NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed Review, 30/9/18

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New Japan returned to Long Beach, California for the second time this year (the third time in the US) with a show featuring Cody vs. Juice Robinson for the US Title and GOD vs. The Young Bucks for the Tag Team Titles.  Tickets for this event didn’t sell out, unlike previous shows in Long Beach, most likely due to the proximity to All In, a lack of information about the card until the week of the show, and general fatigue with NJPW events in California this year.

Roppongi 3K (SHO, YOH, and Rocky Romero) vs. Jyushin Thunder Liger, Ryusuke Taguchi, and ACH – This was a good opening match, and the US crowd was very into Liger, who posed in the ring for the crowd before the action started.  ACH was also super over with the crowd, and he looked great in this match even in the limited scope of a six man tag match.  Roppongi 3K ended up in the role of heels simply due to the crowd’s reaction to Liger, but both SHO and YOH looked good too.  Rocky predictably took the pin from Taguchi and the faces basked in the crowd’s applause.

Winners: Jyushin Thunder Liger, Ryusuke Taguchi, and ACH, 8:55

Hangman Page and Chase Owens vs. So Cal Uncensored (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) –  SCU were very over with the Long Beach crowd, who had been chanting SCU before the show even began.  Both teams looked fired up for this match, although Bullet Club had the best of the opening.  Page had a good showing in the G1 Climax this year and he continued to show off his impressive athleticism in this match with his Shooting Star Press from the ring apron.  SCU managed to mount a comeback though and Daniels scored a pin on Owens after a Best Meltzer Ever, which the crowd loved.

Winners: So Cal Uncensored, 8:14

Hirooki Goto, and Best Friends (Chuckie T and Beretta) vs. Jeff Cobb, Chris Sabin, and Flip Gordon – Pretty much everyone in this match got a big pop from the crowd except for Goto, who beat Cobb in a NEVER Title match in the last California show and seemed to have become a heel in the crowd’s eyes after that.  Cobb has had a great year since losing the NEVER title match, winning BOLA and the ROH TV Title.  This was another fun match, which allowed everyone to show off their best moves, especially Flip and Cobb, although Best Friends also demonstrated their tag team synergy ahead of World Tag League.  Goto and Cobb faced off again briefly during the match, but Cobb picked up the win with a Tour of the Islands on Chuckie T.  After the match Goto and Cobb faced down but Goto retreated from the ring before anything came of it.

Winners: Jeff Cobb, Chris Sabin, and Flip Gordon, 12:04

Killer Elite Squad (Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr.), and Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, and SANADA – The Suzuki-gun vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon feud continued into Fighting Spirit Unleashed, but the absence of Minoru Suzuki probably improved this match since it didn’t devolve into outside brawling for too much of this match.  ZSJ and EVIL seem to be heading towards some kind of feud, and they had good chemistry in this match.  Naito came out wearing a new LIJ Halloween shirt, but didn’t remove it during the match, which meant that he was taking it fairly easily.  The US crowd was heavily behind LIJ and Naito got good cheers when he hit his signature moves.  Suzuki-gun got another tag team winner over LIJ when ZSJ pinned EVIL with a clutch pin.  After the match EVIL looked extremely angry again, as KES and ZSJ taunted him from outside the ring, and beat up a few Young Lions.

Winners: KES and Zack Sabre Jr., 9:27

Jay White and Gedo vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi and KUSHIDA – This was the first time that Jay White and Gedo had teamed up since Gedo betrayed Okada and sided with White on the  Destruction tour.  Gedo and White made a good heel team, although it did mean that a lot of the match was slowed down by their dastardly tactics.  Gedo in particular was a master of being a devious heel, and they were able to stop Tanahashi and KUSHIDA getting into much of a rhythm in the match.  White and Gedo generated a lot of boos as the match went on, in a large part because the crowd wanted to see what Tanahashi could do.  This was a good match to help build on White’s burgeoning emergence as a heel force since he got a vocal reaction from the US fans.  Jay also picked up a pin over Tanahashi in this match, following Gedo hitting Tanahashi with a knuckle duster as he attempted a High Fly Flow.  After the match White cut a promo challenging Tanahashi to defend his Wrestle Kingdom main event contract at King of Pro Wrestling.  Jay had a good back-and-forth with the crowd who loudly chanted “fuck you Switchblade!”

Winners: Jay White and Gedo, 8:52

Junior Heavyweight Championship Tournament

Marty Scurll vs. Will Ospreay – After Hiromu Takahashi relinquished the Junior Heavyweight Title following his neck injury at Dominion, a four-person tournament was put together to determine a new champion.  KUSHIDA beat BUSHI at Destruction in Kobe, and tonight Scurll and Ospreay took on each other for the right to face KUSHIDA.  The match started at a frenetic pace as Ospreay hit Scurll with a Spanish Fly immediately following the bell.  When that produced only a two count, he followed that up with a springboard dive to the outside.  Ospreay had a long run of losses against Scurll until their match at Sakura Genesis earlier this year, and clearly he was desperate to get the momentum on his side.  Scurll managed eventually to slow down the pace by targeting Ospreay’s neck, which he injured at Sakura Genesis.  Scurll was very over with the Long Beach crowd, many of whom were wearing Bullet Club merchandise, far more so than he is in Japan where Ospreay holds the edge in fan support.  The two ended up on the apron at one point, in a call-back to their Sakura Genesis match, but this time it ended up with Ospreay hitting Scurll with a sunset-flip powerbomb to the outside.  Ospreay brought Scurll back into the ring before the count-out to finish it in the ring, but Scurll dodged an Os Cutter and a Storm Breaker, before trapping Ospreay in a cross-face chickenwing.  Will managed to escape from the submission hold, but Marty finally put him down with a version of a package piledriver followed by The Graduation (which is not that impressive as a finishing move).  Scurll moved on to face KUSHIDA at King of Pro Wrestling.

Winner: Marty Scurll, 16:08

IWGP Tag Team Championship

Guerrillas of Destiny (Tanga Loa and Tama Tonga) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) (c) – GOD split from Bullet Club at the G1 Special in June and spent most of the G1 tournament trying to generate some heat and not really succeeding.  The Japanese crowd didn’t really seem to care about them, even when they beat The Young Bucks and Marty Scurll for the NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Titles.  Long Beach was a better venue for them, and while The Bucks were very over there was a good section of support for GOD.  I was impressed by this match – GOD are much better as a tag team and The Young Bucks’ performance was great as usual.  There were a lot of exciting spots, including at one point Matt being pushed off the turnbuckle and going all the way through a table on the outside.  Tama also hit a picture perfect Gun Stun on Nick as The Bucks attempted a Meltzer Driver, which led to an Apeshit for a near fall.  I fully expected The Bucks to walk into Long Beach as champions and walk out as champions, but in a surprising twist GOD ended up winning after Tanga Loa lifted Matt into a running Gun Stun.  After the match Haku came to the ring and celebrated with his sons.  This was a good match overall, despite the surprising final result.  The fact that the NEVER Six Man Tag Titles have been held consecutively by the last two Tag Team Champions should tell you what NJPW thinks of them.  Time to get rid of the Six Man Titles.

Winners: Guerrillas of Destiny, 19:21 

United States Championship

Cody w/ Brandi Rhodes vs. Juice Robinson (c) – Juice won the US Title from Jay White at New Japan’s last show in the USA, but since then he had a poor run of results in the G1 and then Cody challenged him after a tag team victory on the Destruction tour.  Conversely, Cody won the NWA World’s Heavyweight Title at All In earlier in September and appeared to be coming into this match with all the momentum.  Red Shoes came out to officiate for his first match of the night, which led to a chant of “let’s go Red Shoes.”  Cody had some support in Long Beach but it was dwarfed by Juice’s support, and Cody and Brandi played up their heel tactics in their attempt to win the US Title.  Juice managed to connect with Pulp Friction in the mid-match, but Brandi pulled Cody out of the ring to prevent him from losing.  This match was slow, which I largely put down to Cody’s style of wrestling, and this was compounded by a bizarre ending in which Cody rolled up Juice for a quick three count after he had just hit a superplex on Cody.  The ending of this match really baffled me, especially since Cody was clearly the bad guy in the match here.  The result took the wind out of the sails of the Long Beach crowd a bit, since so many people had been behind Juice going into this match.

Winner: Cody, 16:45

Kazuchika Okada and Tomohiro Ishii vs. The Golden Lovers (Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi) – The last time we saw Ishii he was losing to Okada in Hiroshima, while Okada lost to Tanahashi in Kobe, before being attacked by Jay White and Gedo.  It wasn’t clear what the relationship between Okada and CHAOS would be going forward, but that storyline didn’t come up in this match.  This was a good main event, and the showdowns between Ishii and Ibushi were a highlight after their excellent G1 match.  It certainly didn’t reach the heights of the match between The Golden Lovers and The Young Bucks earlier this year in Long Beach, but Omega and Ibushi made less mistakes with their double-team moves this time around.  The end of the match came when Ishii was isolated in the ring with Omega and Ibushi, who hit him with a double knee strike, followed by a Golden Trigger.  This match might be worth watching for the Ishii and Ibushi segments, but the lack of stakes hurt it.  It felt like a holding match in storyline terms, since none of the four are really feuding with each other right now.

Winners: The Golden Lovers, 23:06

After the match Omega started to ask Ibushi for a match at King of Pro Wrestling, until Cody came out and inserted himself into the match, making it a triple threat.

 

Final Thoughts

Full disclosure, I was at this show live and it was a fun live event to attend.  I’ve been to a lot of NJPW shows in Japan, and a lot of the production values were successfully transferred over to this show.  Walter Pyramid was a great venue, and the show was a lot of fun to be at live, despite the fact that there were a good number of empty seats in the house.

Turning to the card, I thought that Fight Spirit Unleashed was decent overall.  The undercard was stronger than I expected it to be, but the US Title match was a let-down and the main event was good but not great.  I’m not sure there’s anything that you need to go out of your way to see from this card, but the Tag Team Championship match was good, as was Scurll vs. Ospreay.  A lot of the card felt like filler, although two title changes were surprising.  I was less upset with the Tag Team Titles changing hands, since GOD are better as a tag team than singles wrestlers, plus it makes the Bullet Club OGs seem like a legitimate force to be reckoned with.  The fact that they didn’t cheat to win is also interesting.  It’s been reported that The Young Bucks won’t be involved in this year’s World Tag League, and given that they dropped the titles here maybe those are signs that they’re heading to WWE when their ROH contracts expire.

The US Championship match was the biggest disappointment of the night, particularly since the match was average, and Cody winning didn’t really make any sense.  The only thing I can think is that NJPW wanted to give Cody a win so that he could insert himself into the triple threat at King of Pro Wrestling.  If Juice doesn’t get a rematch and win the belt back, his title reign as US Champion will surely go down as one of the worst this year.  He won the belt from White in July and then proceeded to lose almost all of his G1 matches, then lost the belt to Cody in his first defence.  That booking decision made no sense, and is an example of a cool moment that didn’t really amount to much in the long run.  If there is something that NJPW has been guilty of this year, from Naito losing at Wrestle Kingdom 12 onwards, it’s having big moments that didn’t amount to much in the long run.  The jury is still out on the Golden Lovers and Omega’s run as champion, but there have been some questionable booking decisions this year.

Looking forwards to King of Pro Wrestling, the KUSHIDA vs. Scurll match should be good – I imagine that KUSHIDA will win, and potentially end up fighting Taiji Ishimori at Wrestle Kingdom for the title.  The triple threat for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship doesn’t particularly interest me, since it seems like a blatant attempt to avoid doing Ibushi vs. Omega again, and there’s no way that Omega drops the title.  The most interesting match might actually be Tanahashi vs. White, not because I think that Tanahashi will lose his title shot, but because I’m interested in seeing the evolution of the Switchblade.  White had great heel heat in Long Beach, and with Gedo as a Japanese mouthpiece he could be primed to take off as a major heel amongst the Japanese fans too.

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