NJPW The New Beginning in Sapporo Day 1 Review

Credit: njpw1972.com

The Bullet Club (Tanga Loa, Tama Tonga, & Bad Luck Fale) (c) vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, Toa Henare, and Togi Makabe – NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship

Taguchi demands to start the match and takes it to Tanga Loa, but he just shrugs off Taguchi’s blows. They get the heat on Taguchi early in the match and beat on him for a few minutes. The beatdown eventually continues with Henare, but he manages to get a hot tag to Makabe, who just starts to smash people. Makabe takes out Fale, but is drained in the process, and they get another hot tag to Henare who runs wild on Tama Tonga.

Once the ring is cleared, Taguchi gets his team to run the bases, clotheslining Tonga in the corner repeatedly. It’s eventually broken up, and Tama Tonga hits a flapjack, but Henare kicks out. Tonga then locks in an modified STF submission and gets the tap out to retain the NEVER Openweight 6-Man titles. Really solid match. 2.5 out of 5 stars

David Finlay, Juice Robinson, & Koto Ibushi vs. The Bullet Club (Marty Scrull, Hangman Page, Cody)

Finlay and Marty start the match with some nice chain wrestling. I’d like to see Finlay get a few more matches with the juniors. Maybe have him in The Best of the Super Juniors this year. He’s a great worker, much like his dad, Fit Finlay (of WCW and WWE fame).

It isn’t long before Ibushi is tagged in and he faces off with Cody. This gets a really nice reaction. Cody tags out to Page and doesn’t fight him. Juice gets in and runs wild, but Scrull ends up cutting him off and hitting a superplex. Cody then begins to get the heat on Robinson. Hangman Page snaps Juice’s neck into the ropes, but Juice kicks out. The heat segment continues with Marty and Cody beating on Juice.

Juice ends up hitting Fireman’s Carry into a gutbuster. The match goes back and forth quite a bit from this point, with everyone exchanging high impact moves. A really cool spot saw Ibushi jump off Scrull’s shoulders as Cody went for a Doomsday Device and went for a German Suplex on Scrull. Lots, and lots of accidental partner shots here, and the finish finally came when Hangman Page hit the Right of Passage on Finlay and got the pin. This was a great match. Nice pace, good action. Lots of fun, and everyone walked out looking good. 3.5 out of 5 stars

After the match, Cody insisted to Kevin Kelly that there are no issues in the Bullet Club and that Kenny is the leader, and that he loves him. Scrull also told Kevin off saying that he’s British and Kenny’s Canadian. That made me chuckle.