NJPW New Japan Cup Night Two: Results and Analysis

Night two of the NJPW New Japan Cup begins, featuring the return of Hiroshi Tanahashi to singles action. Can the Ace of NJPW continue to as one of the top guys in NJPW? Will Okada finally be the only Ace left standing?

As it is right now, NJPW has two Ace’s, and it seems inevitable that the two men will face off again. Tanahashi’s path towards this means he needs to defeat Taichi, who is looking to show he belongs at heavyweight.

Ren Narita & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Suzki-gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru)

Ren Narita was very eager to show his ability and advancement as a Young Lion here. However, starting the match turned into a poor idea. He was beaten around the ring very early, and even came close to tapping out to a Boston crab. He did eventually get the hot tag to Taguchi, but his routine of imitating Nakamura only worked so long and he had to tag Narita back in. Narita was eventually defeated by Desperado with a stretch muffler.

Results: Suzuki-gun

Rating: 2.25 out of 5 stars.

Shota Umino & Yuji Nagata vs. Tetsuhiro Yagi & David Finlay

Shota Umino is trying to hard to step up his game and become one of the standout young lions. What resulted was a nice little tag match that actually saw David Finlay score the pin over Umino. Yuji Nagata looked good, as usual.

Results: Yagi & Finlay

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

Tomoyuki Oka & Michael Elgin vs. CHAOS (Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii)

Ishii showed little concern about the beating he took the night before. Like most tag matches with a young lion, most of the offense is taken from them. Ishii worked over Oka for quite a bit, but had to eventually deal with Elgin as he was forced to break a single leg crab because of a well placed forearm. Oka ran quite wild in parts of this match, furthering my opinion that he is going to be a major star someday. Yano got the win after distracting the ref and hitting a low blow on Oka.

Result: CHAOS

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

Toa Henare & Juice Robinson vs. Suzuki-gun (Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Takashi Iizuka)

The biggest story of this match was making Davey Boy Smith Jr. look strong, as he beat both men around the ring continuously. NJPW clearly thinks highly of Henare, as he is always given a chance to show some good stuff in these tag matches. I expect he’ll be moving up the card sooner, rather than later. Very solid young worker. Davey got the pin after a sit-out powerbomb.

Result: Suzuki-gun

Rating: 2.25 stars out of 5.