submission loss doesn’t necessarily hurt him a ton, it’s just a weird look since he did just recently challenge for the Junior title and now he’s eating the pinfalls to the Bullet Club B squad.

Bullet Club (Yujiro Takahashi, KENTA & ELP) vs Ryusuke Taguchi, Rocky Romero & Hiroshi Tanahashi

Tanahashi seems to want a piece of KENTA, but KENTA plays coy. We get a lot of the Mega Coaches and their brand of comedy and weird double coaching spots. There’s something charming about it since it’s been a while since Rocky has been in NJPW proper, so it helps fill out the show in a familiar way.

Yujiro tries to make a point out of Tanahashi to possibly solidify a slot in the G1, but that’s asking too much of Yujiro. With the coaches taking out ELP and KENTA, Tanahashi beats Yujiro and this could maybe lead to the Mega Coaches getting a Junior tag shot. But it should be fun to see where the Tanahashi/KENTA angle goes.

United Empire (Jeff Cobb & Great O-Khan) vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada & SHO)

You know, this is an uninteresting match. Cobb and O-Khan are trying to keep the Empire relevant while Ospreay is injured, but 2 main guys versus a main guy and junior makes the finish obvious. They tried to paint the downfall around SHO’s desire to show his power and lift Cobb, but I was not sold on this match at all.

Okada is always fun to watch, but when the finish is chalk, it’s hard to care.

LIJ (Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, BUSHI & SANADA) vs Suzuki-Gun (Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, DOUKI & ZSJ)

These are definitely weird times when the post intermission matches are the least interesting matches on the show. Sure Dangerous Tekkers and Naito/SANADA have their tag title match tomorrow, so this is supposed to be the preview match; but come on now. Suzuki-Gun has 2 Juniors, one is DOUKI, so that barely counts as a threat. DOUKI gets paired up with Shingo towards the end, we’re supposed to pretend that DOUKI’s one near fall was believable (nope), and then Shingo takes him out with his signature Pumping Bomber. DOUKI wasn’t even good enough to get Last Falconry/Made in Japan, beat him with something that’s been a signature for the better portion of his career.

SHEEEESH!

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: El Desperado (c) vs Taiji Ishimori

Hiromu wanted this to be a match to get his blood boiling and this was not a bad match at all. Early on Taiji wrestled circles around Despy, but Despy was never outclassed, just behind a half a step. So Despy utilized what he was better at…cheating.

A few outside of the ring spots, removed turnbuckles and cheap shots worked well, but it did take the match a little bit to get interesting. We saw both Taiji and Despy counter finishing moves in interesting ways. Taiji spun out during a Pinche Loco lift, and Despy flipped through the Bloody Cross. We then get a double low blow spot, ELP comes out to try and help Taiji, but Kanemaru stops that and manages to even things out for Despy.

Taiji has Despy in the Bone Lock a few times, but Despy refused to tap, when Taiji tried to turn it into the Bloody Cross is when the flip counter happened, Despy pushes Taiji into the exposed turnbuckle, uses a straight fist to daze Taiji and then two Pinche Locos allows Despy to retain! Not a bad match, just definitely not the banger that I think Hiromu wanted to see.

Overall Score: 6.25/10

Well let’s put it this way, the main event wasn’t terrible and it was nice to see a smattering of familiar faces, normal New Japan gimmicks and an almost normal show.

Sadly the normalcy of this event also leant it to being insanely underwhelming. The biggest names post intermission were paired with flunkies or just set up for obvious finishes. It’s one of the weird situations where the matches pre-intermission at least had a level of intrigue. The main event was the best match on the card, but it was also a little less than what you’d expect from a one match show.

Maybe tomorrow’s show will have a little more balance, but I feel we’re not going to get a “good” show until the 25^th.