Andrew’s NJPW Wrestle Grand Slam Results & Match Ratings: 9.5.2021

Day 2 of Wrestle Grad Slam and we get a main event with EVIL. Okay, so the main event will suck, but the rest of the show might make up for it! Let’s find out!

Oh Christ, EVIL is getting a title shot. WHY!? WHY!? WHY!? The main event will be a mess, but thankfully there are 3 other title matches that might be worth watching.

Taiji and ELP defend the Junior tags against Despy and Kanemaru of Suzuki-Gun. The Heavyweight tags are defended in a triple threat that our Holy Emperor better retain. Lastly, Hiromu gets his title match against Robbie Eagles for the Junior Heavyweight title!

Hopefully at least one of those can give us a reason to enjoy this show since we’re all fairly sure the main event will be hot garbage.

Let’s get it over with!

Ratings:

• Queen’s Quest (Momo Watanabe & Saya Kamitani) vs Donna Del Mondo (Giulia & Syuri): Syuri wins via Arm Capture Twisted Stretch Muffler @11:31 – ***
• CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Kazuchika Okada) vs United Empire (Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan): O-Khan wins via Eliminator @12:45 – ** ¾
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Titles: Suzuki-Gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs Bullet Club (Taiji Ishimori & ELP) (c): Despy wins via Pinche Loco @20:28 – *** ¼ – TITLE CHANGE!!!
• IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: LIJ (Tetsuya Naito & SANADA) vs CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Dangerous Tekkers (ZSJ & Taichi) (c): Tekkers retains via Black Mephisto @26:43 – *** ¾
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Robbie Eagles (c) vs Hiromu Takahashi: Eagles retains via Ron Miller Special @24:07 – *** ¾
• IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs EVIL w/Dick Togo: Shingo retains via Last of the Dragon @30:20 – **

Results:

Queen’s Quest (Momo Watanabe & Saya Kamitani) vs Donna Del Mondo (Giulia & Syuri)

So after losing her hair to Tam Nakano, it seems like Giulia found an interesting team personality. Alto livello KABALIWAN which means High Level Craziness in a combination of Italian and Tagalog. Syuri and Giulia come out in masks and with a little dance routine, then run to the ring with some high energy, which is interesting from Giulia’s cocky unwavering demeanor in the early days of her Stardom career. Definitely comes off a little more Tokyo Cyber Squad than I expected, I don’t dislike it, just wasn’t expecting these two to apply a loud, colorful and crazy tag team gimmick.

The match is simple though, Momo and Giulia have had a bit of heat since everyone else in Queen’s Quest has elevated their status, except the supposed leader Momo Watanabe. Giulia chided Momo and they had a bit of a rivalry based purely on Giulia taking the mean girl approach. But coming off the fact that Syuri and World of Stardom Champion Utami Hayashishita are still deadlocked power wise, it wouldn’t have made sense for Syuri to lose here.

Syuri is the only woman who can technically match Utami thus far, and the angle is built nicely to be a big deal when something finally breaks. So Momo and Giulia stuck together, Saya tried her hand against Syuri, but it was a little futile. Saya also never tried the Waterwheel Kick, so I just find that generally amusing with my disdain for her doing it last year. Timing on some moves looked delayed or clunky and this was more of a match to show off Syuri and Giulia.

So Syuri’s striking is one of the best in current Joshi, her mat prowess is fantastic and the fact that she was trained by Taijiri and spent time in HUSTLE helps to prove why she’s a bit of a chameleon with her personality. Not sure if she gave her submission a cute name, but the modified Stretch Muffler looked fantastic. I personally hope Syuri takes the red belt off of Utami, and I’m a big fan of Utami; Syuri is just legit and it would be a cool pivot for Stardom to make.

Decent match, not as good as yesterday’s, but that’s mostly because the match wasn’t about Stardom, it was about DDM. That plus the fact that some spots were just a little off, hurt the general flow of the match.

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

This is Ishii’s first match back since having to quarantine after participating against Moose at Resurgence. Story wise, we get to see if Okada can quell the tide of momentum for United Empire or if Cobb and O-Khan continue their upward trajectory.

Ishii and O-Khan start things off, but when Okada gets tagged in, her just goes right after Cobb on the apron. So this entire match was Cobb vs Okada and then Ishii and O-Khan putting in good work while two crazy people tried to kill one another.

Okada broke up a tandem assault, managed to clear the ring for Ishii to have a clear shot at O-Khan, but it didn’t work out for CHAOS. Ishii got caught by O-Khan in a Clawhold Sleeper, that he transitioned into the Eliminator and Okada is on the losing end yet again.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Titles: Suzuki-Gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs Bullet Club (Taiji Ishimori & ELP) (c)

Early on we saw the Bullet Club tactics look a little stupid honestly. Ishimori held Despy and Kanemaru on the outside, implying ELP was gonna Moonsault into the pile or something, but then ELP walks the ropes and just decides not to. So the whole waiting on the outside seemed too choreographed and stupid.

Thankfully for the match, that moronic spot was very early, so the rest of the story could save it. Kanemaru and Despy worked on ELP’s legs, and ELP sold the work well. He had to pivot on a tandem move because he couldn’t execute the move and it even played into the finish. ELP couldn’t throw the Superkick because his legs were shot, so he took off his boot and was just going to use it as a weapon, Despy ducks it and catches ELP. Then Despy sees what’s in the boot and wants to use it, but Taiji throws the referee into Despy and we get the ref bump spot.

Despy never lets go of the boot though, so there’s tug of war, then Kanemaru hits Taiji with the whiskey bottle. Despy puts the boot on his fist and hits ELP with a loaded right hand but then sells like he broke his hand. Despy hooks in Pinche Loco and we have new champions!

What was in the boot? What could be that hard that Despy looked to break his hand using it?

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: LIJ (Tetsuya Naito & SANADA) vs CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Dangerous Tekkers (ZSJ & Taichi) (c)

Personality is heavy early on because during the entrance Naito seemed to be singing Taichi’s theme song with him, then Taichi puts his arm around Naito and Miho is just as confused as the rest of us. Early on we see Taichi applying his Grecco Roman Throathold to Goto. YOSHI-HASHI comes in to team up on Taichi, Naito walks in and thinks for a second then starts choking Taichi as well. SANADA comes in, chokes Taichi, so everyone is ganging up on our poor Holy Emperor!

Now let’s be honest, this was a crazy match with a lot of action but it was all really fun and made solid sense. YOSHI-HASHI’s offense still looked awkward at times, he’s gotten a little better over this past year, but he still looks out of place when the action gets chaotic and quick. There was also a weird delayed period where commentary tried to say that Naito was surveying the situation and making a gameplan, but it really just looked like waiting for people to get in close enough spots so nothing was missed.

So a few missed steps, but the finish was amazing. SANADA had YOSHI-HASHI dead to rights, but he was in the Tekkers corner while the Tekkers were on the floor. SANADA gets greedy, heads up for the Moonsault, Taichi pops up and tags in on SANADA’s boot. Moonsault gets hit but the referee calls Taichi the legal wrestler. We get one more “everybody down” moment after signature spams. ZSJ locks up Naito in a grounded octopus and Taichi takes the weakened YOSHI-HASHI and Black Mephistos him back to the 6 man division. Stupid HASHI.

G1 Participants are announced along with their blocks!

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Robbie Eagles (c) vs Hiromu Takahashi

We see a lot of quick early strikes, early dives, typical Hiromu break-neck speed. A little bit of the overhand chop exchange that he likes to do, then a lot of dodging and countering. Hiromu keeps stopping the Turbo Backpack, while Robbie is throwing a few different moves at Hiromu. Robbie gets Overhead Release German’d into the corner, Hiromu puts some stuff together, Robbie counters, then Hiromu staggers to the corner, blocks Robbie’s move and Death Valley Driver into the corner pads.

Then we see the signature Apron Sunset Bomb that killed Kushida in a matter of seconds when Hiromu came back, and Robbie barely beats the 20 count. Hiromu continues high impact attacks around the neck and shoulders area, but can’t seem to keep Robbie down just yet. Dynamite Plunger and a few high impact moves give Hiromu some near falls, but he has to look for some of his bigger moves.

Time Bomb 2 gets countered, Robbie gets perched on the top rope, Hiromu tries for an Avalanche Wheelbarrow Bomb, but Eagles blocks. Eagles gets off the top rope and starts picking at Hiromu’s legs. He hits the Turbo Backpack off the top rope and works on the legs some more. Hiromu starts seeing the writing on the wall, tries to block Robbie from executing the leg 450, but Robbie extricates himself from Hiromu’s grip, 450 on the leg, Ron Miller Special, then pulls Hiromu back to the middle after some struggle, Ron Miller Special again and Hiromu submits while looking heartbroken.

Desperado comes out, challenges Robbie for the title, but sweetens the pot by saying if he accepts Despy will put the Junior Tags on the line. Robbie chooses Tiger Mask as his partner, and of course accepts. Not sure if it’s 2 separate title matches or a winner takes all match. Could be cool depending on timing. You never know, it could be 2 title matches on the same night.

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs EVIL w/Dick Togo

So I don’t think anyone is surprised by this match. Everyone hates EVIL’s matches, not because he’s a heel and we’re supposed to dislike it; but because they are the same clusterfuck interference match always. This is no different, Kevin Kelly says a mouthful when Red Shoes kicks out the House of Torture members saying “15 minutes of nonsense”. The first 15 minutes were pure unadulterated garbage.

The best thing about this match was seeing LIJ actually work together. House of Torture came back out (of course), first we see BUSHI try and stop them, but he’s overwhelmed. Then after SHO hits Shingo with a chair and goes for Shock Arrow, Naito and SANADA hit the ring the make the save. The historically worst faction at helping one another, actually all came out.

Shingo manages to fight through all the bullshit and hit Last of the Dragon to beat EVIL. After the match even Hiromu comes limping down the ramp. LIJ is whole, LIJ is together….LIJ is supporting each other for the first time in a VERY long time. This LIJ story, made the match a little better than the EVIL garbage.

Overall Score: 6.5/10

So even with the overarching feel good aspect of Los Ingobernables being whole, EVIL in any match, much less a main event is terrible. Now that being said, the Japanese audience was very audible during Shingo’s comebacks, Red Shoes kick out of the seconds and all of the things they’re supposed to pop for. PERHAPS…maybe…PERHAPS, the EVIL trash works a little better in the live situation than it translates on video. Because every EVIL match just feels like a waste of time.

Aside from that, the tag match was pretty damn good if not for a few weird hiccups and YOSHI-HASHI existing. Hiromu’s failure to get the Belto-san back is great for the Junior division because the face of the division has something to overcome instead of just getting handed back the belt. El Desperado also has done a great job reinventing himself since his injury and quarantine. He sells well, has a compelling way of speaking and his matches are fun. Let’s also not overlook the G1 announcement is pretty important! Is Tama gonna body check EVIL and eject the House of Torture out of Bullet Club?

The two days were fairly even, but the fact the main event was trash is what makes this show lag a little behind yesterday. New Japan isn’t quite back to where it used to be, but at least these two days lead into the G1 decently.