{"id":9184,"date":"2018-05-21T17:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T17:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=9184"},"modified":"2018-05-21T13:32:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T13:32:52","slug":"njpw-best-of-the-super-juniors-night-two-review-19-05-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/21\/njpw-best-of-the-super-juniors-night-two-review-19-05-18\/","title":{"rendered":"NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Night Two Review, 19\/05\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Night two of Best of the Super Juniors took place at Korakuen Hall on May 19th<\/sup>, and I was lucky enough to attend in person.\u00a0 Korakuen was pretty much sold out, and the crowd on the night was hot from the opening Young Lion match all the way to the tournament matches.\u00a0 I\u2019ve included some photos that I took at the event in this review.<\/p>\n

Shota Umino <\/strong>vs. Yota Tsuji \u2013 <\/strong>A fun Young Lion opening match between Tsuji, who is one of the two new trainees, and Umino, who is currently the most impressive trainee in the New Japan system.\u00a0 As the elder Young Lion, Umino got to control this match, but Tusji showed off his raw power at times, powering out of one Boston Crab to get to the ropes.\u00a0 Umino picked up a submission victory when he locked the Boston Crab in the middle of the ring and stopped Tsuji from getting to the ropes.<\/p>\n

Winner: Shota Umino, 7:26<\/strong><\/p>\n

ACH, Tiger Mask, and Tomoyuki Oka<\/strong> vs. Will Ospreay, YOH, and YOSHI-HASHI<\/strong> \u2013 This match set up the ACH-Will Ospreay match, and the Tiger Mask-YOH match for night three.\u00a0 ACH and Ospreay particularly impressed in this match, going toe-to-toe with their high flying moves, including a very nice hand-spring back elbow attempt from Ospreay that was countered into a German suplex.\u00a0 All six participants looked good though, and Oka was very over with the crowd.\u00a0 Finally the match broke down into a brawl on the outside between the BOSJ competitors, and YOSHI-HASHI forced Oka to tap out to the Butterfly Lock.<\/p>\n

Winners: Will Ospreay, YOH, and YOSHI-HASHI, 11:06<\/strong><\/p>\n

Flip Gordon and Toa Henare <\/strong>vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Minoru Suzuki \u2013 <\/strong>Flip Gordon vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru is set for night three, so Henare was back to suffer some punishment at the hands of Suzuki.\u00a0 These tag team matches are supposed to give the tournament participants a bit of a break in between their singles matches, but facing Suzuki-gun is like getting the short straw because you know that Suzuki won\u2019t pull any punches (or knife-edge chops) and you\u2019re going to get beaten up in the crowd.\u00a0 Flip continued to impress the Korakuen crowd with his ability, although he didn\u2019t go for anything as crazy as his leap from the crowd onto ACH on night one.\u00a0 Suzuki pinned Henare after a sleeper hold that transitioned to the Gotch-style piledriver.\u00a0 After the match Henare tweeted that he misses Ishii on this tour, so that tells you how tough Suzuki matches can be.<\/p>\n

Winners: Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Minoru Suzuki, 11:16<\/strong><\/p>\n

BUSHI and SANADA <\/strong>vs. Taiji Ishimori and Chase Owens \u2013 <\/strong>BUSHI and Ishimori will face each other on night three, and tonight SANADA was chosen instead of EVIL to partner his fellow Los Ingobernables de Japon member.\u00a0 The highlight of this match was Chase Owens trying to tie SANADA up in the Paradise Lock, and taking direction from Milano Collection AT who was on commentary at ringside.\u00a0 Chase gave up after a few tries, then SANADA put him in the Paradise Lock to a big pop from the crowd.\u00a0 SANADA caught Chase with the Skull End and forced him to tap out for an LIJ victory.<\/p>\n

Winners: BUSHI and SANADA, 9:45<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dragon Lee <\/strong>vs. SHO \u2013 <\/strong>Dragon Lee made his second consecutive appearance in BOSJ this year, while this was SHO\u2019s debut.\u00a0 SHO\u2019s new ring gear was infinitely better than YOH\u2019s, and honestly his performance was much more assured than his tag team partner\u2019s on night one. \u00a0I was surprised by how even the match was, given that SHO is a relatively junior wrestler (no pun intended) but he was completely at home in the ring with Dragon Lee and gave him a real fight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This match was one of the best of the tournament so far, and the crowd was absolutely hooked on every near fall and big move that the two wrestlers pulled off.\u00a0 Dragon Lee has a solid fanbase amongst the Japanese fans, who turned up with a lot of Mexican flags, and SHO is very popular, particularly amongst female fans.\u00a0 There were some great striking exchanges between the two, and both wrestlers displayed the fighting spirit that New Japan audiences love.\u00a0 For a junior heavyweight Dragon Lee is absolutely jacked, and both he and SHO pulled off some impressive feats of strength.\u00a0 SHO worked over Lee\u2019s arm and tried to make him tap out to the armbar, but Dragon Lee managed to get to the ropes every time, and even countered with his own armbar later in the match.\u00a0 Dragon Lee got a near fall with a double foot stomp in the corner, and then picked up the victory with the Desnucadora, a vertical suplex into a powerbomb.<\/p>\n

Winner: Dragon Lee, 17:31<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ryusuke Taguchi <\/strong>vs. El Desperado \u2013 <\/strong>Taguchi has a good record in previous BOSJ tournaments, and even won in 2012.\u00a0 El Desperado made his debut in 2014, and finished last year at the bottom of B Block, so he will be hoping to improve on his standings this year.\u00a0 The Korakuen crowd was heavily invested in Taguchi, although there were pockets of Suzuki-gun fans cheering for Desperado.\u00a0 There was a lot of comedy in this match, including Desperado attacking Taguchi with chairs, a spanner, and the uncovered ring post.\u00a0 The cheating didn\u2019t bother me as much in this match, since it fitted with Taguchi\u2019s style of comedy wrestling and it didn\u2019t detract from the quality too much.\u00a0 Desperado picked up the win when Taguchi attempted his chicken wing facebuster and Desperado grabbed the referee to stop him, then hit Taguchi with a low blow and a quick roll up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Winner: El Desperado, 13:17<\/strong><\/p>\n

KUSHIDA <\/strong>vs. Chris Sabin \u2013 <\/strong>KUSHIDA won BOSJ last year, and had an excellent match with Will Ospreay at Wrestling Dontaku for the Jr. Heavyweight Championship.\u00a0 I don\u2019t expect him to reach such lofty heights again this year, but he always puts on good matches.\u00a0 Chris Sabin appeared in New Japan previously as part of the Motor City Machine Guns with Alex Shelley, but this is his first time in BOSJ.\u00a0 Ironically, KUSHIDA and Shelley also teamed together as the Time Splitters, so this was a match with some added weight behind it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This was the weakest match of the night, in part because the crowd didn\u2019t seem to know Chris Sabin very well, so there wasn\u2019t too much of a reaction for him.\u00a0 The pacing of the match was rather slow as well \u2013 Sabin has more of a power-based style than a lot of the other juniors, but it didn\u2019t seem like he had amazing chemistry with KUSHIDA.\u00a0 Sabin scored a surprise victory over KUSHIDA after hitting him with the All Hail Sabin, and after the match KUSHIDA sportingly raised his hand.<\/p>\n

Winner: Chris Sabin, 13:47<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hiromu Takahashi <\/strong>vs. Marty Scurll \u2013 <\/strong>Hiromu and Marty made their debuts last year \u2013 Hiromu as champion \u2013 and they both finished just behind A Block winner Will Ospreay on eight points.\u00a0 Hiromu is massively over with the New Japan audience, but Scurll had his own core of supporters who made a good amount of noise.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Marty had a great promo at the pre-tournament press conference about raising the level of the junior division, and both competitors threw everything they had at each other in this match.\u00a0 Marty focused on technical attacks on Hiromu, employing joint manipulation and plenty of submissions.\u00a0 He caught Hiromu in the chickenwing towards the end of the match, but Hiromu managed to escape.\u00a0 Marty is able to switch between comedy and serious wrestling with ease, at one point he tried to bring his umbrella into the ring to attack Hiromu and got into an argument with Red Shoes on the apron, which allowed Hiromu to hit his sunset flip powerbomb off the apron.\u00a0 There was one moment that looked worrying, when Hiromu hit a diving senton off the apron onto Marty, who it looked like was meant to catch him but instead dropped him into a semi-powerbomb counter.\u00a0 The crowd went quiet for a moment, and the referee looked concerned, but a minute later the wrestlers were back to exchanging strikes on the ring apron.\u00a0 In the closing straight the crowd were hot and popped for every submission attempt and near fall.\u00a0 Scurll countered a Time Bomb attempt into a roll-up, but then Hiromu hit a Frankensteiner and rolled through into a triangle choke, which finally forced a referee stoppage.\u00a0 After the match Hiromu cut a babyface promo promising to make this year\u2019s BOSJ better than the G1.<\/p>\n

Winner: Hiromu Takahashi, 20:47<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Day 2 Standings<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>El Desperado \u2013 2 points<\/p>\n

Dragon Lee \u2013 2 points<\/p>\n

Chris Sabin \u2013 2 points<\/p>\n

Hiromu Takahashi \u2013 2 points<\/p>\n

KUSHIDA \u2013 0 points<\/p>\n

Marty Scurll \u2013 0 points<\/p>\n

SHO \u2013 0 points<\/p>\n

Ryusuke Taguchi \u2013 0 points<\/p>\n

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

Night two was another great show, and again there were two excellent matches.\u00a0 Dragon Lee vs. SHO and Hiromu vs. Marty should definitely be watched, and the other two matches weren\u2019t bad either.\u00a0 I hope that Chris Sabin will find his footing as the tournament goes on because there were some good parts of his match, even though it was the weakest of the night.\u00a0 Overall, I think night two improved on night one, which bodes well for the tournament as a whole.\u00a0 SHO put in a standout performance, alongside Dragon Lee, Hiromu, and Marty who we already knew were very talented.\u00a0 Korakuen was loud and the crowd really enjoyed everything on offer.\u00a0 Looking ahead to night three, ACH vs. Will Ospreay promises to be very good and I\u2019m interested to see how Flip Gordon deals with Kanemaru\u2019s cheating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By@ToykoWrestlingFan Night two of Best of the Super Juniors took place at Korakuen Hall on May 19th, and I was lucky enough to attend in person.\u00a0 Korakuen was pretty much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":9178,"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":[373,44,374],"class_list":["post-9184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-njpw","category-njpw-reviews","category-reviews","tag-best-of-the-super-juniors","tag-njpw","tag-njpw-bosj"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2o8","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/serveimage-1.jpeg?fit=650%2C400&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184","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=9184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9195,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184\/revisions\/9195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}