{"id":9136,"date":"2018-05-16T20:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=9136"},"modified":"2018-05-16T20:54:08","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T20:54:08","slug":"lions-gate-project-12-review-15-5-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/16\/lions-gate-project-12-review-15-5-18\/","title":{"rendered":"NJPW Lion’s Gate Project 12 Review, 15\/05\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"

By@ToykoWrestlingFan<\/a><\/p>\n

Yota Tsuji <\/strong>vs. Yuya Uemura<\/strong> \u2013 A fun opening match from the two newest Young Lions.\u00a0 Nothing really flashy in this match, but both of the Young Lions already display a solid grasp of the fundamentals.\u00a0 Uemura probably looked the more impressive of the two \u2013 he does have an amateur wrestling background \u2013 and he showed off some good submission holds.\u00a0 The match finished in a time-limit draw as Tsuji had Uemura in the Boston Crab in the centre of the ring.\u00a0 After the match finished the two kept brawling in the ring until they were finally separated.<\/p>\n

Winner:<\/strong> 10 Minute Time-Limit Draw<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tomoyuki Oka <\/strong>vs. Manabu Nakanishi<\/strong> \u2013 Oka really looks like Nakanishi\u2019s mini-me.\u00a0 He was very over with the crowd tonight, especially when he was being beaten down by his veteran opponent.\u00a0 The match started slowly, with some brawling on the outside, but after the first five minutes it picked up and Oka had some good come-back sequences.\u00a0 He showed off his power by hitting Nakanishi with a belly-to-belly suplex that the crowd loved.\u00a0 Ultimately Nakanishi proved too strong and forced Oka to tap out to the torture rack.<\/p>\n

Winner: Manabu Nakanishi, 9:04<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ren Narita and Ryusuke Taguchi <\/strong>vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Hiro Saito<\/strong> \u2013 Tenzan and Saito have a long history together, as they were both part of nWo Japan and Masahiro Chono\u2019s T2000 stable in the early 2000s.\u00a0 This was another match that started off slowly, but improved down the stretch.\u00a0 Tenzan and Saito aren\u2019t the most mobile wrestlers anymore, but Taguchi and Narita made up for that as best they could.\u00a0 Narita got some near falls with roll-ups that popped the crowd, and Saito got a bit pop when he hit a senton on Narita (he was the first Japanese wrestler to popularise the senton).\u00a0 Tenzan got the win for his team when he locked the Anaconda Vice on Narita.<\/p>\n

Winners: Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Hiro Saito, 12:13<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shota Umino <\/strong>vs. Daisuke Sekimoto<\/strong> \u2013 Sekimoto is a member of Big Japan Pro Wrestling, but he has competed in many other promotions, including All Japan Pro Wrestling, where he won the Champion Carnival in 2016.\u00a0 He is currently one half of the DDT KO-D tag team champions.\u00a0 His ring gear was simple black trunks, boots, and kneepads, so he almost looked like an extremely jacked Young Lion.\u00a0 Sekimoto played up his size and power advantage as a heel, even flipping the crowd off at one point when they started cheering for Umino.\u00a0 Umino played the role of babyface underdog well, and even got to show off some his power by german suplexing Sekimoto into a bridge for a two count.\u00a0 Sekimoto\u2019s power advantage was too much for Umino to handle, and a vicious lariat almost decapitated the Young Lion before Sekimoto pinned him for the win.\u00a0 This was the best match of the show so far, which isn\u2019t surprising since Umino is the best of the current crop of Young Lions and Sekimoto is an excellent wrestler.\u00a0 Hopefully we see more of him in New Japan going forward.<\/p>\n

Winner: Daisuke Sekimoto, 14:38<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nagata Yuji <\/strong>vs. Ayato Yoshida<\/strong> \u2013 Yoshida is from TAKA Michinoku\u2019s Kaientai Dojo promotion, and the last time he appeared on a Lion\u2019s Gate show he teamed up with Go Asakawa to defeat Yuji Nagata and Shota Umino.\u00a0 This was another good match, with the focus on Yoshida throwing everything he had to take down the veteran Nagata.\u00a0 There was a lot of stiff striking, including some vicious PKs from Yoshida to Nagata.\u00a0 Nagata was able to weather all of the punishment that the younger wrestler could throw at him, and although Yoshida escaped from the armbar, Nagata eventually hit him with the backdrop hold into a pin for the victory.\u00a0 This match didn’t quite live up to the previous one, but Nagata can still wrestle at a high level and Yoshida is a promising young talent.\u00a0 After the match Nagata cut a promo thanking the fans for coming, and that the future belongs to Lion\u2019s Gate, but the now still belongs to him.<\/p>\n

Winner: Nagata Yuji, 12:47<\/strong><\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a fun, short show that allowed the Young Lions to show off their promise.\u00a0 There was nothing story-line related here, but if you\u2019re a fan of watching the progress of the Young Lions it\u2019s an easy show to watch.\u00a0 Otherwise, only the Umino vs. Sekimoto match really stood out.\u00a0 Hopefully Sekimoto works some more shows in New Japan \u2013 if Katsuya Kitamura ever comes back a match between the two could be excellent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By@ToykoWrestlingFan Yota Tsuji vs. Yuya Uemura \u2013 A fun opening match from the two newest Young Lions.\u00a0 Nothing really flashy in this match, but both of the Young Lions already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":9138,"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":[204,37,22],"tags":[366,44],"class_list":["post-9136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-njpw","category-njpw-reviews","category-reviews","tag-lions-gate-project-12","tag-njpw"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2nm","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/serveimage.jpeg?fit=795%2C448&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9136","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=9136"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9143,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9136\/revisions\/9143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}