Power Struggle 2014

Power Struggle 2014

(2014/11/8)

0.      Tiger Mask & Fuego vs. BUSHI & Mascara Dorada

Very fun pre-show match, TMIV was striking hard, really hard (shades of Battlarts), while the rest of the crew brought some gracious lucha flying, all in all this was good. I hope we get TMIV/Dorada at FantasticaMania.

***

1.      3-WAY: Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) vs. TAKA Michinoku & Desperado vs. Forever Hooligans (Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov)

Solid spotfest where the right team won, the Bucks were awesome.

**3/4

2.      NWA World Jr. Heavyweight Championship: Jushin Liger vs. Chase Owens ©

It’s always nice to witness a Liger singles match, this was good and the man can still go, fucking kudos there. Owens was much better here than in the first match. Oh, and Bruce Tharpe is awful now, his shtick got old awhile ago and all he does now is trying too hard. Sod off, Bruce.

***

3.      Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka vs. Toru Yano & Kazushi Sakuraba

Same. Old. Shit. Yano/Iizuka was bad, Saku/MiSu was good. Thank fuck they finally announced their 1-on-1 match, my body is ready. Apparently it’ll be held under UWF rules, which is fantastic.

**

4.      Bullet Club (Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi) vs. Togi Makabe, Tetsuya Naito, Tomoaki Honma, Cpt. New Japan

Solid 8-man tag that could’ve been good with a tweak or two more, but it is what it is, some transitions at the beginning looked too contrived which put me off. Definitely the worst Bullet Club tag of the year but still not bad, it’s action packed and watchable.

**3/4

5.      IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: reDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) vs. Time Splitters (KUSHIDA & Alex Shelley) ©

WHY?! These two ROH drones can fuck off, they almost ruined the match with their awful pacing. I don’t want to sound like an obnoxious prick, but the Splitters were great here, it’s Kyle~ and Bobby~ that were total shit. Why they had them dethrone the Splitters is beyond me.

**3/4

6.      IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Taichi vs. Ryusuke Taguchi ©

They had me until the anticlimactic finish, shit man, Taguchi is ho hit or miss in that area and this was a miss, but I simply cannot ignore the previous hard work which was very good, at least on Taichi’s side. Seriously, dude’s fantastic. Post-match here comes Bullet Club to reveal that Kenny Omega is their latest member and he’s here to go after Taguchi’s championship. That could be good.

***

7.      AJ Styles vs. Yoshitatsu

Liked this a lot, I think Tatsu looked good in his comeback match. Sure, he looked rusty few times but no biggie, nothing too terrible that would hurt the rhythm. Well, he did almost break his neck during the Styles Clash, but that’s another story.

***1/2

8.      NEVER Openweight Championship: Hirooki Goto vs. Tomohiro Ishii ©

****1/2

9.      Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi

Big letdown, this one had a tough task after the Goto/Ishii war, but that’s not an excuse, they should’ve done a better job, this match had some big pacing issues.

**3/4

10.  IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Shinsuke Nakamura ©

Great match to end the show, but still not as great as their G1 sprints from ’03 and ’04. They fought a well-thought tactical battle with lots of careful sequences I dug. Also, I just know they still have a lot more to offer, I know they have chemistry for a potential high-end MOTYC down the road.

****