{"id":10865,"date":"2019-01-03T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=10865"},"modified":"2019-01-03T04:18:42","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T09:18:42","slug":"all-japan-new-year-wars-2019-night-two-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/03\/all-japan-new-year-wars-2019-night-two-review\/","title":{"rendered":"All Japan New Year Wars 2019 \u2013 Night Two Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AJPW hosted their second show in as many days in Korakuen\nHall as part of their New Year Wars tour. This show was significantly better\nthan the first show on this tour. There were three championship matches and a\nsolid undercard. However, the undercard was not very newsworthy, so there is no\nneed to go in to too much detail. Some highlights included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Rookies Danji Tamura, Hokuto Omura, and Atsushi\nAoyagi impressed again in a tag-team match also involving Yusuke Okada<\/li><li>Sweeper (Jake Lee, Ryoji Sai and Koji Iwamoto)\ndef. Jun Akiyama, Zeus and Atsushi Maruyama<\/li><li>Lee and Zeus were at each other\u2019s throats the\nentire match, so maybe they will have a singles match during the next tour<\/li><li>Suwama, Shuji Ishikawa and Atsushi Aoki def. Joe\nDoering, Dylan James and Gianni Valletta<\/li><li>Osamu Nishimura and Hikaru Sato def. Masanobu\nFuchi and Yoshitatsu<\/li><li>A video played hyping up matches in the upcoming\nJunior Battle of Glory tournament, including Iwamoto vs Kotaro Suzuki<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>TAJIRI \u00a9 def. Minoru\nFujita to retain the GAORA TV Championship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These two men have great respect for each other. Because of\nthis, there was great tension about if one of them would fight dirty to try and\nwin the match. So, it started off with some solid mat wrestling, with neither\nman gaining a clear advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This whole match was kind of slow, with both men feeling\neach other out and trying to gain the advantage the entire time. They took\nturns working each other over for long periods of time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">TAJIRI spit green mist in Fujita\u2019s face, then caught him in\na small package for the win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>NEXTREAM (Naoya\nNomura and Yuma Aoyagi) \u00a9 def. Takao Omori and Black-Menso Re to retain the\nAll-Asia Tag Team Championships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/NXTROM.jpg?resize=696%2C392\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10866\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The crowd loves NEXTREAM, especially Nomura. They also have\ngreat respect for the veteran Omori, and Menso Re is very funny. This made for\na very hot crowd throughout the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All four men felt like stars at some point in this match, including\nOmori. Even though he does not move as well as he used to, he can still work a\ncrowd beautifully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This match did a great job of making the audience think\nOmori and Menso Re would win the titles. Just when the match reached its\ncrescendo, Nomura would kick out of a big move, and the match would somehow\nfind the next gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2018 was such a great year for tag-team wrestling, and this\nfelt like a continuation of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a ton of near-falls, Nomura pinned Omori with a Death\nValley Driver. Excellent match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kento Miyahara \u00a9 def.\nKAI to retain the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This match was a big test for both men, as KAI has never\nbeen taken too seriously as a threat in AJPW. Especially since they had to\nfollow that tag title match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They passed with flying colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During their entrances, Miyahara was clearly the more\npopular of the two wrestlers. However, when the bell rang, it was split down\nthe middle. At first, the pro-KAI crowd was very vocal, but then Miyahara\u2019s\nfans brought it up and it made for a great atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Miyahara did what he does best in big matches: sell. He is\nat his best when he works from the bottom before making a big comeback and\nwinning, and this match was no different. It was seriously every big Miyahara\nchampionship match ever, except KAI worked over his knee for the whole match,\nwhich was a nice change of pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If there was one critique I had for this match, it was that\nMiyahara\u2019s bad knee did not factor in to the finish. His finishing move is a\nstraight-jacket German suplex with a bridge. This means he Germans his opponent\nand shoots his hips into the air for extra leverage for the pin. It would have\nbeen nice to maybe have his knee give out when going for the bridge, just to\ntie the whole story of the match together. It is a small complaint, but it felt\nlike a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Otherwise, this was another excellent match. KAI is not the\nstrongest challenger in the world, so they did a great job teasing the idea\nthat he could potentially win and become the top champion of the promotion.\nMiyahara is still one of the best wrestlers in the world. AJPW got the year off\non the right foot with these two shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What did you think of the show? Leave a comment below and\nkeep following Pro Wrestling Journal for more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AJPW hosted their second show in as many days in Korakuen Hall as part of their New Year Wars tour. This show was significantly better than the first show on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":10867,"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":[717,2,22],"tags":[42,718,742,719,721],"class_list":["post-10865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ajpw","category-featured","category-reviews","tag-ajpw","tag-all-japan","tag-kai","tag-kento-miyahara","tag-korakuen-hall"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2Pf","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/KMKAI.jpg?fit=1080%2C608&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10865","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10868,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10865\/revisions\/10868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}