NJPW Destruction in Fukushima Results and Analysis

Credit: NJPW1972 Twitter

Minoru Suzuki vs Michael Elgin; The NEVER 6-Man Titles; and more NJPW Destruction highlights and analysis.

New Japan Pro Wrestling held their first major show of September today: NJPW Destruction in Fukushima. The show is one of three marquee events on the tour and set the tone as the promotion ramps into higher stakes matches later this month.

There were three title matches in all and one standout tag team bout. Fortunately, all of the filler matches were kept pre-interval. Head to around the 1hr 45 mark on NJPWWorld for the start of the real action.

IWGP Tag Team Championship 3-Way: (Champions) War Machine vs Guerrillas of Destiny vs Killer Elite Squad.

This match may not be as interesting when we see it for the third time in this short tour, but there was plenty of novelty to be found in this first encounter. Lance Archer returns from injury to reform Suzuki-Gun’s big-hoss tag team; Tama Tonga and Tanga Roa have decided to sprinkle some comedy into their routine; and Hanson and Rowe continue to impress as they handle the unique challenge of being a gaijin babyface team in Japan.

G.O.D realise early on they are out-sized on both fronts, and decide to let the giants collide. Archer and DBS Jr. would work over Hanson for the most part, hoping to make up from their lacklustre run since returning to NJPW in January. Seeing them back definitely breathes life into the War Machine/G.O.D fixture that has dominated the Tag Title scene for most of 2017.

Each pair would land a tag-team finisher, with War Machine scoring last on Tanga Roa and retaining their IWGP Championships. One can imagine we won’t see G.O.D or K.E.S get the better of Hanson and Rowe until the third of their trio of bouts.