New Japan 11/2: Mehness and Good Main Event

Road to Power Struggle 2014

(2014/11/2)

1.       Fuego vs. Yohei Komatsu

**3/4

2.       Suzuki-gun (TAKA Michinoku, Taichi, Desperado) vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, KUSHIDA, Alex Shelley

**1/2

3.       Bullet Club (Yujiro Takahashi, Tama Tonga, Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson) vs. Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask, BUSHI, Mascara Dorada

**3/4

6.       Super Jr. Tag Tournament 2014 – Semi-Final: reDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) vs. Forever Hooligans (Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov)

The Hooligans are becoming a full-blown comedy duo, more and more, and I don’t like it, especially after witnessing the awesome Round 1 match against Time Splitters. The comedy totally overstayed its welcome here, you couldn’t feel it was an important semi-final match of a tournament. Shit quality.

bad

7.       Hiroshi Tanahashi, Katsuyori Shibata, Hirooki Goto, Tomoaki Honma vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Tomohiro Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI)

Yes, now this was more like it. Unlike the 10/30 main event with the Hooligans and the Splitters, this was more compelling and focused. Sure, it was done by-the-numbers, but all it takes is one or two last moment saves to pop the crowd and elevate the match, it takes so little to make you think “hey, this might end in a surprise fashion”, and that’s awesome.

***3/4

The first three matches were not good, mediocre stuff right there, I was disappointed but maybe I shouldn’t be, this is a C-show after all. I skipped the same old tag from the never-ending MiSu/Yano rivalry, I also skipped the Bullet Club 6-man tag because it doesn’t look like it could be particularly good, not because of BC, though, I simply have no faith in Makabe after the 10/30 match. The Jr. tag sucked and main event was very nice, very good.