{"id":14063,"date":"2020-06-18T13:09:17","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T12:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=14063"},"modified":"2020-06-18T14:34:54","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T13:34:54","slug":"new-japan-cup-day-1-2-results-and-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/18\/new-japan-cup-day-1-2-results-and-review\/","title":{"rendered":"New Japan Cup Day 1 & 2 – Results and Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Written by: Super Mastodon (@SuperMastodon<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 110 days, New Japan Pro Wrestling is finally back! The promotion officially returned on June 15, 2020 with their Together Special Project show. The card was filled with multi-men tags, most of which are previews for this year’s New Japan Cup which they decided to resume only with different competitors to fill in for the replaced ones (mainly gaijins) due to travel issues on recent events. As we can remember, before everything went on lockdown in Japan, the tournament was supposed to take place three months ago but was postponed. Now it’s back, only without crowds right now, but I’m just glad overall NJPW and their wrestlers are performing again! Days 1 and 2 of the First Round are now on the history books so let’s see how they did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Day 1 – Round 1<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Date: June 16, 2020<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Togi Makabe def. Yota Tsuji<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Match Time: 8:41<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly I thought this match was actually pretty decent. A battle of the hosses, more strike-based action which is good. My critique on Tsuji last year during his Young Lions Cup performance was that he didn’t have too much emphasis on strikes, especially his chops which looked weak in comparison to others like Shota Umino or Karl Fredericks. Props to him though because he has improve immensely on that department and his whole moveset in general looks extra crisp than last year. The original match up for this was between Jeff Cobb and Makabe, but while I think that’s an interesting bout on paper, I thought this was an improvement because at this point of Makabe’s career he needs someone like a Tsuji who serves as a “punching bag” if you will for his offense. The former World Champion actually put on a good showing here to his credit, there were some close calls but he got the win in the end with a German Suplex pin. Not a bad way to start the tournament if I do say so myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toru Yano def. Jado<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Match Time: 9:07<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This match…. Oh goodness. I tweeted out as a joke that with all due respect to Edge and Randy Orton, we’re going to witness the true greatest wrestling match of all time between Yano and Jado. I would like to take my time to apologize now to those two because this match was bad. Like really bad. I thought going into this we’re just gonna have a short at maximum three minute match filled with shenanigans. But no, those nine minutes felt like 15. Jado could barely walk at this point due to history of injuries, let alone execute a proper wrestling move. The man was clearly not enjoying his time there, Yujiro Takahashi was the one doing the bumping with his interferences, Gedo was there too. What a mess this was. Yano’s style could not carry Jado into a good match, but even I think someone like Okada or Ibushi could even get a passable match out of Jado at this point, his joints are not built for in-ring action anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I know Jado could go in his prime, after all the text on the back of his shirt says “30 Years in the Biz” but that’s exactly the reason why he can’t go anymore, three decades worth of bumps have taken a toll on his body, this felt like a chore to watch. Not even the supposedly “funny bits” saved it, this has negative stars written all over it. The match mercifully ended with a low blow from Yano leading to a classic sneaky pin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiromu Takahashi def. Tomoaki Honma<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Match Time: 18:45<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Honestly I thought we’re going to get a back-to-back mediocre matches but this one blew off all of my bad expectations and it actually turned out pretty good with all circumstances involved. For those who don’t know, two years ago Tomoaki Honma suffered what pretty much was a career-ending neck injury and has been on the shelf for an entire year, it’s a miracle that he’s even walking at this point. Ironically his opponent for this match also suffered a neck injury. He’s been back in the ring since last year but it is visible that the injury took a lot from his style because his movement has become very limited, however to his credit and Hiromu as well, this was without a doubt the best match of Honma ever since returning from the injury. It’s night and day in comparison to his last year NJ Cup match against Chase Owens. The beginning was a bit slow paced as expected, kind of boring if I do say so myself. But as they continued, they picked up on a much faster pace (at least by Honma’s standards) and he played the underdog so well against Hiromu. What I like the story they’re conveying is that despite Hiromu being the much younger and athletic of the two, Honma is still a veteran of the sport and has years of experience in his catalogue so he wasn’t an easy defeat for the reigning IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion. There was one spot in the ring apron where I really cringed so hard that they even did it, Hiromu hitting what looked like a variation of a suplex onto Honma and I knew he was dropped safe but knowing what’s happened before, it really added to the tension. There was even a point in the match where Honma teased a Kokeshi from the top rope onto the outside, don’t get too crazy now. This turned out to be more competitive than I ever thought, while Hiromu deserves credit for bringing out the best in Honma, the latter needs to have his own praises to for putting in a lot of effort despite his limitations in the ring. Hiromu hits the Time Bomb to get the win and advances to the next round (he’s actually my pick to win the whole thing, so let’s go!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomohiro Ishii def. El Desperado<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Match Time: 20:17<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of competitive matches, boy was this ever. When the brackets were revealed, this was one of the matches that intrigued me the most because this is a first time singles encounter between the two and I was interested to see how their styles would mesh with one another. Turned out pretty damn good, Desperado primarily worked on Ishii’s leg throughout the whole match, while there were some strike exchanges, this one was more mat-based style which is a nice different set of pace for Ishii, it’s nice to see the technical side of the Stone Pitbull. There was a spot in the beginning where Desperado teased Ishii’s height, how small he is and all that, in my head I heard the famous words “it was at this moment he knew, he fucked up.” I like the story they told where Ishii obviously has the advantage when it comes to strength, but Desperado being a Suzuki-Gun member, is the more clever wrestler of the two with his submissions and other ways of getting in on the heads of his opponents. There were a lot of moments throughout where Desperado could’ve gotten the win, I thought those were some nice false finishes spots and it’s kind of a lost art nowadays because in recent times, false finishes have become more obvious and easy to detect, but in this match that wasn’t exactly the case. Overall I thought it was a great way to end the night, Ishii got the win and managed to pull through with the brainbuster. Both men played off their strengths really well and upon second viewing, I enjoyed it more than I did the first time I watched it. Lived up to all expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Day 2 – Round 1<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Date: June 17, 2020<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Taiji Ishimori def. Gabriel Kidd<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Match Time: 8:53<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This match is the definition of a solid opening act. I knew from the beginning, going back to his NOAH days that Taiji Ishimori is one of the best wrestlers today and he was able to show it here against Gabriel Kidd. Despite being a short match, they really pulled it off well, I thought this is Kidd’s best match in his young New Japan career thus far. I’ve seen a few of his matches in his WCPW days and there really is potential for him to become a future IWGP Intercontinental Champion one day, maybe even Heavyweight? We’ll see how his career progress. Ishimori was an easy pick for me to win, got over with a submission. Kidd is now my second favorite of the LA Dojo trainees behind Karl Fredericks. This will probably get overshadowed by the rest of the tournament matches, but it deserves to not be left unnoticed because it was a good performance from both guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshinobu Kanemaru def. Yuya Uemura<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Match Time: 9:32<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the past like three or four years, Yoshinobu Kanemaru has slowed down immensely in his performances, he’s more of a tag-team act and a shell of his former self in singles matches when you compare his work in NOAH. However to his credit, we actually saw glimpses of the old Kanemaru in this match, it was evident he paced up more faster this time and I think facing of a young wrestler in Yuya Uemura who is full of energy all the time is one of the key factors for that as well. The story going in to this match is that Uemura has been feuding with Suzuki-Gun members for the past few months, finally a young lion standing up to the sadistic treatment they’ve been receiving from Minoru Suzuki. But of course he’s been on the losing end for all of them, he had a chance to pull off a massive upset here, a win over a veteran like Kanemaru would do wonders for his career. Before the bell could even sound, Uemura immediately attacks Kanemaru as he entered the ring. Pretty good back-and-forth action, Uemura mainly on the offensive side with his strikes, while Kanemaru playing the role of the sneaky tactician. There were some close calls for the dojo student but in the end, the top rope DDT got the win for everyone’s favorite drunk uncle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yuji Nagata def. Minoru Suzuki<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Match Time: 20:35<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Two 52 year old men slapping and elbowing the hell out of each other. That is a formula in having one of the best matches of the year! This match really reminded me of why I became a Puroresu fan in the first place, I remember watching some years back for the first time, NOAH Destiny 2005 in the Tokyo Dome, the dream match between Kenta Kobashi and Kensuke Sasaki, the famous chop fest where the two just exchanged chops for what felt like an eternity, and it’s actually one of the most compelling spots I’ve seen in a wrestling bout, the intensity each time they delivered  with each chop especially as their stamina became lower, you can feel the emotions and fighting spirit blazing through for both of those legends. We advance almost a decade later with this match between another set of legends and I think Japanese wrestling veterans work better than their American wrestling counterparts. Usually hitting the “best hits” as they call it is what mostly old wrestlers do as they get up in age, but you can see Nagata and Suzuki still be able to work out a competitive and great psychology of a match with mainly just striking one another. It also works because these two are familiar with one another, a long history with their rivalry going back into the 2000’s. Nice headbutt spots from Suzuki to, paying homage to his mentor Yoshiaki Fujiwara, then there was that Shibata-esque headbutt that really got the commentators shouting. Match result was surprising too, didn’t expect to Nagata score some major wins at this point of his career but forgive me for doubting the Blue Justice, we all know h can still go and he got the win here over his rival with back-to-back exploder suplex. While I thought this match was great, I could imagine the reactions from the crowd would’ve made it even better than it already is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kazuchika Okada def. Gedo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Match Time: 15:30<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gedo booking himself into the main event of the show? This man has turned into the modern day Vince Russo! Okay in all seriousness though, I thought this match was fine. Definitely way better than the Jado match for sure. Gedo played possum for the most part, even entering the ring with an arm cast, shades of “Cowboy” Bob Orton. Turned out he had spray behind it and got busted by the referee. That was pretty much the entire story of this match, Gedo attempting to cheat his way to victory with different methods throughout, but he still failed. Although if I have to be honest, I though he actually had Okada with the sneaky Gedo Clutch pin at one point, great near fall spot. In the end though, Okada got the victory over his former manager, not with the Rainmaker, but with a submission hold making him tap to get the win. I saw one comment on Reddit was that the commentators mentioned Gedo would see the Rainmaker coming so he opted for an alternative way in getting the win, so nice little detail there adding to the story. I found their match two years ago in the build up for WK 13 to be more entertaining, but the crowd probably factored in on that one. With these type of matches where you can’t just go full in-ring action and in need of some heel shenanigans, crowd reaction does help in the overall presentation but what we got here between these two and knowing their history, it was still a nice little match. Okada advances to the next round against Yuji Nagata, battle of the two former IWGP Champions, really stoked for that one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All images used credit to njpw1972.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by: Super Mastodon (@SuperMastodon) After 110 days, New Japan Pro Wrestling is finally back! The promotion officially returned on June 15, 2020 with their Together Special Project show. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":14064,"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":[2,204,37,22],"tags":[215,44],"class_list":["post-14063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-njpw","category-njpw-reviews","category-reviews","tag-new-japan-cup","tag-njpw"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-3EP","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/nj-cup-wrestlers.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14063","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\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14065,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14063\/revisions\/14065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}