NJPW: 5 Standout Performances From New Japan Cup 2019
#4: Taichi
Let’s just forget about Taichi’s first round. Tomoaki Honma is a shell of his former self, and his former self wasn’t all that great to begin with. The writing was on the wall for Taichi to advance to the second round of the tournament and that’s where his story begins (and ends, thanks to Ishii).
I’ve mentioned before that I never truly understood the appeal of Taichi. Cool entrance, check. Ridiculous costume, check. Mid-match flare with tear-away pants, check. Everything else, though? Pure bathroom break material.
I was excited to see Taichi and Naito battle at The New Beginning in Sapporo but the match itself was a practice in making Taichi look like a fool.
After Naito was jumped by Iizuka before the match and subsequently carried to the back by medical staff, Taichi paraded around the ring waiting to be awarded the victory and the Intercontinental Title.
As expected, Naito stumbled back to the ring to defend the championship and his honor – and defend them he did. Naito fought back from what seemed to be insurmountable odds to clown Taichi and retain the IC Title.
The point may have been to make Naito look like an unbreakable champion, but my main takeaway was that Taichi was a joke and couldn’t beat a guy who had already been attacked and physically carried out of the arena due to being unable to compete.
It was a bad look for Taichi.
When the second round of the New Japan Cup rolled around, I looked forward to Ishii knocking Taichi’s block off and steamrolling toward the finals. Only a portion of that dream came true and, along the way, Taichi found a way to surprise me.
While Taichi outside of the ring seems like a bit of a fun goofball, his in-ring performances have never excited me. This match with Ishii proved that Taichi is more than just an entrance and a mic stand, though. It proved that, under the right circumstances, Taichi can absolutely go.
Throughout the match, Taichi not only kept up with Ishii’s physicality but he also showed some true character development.
At a key point in the match, Taichi struggled between choosing his trusty mic stand or the mysterious power of Iizuka’s iron glove. He wound up picking the mic stand instead of potentially being driven to the same insanity of Iizuka but then threw the weapon away when Ishii challenged him to use it.
After growing frustrated with not being able to put Ishii away with conventional means, Taichi resorted to a low blow but it still wasn’t enough to keep the Stone Pitbull down. To Taichi’s credit, he did a pretty good amount of not staying down as well – his immediate pop-up from an Ishii piledriver was, perhaps, the moment of the match.
Ishii wound up defeating Taichi and made it all the way to the semifinals, but Taichi didn’t walk away without at least a moral victory. Unlike his loss to Naito, he came out of this absolute war looking like a beast who can harness the fighting spirit of New Japan with the best of them.
What does 2019 hold for Taichi? It will still be a major story point to see whether or not Taichi utilizes the iron glove and what affects it may have on him, but perhaps more than that is the possibility of him turning the corner and becoming a legitimate threat in the ring. If Taichi can pump out more performances like this bout with Ishii, his eventual challenge to Ospreay’s NEVER Openweight Title could put him on another level entirely.