Road
to Power Struggle 2014
(2014/10/30)
1. reDRagon
(Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) vs. Sho Tanaka & Yohei Komatsu
Wow,
very enjoyable match with the two Young Lions trying to hang with the more
experienced gaijins, and going all in while doing so. Organic and natural heat
all around, that’s appreciated. O’Reilly and Fish were very good as the rough
aggressors, O’Reilly reminded me on the guy I loved back in 2011/12 when he was
a talented, perky Future Shock guy before going the Davey Richards full retard
route, his stuff in New Japan gets limited and much more focused by default,
and it makes his stuff quite enjoyable. I’ve always liked Fish, though, plus
he’s an experienced NOAH veteran, so he knows what to do and when to do it.
Damn good match, watch it.
***3/4
2. Taichi
& Desperado vs. Ryusuke Taguchi & Mascara Dorada
Fuckin’
A, man, good shit, so good. Taichi and Desperado got to be the biggest pricks
in the world right now. In 2014 they come up with something new and wacky in
order to cheat and win. Fucking kudos!
***3/4
3. Jushin
Liger, Tiger Mask, BUSHI, Fuego vs. Bullet Club (Yujiro Takahashi, Tama Tonga,
Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson)
Fun
8-man tag with Liger taking us down the memory lane with his GOAT antics, while
Yujiro and Tonga provided the clashes of styles, all in all this was good.
***1/2
4. Minoru
Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka vs. Toru Yano & Gedo
Same
old stuff, the Gedo involvement is something fresh at least, but this was few
levels under the last match.
**
5. Bullet
Club (Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale) vs. Togi Makabe, Tetsuya
Naito, Cpt. New Japan
I
don’t mind all these CNJ multi-man tags where he’s an obvious fallman, because
he always delivers and is usually one of the best guys in them, but this was
not good. Not bad either, but definitely not good, despite Captain’s big
efforts. Makabe sucked, Fale sucked, Naito sucked, Karl and Doc were good,
hence the relatively low rating for this one, gods bless Captain for being so
fabulous.
**3/4
6. Hirooki
Goto & Tomoaki Honma vs. Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI
Good
match, but should’ve been better considering the names involved. If this was in
Korakuen, then uh, oh… But still, no biggie, this was a good match, fighting
spirit and heavy smacks, every combo delivered. You got the former great
underdog and the current two great underdogs in the same match. Oh yeah, and
Goto was there as well. :p
***1/4
7. CHAOS
(Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Rocky Romero, Alex Koslov) vs. Hiroshi
Tanahashi, Katsuyori Shibata, KUSHIDA, Alex Shelley
While
there were some nice and peculiar mixtures between the Heavyweights and the
Juniors (including the finish), this was mostly done by-the-numbers, which is THE
pillar of modern multi-man booking in New Japan. It doesn’t sound exciting or
very good on paper, but the sheer talent involved is enough to make those matches
at least good, and that’s a huge plus for these C-shows, while they’re usually
great on B-shows, like Korakuen. The crowd was very hot for Shibata, this being
his first tour with the federation since 2004 and all.
***1/4
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