NJPW 46th Anniversary Show Results, Grades, and Analysis
NJPW celebrated their 46th Anniversary with a huge main event featuring Kazuchika Okada vs. Will Ospreay.
As the show opened, Kevin Kelly informed us that Katsuya Kitamura’s match against Manabu Nakanishi has been delayed due to an injury to Kitamura. The 7th match in his best of 7 series has been delayed. With that announcement made, NJPW was ready to start the show. Out came the veterans to face almost the entire class of NJPW Young Lions.
Ryusuke Taguchi, KUSHIDA, Tiger Mask IV, Jushin Thunder Liger, & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Ren Narita, Tetsuhiro Yagi, Shota Umino, Tomoyuki Oka, & Yuji Nagata
The opening match was mostly standard fare with the Young Lions trying to show the veterans that they are improving. Yuji Nagata and Tenzan had some very good hard hitting stuff in this one. Solid little opening match to get the crowd warmed up.
Result: Taguchi, KUSHIDA, Tiger Mask, Liger, Tenzan (1/1 on my predictions thus far).
Rating: 2 stars out of 5.
Toa Henare, David Finlay, & Juice Robinson vs. CHAOS (Toru Yano, Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto)
Robinson came out with quite the new look in this one. Solid, hard hitting match that made me want to see Henare and Ishii go one on one. Yano had some of his usual shenanigans with never fail to entertain. As predicted, CHAOS picked up the win when Goto defeated Henare with a GTR. Given that NJPW always makes their wins and losses matter, it looks like CHAOS might be challenging for the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team titles soon.
Result: CHAOS (2/2 on my predictions thus far).
Rating: 2 stars out of 5.
Roppongi 3K (Sho & Yoh) (CHAOS) (c) w/ Rocky Romero vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI) vs. Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) – 3 Way Match for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
BUSHI always comes out with the coolest masks. That alone makes his entrances interesting. Hiromu starts the match with Yoh. Both men beat each other with very hard chops. It isn’t long before Yoh’s chest is covered in welts. The action is fast and furious with lots of great double teams from Sho and Yoh and LIJ.
Hiromu and BUSHI don’t take kindly to Suzuki-gun’s tactics and eat the guardrail in response. Of course, this doesn’t keep Suzuki-gun at bay forever, and they took advantage with a series sketchy tactics. Sho is still selling the back injuries incurred against The Young Bucks at Wrestle Kingdom, allowing Suzuki-gun to get the heat on Sho. Kanemaru locked on a Boston crab, making Sho scream in pain.
Sho eventually breaks out of the hold, and Yoh took over to give his partner a rest. Yoh struggled with the cheating of Kanemaru. Hiromu and BUSHI got in the ring and did some very quick double team moves on Kanemaru. Sho came in, and suddenly LIJ and RPG3K were flying all over the ring.
Hiromu hit a crazy sunset flip powerbomb to the outside of the ring on El Desperado. BUSHI eventually did the poison mist on Sho, and as BUSHI was going for the pin, Kanemaru spit his drink into BUSHI’s eyes. Desperado rolls up Sho and pinned him!
Result: Suzuki-gun (2/3 on my predictions. I was right that the titles were changing, but wrong on who won!)
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5.