{"id":10659,"date":"2018-12-11T08:59:06","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T08:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=10659"},"modified":"2018-12-11T20:08:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T20:08:53","slug":"njpw-world-tag-league-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2018\/12\/11\/njpw-world-tag-league-review\/","title":{"rendered":"NJPW World Tag League Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Final Standings<\/p>\n\n\n\n<table class=\"wp-block-table\"><tbody><tr><td>Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL and SANADA)<\/td><td>20 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa)<\/td><td>20 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Tomohiro Ishii and Yano Toru<\/td><td>18 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Killer Elite Squad (Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr.)<\/td><td>18 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Michael Elgin and Jeff Cobb<\/td><td>16 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Zack Sabre Jr. and Taichi<\/td><td>16 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Juice Robinson and David Finlay<\/td><td>16 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Best Friends (Chuckie T and Beretta)<\/td><td>14 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka<\/td><td>10 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Hangman Page and Yujiro Takahashi\u00a0<\/td><td>10 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima<\/td><td>10 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Togi Makabe and Toa Henare<\/td><td>8 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi<\/td><td>6 pts.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Ayato Yoshida and Shota Umino<\/td><td>0 pts.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After an exhausting month-long tour, and around 170 matches,The World Tag League came to an end on December 9<sup>th<\/sup> with a victory for the Los Ingobernables de Japon team of EVIL and SANADA, which made them back-to-back winners of the tournament.&nbsp; They defeated Guerrillas of Destiny in a decent, if over-long, final match to set up a Wrestle Kingdom match for the IWGP Tag Team Championship, although post-match The Young Bucks managed to insert themselves into the match on January 4<sup>th<\/sup>.&nbsp; &nbsp;EVIL and SANADA managed to survive the GOD super powerbomb, and hit Darkness Falls followed by a moonsault to defeat the reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">EVIL\uff06SANADA\u304c\u6709\u8a00\u5b9f\u884c\u306e\u300eWORLD TAG LEAGUE\u300f\u201c2\u9023\u8987\u201d\u9054\u6210\uff01 <br>\u30bf\u30de\uff06\u30bf\u30f3\u30ac\u3001\u30e4\u30f3\u30b0\u30d0\u30c3\u30af\u30b9\u3068\u306eIWGP\u30bf\u30c3\u30b03WAY\u6226\u304c\u5b9f\u73fe\u304b!?<br>\u260612.9\u5ca9\u624b\u5927\u4f1a\u3092\u65b0\u65e5\u672c\u30d7\u30ed\u30ec\u30b9\u306e\u30b9\u30de\u30db\u30b5\u30a4\u30c8\u3067\u72ec\u5360\u8a73\u5831\u4e2d\uff01<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UOmfOVggCz\">https:\/\/t.co\/UOmfOVggCz<\/a>   <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/njpw?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#njpw<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/njwtl?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#njwtl<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4TnBFRmHRD\">pic.twitter.com\/4TnBFRmHRD<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u65b0\u65e5\u672c\u30d7\u30ed\u30ec\u30b9\u30ea\u30f3\u30b0\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e (@njpw1972) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/njpw1972\/status\/1071716016571314176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 9, 2018<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The final standings in\nthe tournament didn\u2019t contain too many surprises. &nbsp;Near the top of the tournament standings you\nhad a lot of the big names in the tag team division, including LIJ, GOD, KES, Ishii\nand Yano, FinJuice, and the less regular tag teams of Cobb and Elgin and ZSJ and\nTaichi.&nbsp; Dangerous Tekkers (ZSJ and Taichi)\nbecame one of the best things about this year\u2019s World Tag League, and their\nmatch against fellow Suzuki-gun members Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka was excellent.&nbsp; Best Friends finished lower than I expected,\nbut that was largely down to the storyline that ran through the tournament of\nChuckie T attacking opponents with weapons and getting disqualified.&nbsp; There was a lot of debate over whether this\nis part of angle that there is a Bullet Club mole in CHAOS (something that Jay\nWhite has stated in the past), or a Best Friends breakup angle, but whatever\nthe case is it proved to be an interesting wrinkle in the tournament and\nallowed Best Friends to take some losses without looking too weak.&nbsp; I don\u2019t trust New Japan to necessarily handle\na mental health angle with a lot of tact, if that\u2019s what they are going for,\nbut it should be interesting to see what comes from this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the lower half of\nthe standings came the weaker teams in the tournament.&nbsp; Suzuki and Iizuka was never likely to do much\ngiven that Iizuka is by far the weakest member of Suzuki-gun, while Hangman Page\nand Yujiro got to have some good victories over Cobb and Elgin and Dangerous\nTekkers without really troubling the top half of the standings.&nbsp; Page continued to impress, and Yujiro\nactually put his working boots on for a lot of the tournament, even if I would\nhave liked to see Page and Chase Owens get a run in the tournament.&nbsp; TenCozy and Nagata and Nakanishi provided\nsome good nostalgia pops \u2013 particularly when Tenzan hit a moonsault and\nNakanishi managed to hit a dive over the ropes to the outside \u2013 without anyone\nreally expecting them to be contenders, and Makabe and Henare improved on their\n2017 showing of 2 points in the tournament.&nbsp;\nFinally, Umino and Yoshida brought all the fire of a Young Lion tag team\ndesperate to prove themselves, but finished with the usual result of 0\npoints.&nbsp; Yoshida obviously came in with a\ndecent level of hype and is in a sort of limbo between Young Lion and the full roster,\nbut Umino again demonstrated that he\u2019s going to be an excellent addition to the\nfull roster.&nbsp; He must be getting close to\ngoing on his excursion at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The World Tag League final, which was held in Iwate (an interesting choice as it\u2019s a good few hours north of Tokyo, which is where most of the big show finals are held) also saw some noteworthy matches setting up angles for Wrestle Kingdom.&nbsp; Will Ospreay returned from a rib injury to defeat Taichi in a really good NEVER Openweight Title number one contender match. &nbsp;This match had originally beens cheduled for Power Struggle in early November, when Taichi was still the NEVERChampion, but Ospreay\u2019s injury meant that the match was changed to Taichi vs.Hirooki Goto and led to Taichi dropping the title.&nbsp; Although I\u2019m disappointed that we never got a Taichi vs. Ospreay title match, this somewhat made up for it.&nbsp; Taichi seems to get a very polarising reaction amongst fans online, but this was a strong showing by both men, and I like the fact that they\u2019re now playing up the Openweight part of the NEVER division.&nbsp; Following that match Hirooki Goto defended the NEVER Title against Kota Ibushi, in a decent match that ended with Ibushi defeating Goto to win the NEVER title for the first time in his career.&nbsp; This match didn&#8217;t quite live up to their G1 Climax showing, but it was still a solid bout, and the crowd popped for Ibushi after he hit the <em>Kamigoye<\/em> for the win.&nbsp; This meant that the rumoured Ibushi vs. Ospreay match for the NEVER Title at Wrestle Kingdom can now go forward, and that match should be very good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u98ef\u4f0f\u5e78\u592a\u304c\u5f8c\u85e4\u6d0b\u592e\u7d00\u3092\u6483\u7834\u3057\u3001NEVER\u7121\u5dee\u5225\u7d1a\u738b\u5ea7\u3092\u521d\u6234\u51a0\uff01<br>\u201c\u6b21\u671f\u6311\u6226\u8005\u201d\u30a6\u30a3\u30eb\u30fb\u30aa\u30b9\u30d7\u30ec\u30a4\u3068\u306e\u201c\u30c9\u30ea\u30fc\u30e0\u30de\u30c3\u30c1\u201d\u304c\u5b9f\u73fe\u304b!?<br>\u260612.9\u5ca9\u624b\u5927\u4f1a\u3092\u65b0\u65e5\u672c\u30d7\u30ed\u30ec\u30b9\u306e\u30b9\u30de\u30db\u30b5\u30a4\u30c8\u3067\u72ec\u5360\u8a73\u5831\u4e2d\uff01<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UOmfOVggCz\">https:\/\/t.co\/UOmfOVggCz<\/a>  <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/njpw?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#njpw<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/njwtl?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#njwtl<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/14axaO1kcW\">pic.twitter.com\/14axaO1kcW<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u65b0\u65e5\u672c\u30d7\u30ed\u30ec\u30b9\u30ea\u30f3\u30b0\u682a\u5f0f\u4f1a\u793e (@njpw1972) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/njpw1972\/status\/1071717039071354880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 9, 2018<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The show also featured\nan eight-man tag team showdown between Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ryusuke Taguchi,\nFinlay, and Juice and Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, and Marty Scurll.&nbsp; Kenny had been conspicuous by his absence\nfrom the World Tag League, but he returned here to continue the build-up to\ntheir Wrestle Kingdom main event.&nbsp; Thousands\nof characters on Twitter have been spent dissecting the IWGP Heavyweight Title\nmatch, so I\u2019ll simply say that the build-up so far has been flat and this match\ndidn\u2019t do much for my excitement for January 4<sup>th<\/sup>.&nbsp; Hopefully the Road to Tokyo Dome shows will\nhelp add something to this feud.&nbsp; Kenny\u2019s\nteam picked up the win after The Young Bucks hit an Indytaker on Taguchi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking back on this\nyear\u2019s World Tag League, I think the overall level of quality was up from\n2017.&nbsp; It has been mentioned on various\nforums that part of the reason for that might be that there were more participants\nthis year who were fighting to for recognition and so were more motivated to perform\non every show.&nbsp; Teams like Dangerous\nTekkers, FinJuice, and Umino and Yoshida all exceeded the pre-tournament\nexpectations.&nbsp; They also threw in some\nquite major storyline elements, including the first ever team between Kazuchika\nOkada and Hiroshi Tanahashi, who took on Jay White and Bullet Club.&nbsp; However, I was not a fan of the format of the\ntournament this year, particularly the number of matches and shows, which felt\nlike a real slog to get through.&nbsp; I have\nto admit that I didn\u2019t watch every single match in the tournament, just in order\nto be able to keep up.&nbsp; New Japan usually\ndoes tournament wrestling very well, but adding in a long World Tag League to Best\nof the Super Juniors, G1 Climax, and Super Junior Tag Team Tournament just\nfeels like too much.&nbsp; I would prefer to\nsee a return to the two block format of previous years for the 2019 WTL.&nbsp; Still, overall a strong tournament with a\nsurprising amount of good matches and storyline progression for those who had\nthe time to follow it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Final Standings Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL and SANADA) 20 pts. Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa) 20 pts. Tomohiro Ishii and Yano Toru 18 pts. Killer Elite [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":10669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,204,37],"tags":[44,45,691],"class_list":["post-10659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-njpw","category-njpw-reviews","tag-njpw","tag-pro-wrestling","tag-wtl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2LV","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Dt2_k0YW4AA1DNd.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10659"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10680,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10659\/revisions\/10680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}