NJPW Kizuna Road 2018 Night 1: Results, Grades, and Analysis

Hiroshi Tanahashi, David Finlay, & Juice Robinson vs. CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii, Jay White, and Kazuchika Okada)

One of the interesting things to note about this match is that Okada did not come out to his own music. CHAOS came out to Jay White’s music. Okada is not the same man anymore. Omega crushed him when he took the title from him. While this is a small little subtle thing, it communicates huge things. Okada is hurt. He’s angry. He’s sad. All at once. His usual confidence isn’t seen, and he looked to not care about the matches as much as he would. Meanwhile, Jay White is making major moves and looking more and more confident. I think we’re going to see Jay White try to take leadership of CHAOS from Okada.

Okada seemed to have particular disdain towards Tanahashi in this match, where I think he might even blame him for his misfortune. Okada and White worked over Tana for the next few minutes, getting the heat on NJPW’s Ace and biggest babyface. After a nice long sequence, Ishii was able to get the pinfall on David Finlay.

Result: CHAOS

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

A big angle went down after the match as Jay White continued to beat the crap out of David Finlay and Juice Robinson afterwards. White sent Juice into the railing multiple times before hitting a suplex on the outside, driving Juice head first into the floor. White grabbed a chair and beat on some young lions before hitting Juice.

He went to Pillmanize Juice’s hand, but failed to do so, as Juice moved his hand before Jay could drive the chair into Juice’s hand. Juice sent him away by punching the chair and sending White packing. Juice yelled into the camera – “I’ve broken my hand before!” Saying that it couldn’t stop him.