Night two of Best of the Super Juniors took place at Korakuen Hall on May 19th, and I was lucky enough to attend in person. Korakuen was pretty much sold out, and the crowd on the night was hot from the opening Young Lion match all the way to the tournament matches. I’ve included some photos that I took at the event in this review.
Shota Umino vs. Yota Tsuji – A fun Young Lion opening match between Tsuji, who is one of the two new trainees, and Umino, who is currently the most impressive trainee in the New Japan system. As the elder Young Lion, Umino got to control this match, but Tusji showed off his raw power at times, powering out of one Boston Crab to get to the ropes. Umino picked up a submission victory when he locked the Boston Crab in the middle of the ring and stopped Tsuji from getting to the ropes.
Winner: Shota Umino, 7:26
ACH, Tiger Mask, and Tomoyuki Oka vs. Will Ospreay, YOH, and YOSHI-HASHI – This match set up the ACH-Will Ospreay match, and the Tiger Mask-YOH match for night three. ACH and Ospreay particularly impressed in this match, going toe-to-toe with their high flying moves, including a very nice hand-spring back elbow attempt from Ospreay that was countered into a German suplex. All six participants looked good though, and Oka was very over with the crowd. Finally the match broke down into a brawl on the outside between the BOSJ competitors, and YOSHI-HASHI forced Oka to tap out to the Butterfly Lock.
Winners: Will Ospreay, YOH, and YOSHI-HASHI, 11:06
Flip Gordon and Toa Henare vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Minoru Suzuki – Flip Gordon vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru is set for night three, so Henare was back to suffer some punishment at the hands of Suzuki. These tag team matches are supposed to give the tournament participants a bit of a break in between their singles matches, but facing Suzuki-gun is like getting the short straw because you know that Suzuki won’t pull any punches (or knife-edge chops) and you’re going to get beaten up in the crowd. Flip continued to impress the Korakuen crowd with his ability, although he didn’t go for anything as crazy as his leap from the crowd onto ACH on night one. Suzuki pinned Henare after a sleeper hold that transitioned to the Gotch-style piledriver. After the match Henare tweeted that he misses Ishii on this tour, so that tells you how tough Suzuki matches can be.
Winners: Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Minoru Suzuki, 11:16
BUSHI and SANADA vs. Taiji Ishimori and Chase Owens – BUSHI and Ishimori will face each other on night three, and tonight SANADA was chosen instead of EVIL to partner his fellow Los Ingobernables de Japon member. The highlight of this match was Chase Owens trying to tie SANADA up in the Paradise Lock, and taking direction from Milano Collection AT who was on commentary at ringside. Chase gave up after a few tries, then SANADA put him in the Paradise Lock to a big pop from the crowd. SANADA caught Chase with the Skull End and forced him to tap out for an LIJ victory.
Winners: BUSHI and SANADA, 9:45
Dragon Lee vs. SHO – Dragon Lee made his second consecutive appearance in BOSJ this year, while this was SHO’s debut. SHO’s new ring gear was infinitely better than YOH’s, and honestly his performance was much more assured than his tag team partner’s on night one. I was surprised by how even the match was, given that SHO is a relatively junior wrestler (no pun intended) but he was completely at home in the ring with Dragon Lee and gave him a real fight.
This match was one of the best of the tournament so far, and the crowd was absolutely hooked on every near fall and big move that the two wrestlers pulled off. Dragon Lee has a solid fanbase amongst the Japanese fans, who turned up with a lot of Mexican flags, and SHO is very popular, particularly amongst female fans. There were some great striking exchanges between the two, and both wrestlers displayed the fighting spirit that New Japan audiences love. For a junior heavyweight Dragon Lee is absolutely jacked, and both he and SHO pulled off some impressive feats of strength. SHO worked over Lee’s arm and tried to make him tap out to the armbar, but Dragon Lee managed to get to the ropes every time, and even countered with his own armbar later in the match. Dragon Lee got a near fall with a double foot stomp in the corner, and then picked up the victory with the Desnucadora, a vertical suplex into a powerbomb.
Winner: Dragon Lee, 17:31
Ryusuke Taguchi vs. El Desperado – Taguchi has a good record in previous BOSJ tournaments, and even won in 2012. El Desperado made his debut in 2014, and finished last year at the bottom of B Block, so he will be hoping to improve on his standings this year. The Korakuen crowd was heavily invested in Taguchi, although there were pockets of Suzuki-gun fans cheering for Desperado. There was a lot of comedy in this match, including Desperado attacking Taguchi with chairs, a spanner, and the uncovered ring post. The cheating didn’t bother me as much in this match, since it fitted with Taguchi’s style of comedy wrestling and it didn’t detract from the quality too much. Desperado picked up the win when Taguchi attempted his chicken wing facebuster and Desperado grabbed the referee to stop him, then hit Taguchi with a low blow and a quick roll up.
Winner: El Desperado, 13:17
KUSHIDA vs. Chris Sabin – KUSHIDA won BOSJ last year, and had an excellent match with Will Ospreay at Wrestling Dontaku for the Jr. Heavyweight Championship. I don’t expect him to reach such lofty heights again this year, but he always puts on good matches. Chris Sabin appeared in New Japan previously as part of the Motor City Machine Guns with Alex Shelley, but this is his first time in BOSJ. Ironically, KUSHIDA and Shelley also teamed together as the Time Splitters, so this was a match with some added weight behind it.
This was the weakest match of the night, in part because the crowd didn’t seem to know Chris Sabin very well, so there wasn’t too much of a reaction for him. The pacing of the match was rather slow as well – Sabin has more of a power-based style than a lot of the other juniors, but it didn’t seem like he had amazing chemistry with KUSHIDA. Sabin scored a surprise victory over KUSHIDA after hitting him with the All Hail Sabin, and after the match KUSHIDA sportingly raised his hand.
Winner: Chris Sabin, 13:47
Hiromu Takahashi vs. Marty Scurll – Hiromu and Marty made their debuts last year – Hiromu as champion – and they both finished just behind A Block winner Will Ospreay on eight points. Hiromu is massively over with the New Japan audience, but Scurll had his own core of supporters who made a good amount of noise.
Marty had a great promo at the pre-tournament press conference about raising the level of the junior division, and both competitors threw everything they had at each other in this match. Marty focused on technical attacks on Hiromu, employing joint manipulation and plenty of submissions. He caught Hiromu in the chickenwing towards the end of the match, but Hiromu managed to escape. Marty is able to switch between comedy and serious wrestling with ease, at one point he tried to bring his umbrella into the ring to attack Hiromu and got into an argument with Red Shoes on the apron, which allowed Hiromu to hit his sunset flip powerbomb off the apron. There was one moment that looked worrying, when Hiromu hit a diving senton off the apron onto Marty, who it looked like was meant to catch him but instead dropped him into a semi-powerbomb counter. The crowd went quiet for a moment, and the referee looked concerned, but a minute later the wrestlers were back to exchanging strikes on the ring apron. In the closing straight the crowd were hot and popped for every submission attempt and near fall. Scurll countered a Time Bomb attempt into a roll-up, but then Hiromu hit a Frankensteiner and rolled through into a triangle choke, which finally forced a referee stoppage. After the match Hiromu cut a babyface promo promising to make this year’s BOSJ better than the G1.
Winner: Hiromu Takahashi, 20:47
Day 2 Standings
El Desperado – 2 points
Dragon Lee – 2 points
Chris Sabin – 2 points
Hiromu Takahashi – 2 points
KUSHIDA – 0 points
Marty Scurll – 0 points
SHO – 0 points
Ryusuke Taguchi – 0 points
Final Thoughts
Night two was another great show, and again there were two excellent matches. Dragon Lee vs. SHO and Hiromu vs. Marty should definitely be watched, and the other two matches weren’t bad either. I hope that Chris Sabin will find his footing as the tournament goes on because there were some good parts of his match, even though it was the weakest of the night. Overall, I think night two improved on night one, which bodes well for the tournament as a whole. SHO put in a standout performance, alongside Dragon Lee, Hiromu, and Marty who we already knew were very talented. Korakuen was loud and the crowd really enjoyed everything on offer. Looking ahead to night three, ACH vs. Will Ospreay promises to be very good and I’m interested to see how Flip Gordon deals with Kanemaru’s cheating.
