As Wrestlemania weekend took hold of sunny California,
across the Pacific an NJPW event took place and was broadcast via the New Japan
World streaming service. Not a mind blowing happening, but The Road to Invasion
Attacks was a nice hint of the action that lay in wait 1 week later along with
some nice development for its newer talent.
Despite the show being in low broadcast production mode (no commentators,
limited camera angles) a lot of the action spoke fine for itself and didn’t
suffer as a result.
Here’s a rundown of the show.
Tiger Mask and Sho
Tanaka VS The Young Bucks
This was another match pairing one of the young talents
Tanaka with a veteran, Tiger Mask. The Young Bucks put Tanaka through his
paces, hitting plenty of high spots. One involved a backbreaker on Tanaka, held
in place while the other Buck slingshotted himself over the ropes to hit a leg
drop. The Young Bucks ended the match by landing a tombstone piledriver
assisted by an extra push after a leap off the top turnbuckle for the pin.
Mascara Dorada and
Captain New Japan VS Cody Hall and Kenny “The Cleaner” Omega
This was a nice match featuring the two newest members of
the Bullet Club, and a chance for Hall to get more experience of his own as
opposed to being lost in the shuffle among a group of 3 or 4 Bullet Club
members. It also featured the combatants who will compete in a singles match
for the IGWP Jr. Heavyweight championship at Invasion Attack. Hall had an
impressive outing, putting on an offensive that revolved around his size with
lots of boots to his opponents. Captain New Japan seemed positioned to take the
fall, but experience maintained its role as the determining factor and the
babyfaces won when The Captain hit a sudden roll up on Hall from a downed
position for the pin. He seemed more surprised than anyone else to get the
victory.
Satoshi Kojima,
Tenzan, and Ryohei Komatsu VS Yuji Nagata, Manabu Nakanishi, and Ryusuke
Taguchi
This multiman tag team match did not hold much perspective
on the Invasion Attack card, but it did feature one of the other up and comers,
Ryohei Komatsu in action. It also featured two tag teams with a classic feud
going back to the early 2000’s in Kojima and Tenzan on one side, and Nagata and
Nakanishi on the other. During the match, Nagata and Nakanishi brought back
some nostalgic battle cries from their prime as a team. Kojima and Tenzan
showed no signs of dissension following the verbal and physical hostility that
arose between them during the New Japan Cup shows. At one point, Ryohei got Taguchi
into a crab submission and when Nakanishi appeared on the ring apron to break
things up, the rookie hit a running boot to knock the veteran down. Taguchi hit
plenty of rear-end based offense, eventually landing a finishing maneuver in
which he lifts Komatsu from behind with both arms hooked, and then plants him
facedown with a sit out slam to pick up the pin fall victory.
INTERMISSION……
As intermission set in, a series of promotional videos ran
on a wide screen suspended above the ring entrance, which a camera honed in on
and remained settled for the duration of the break. Among the content was a
commercial for the New Japan World service…still 999 yen per month; interesting
to see how this indispensable product is advertised in its native environment.
The videos began with a pre-taped clip of Bullet Club’s Anderson and Luke ‘Doc’
Gallows welcoming the challenge of The Kingdom, with the two teams facing off a
week later at Invasion Attack. Anderson made some lewd references to Kingdom
valet, and Mike Bennet’s wife, Maria, as Gallows made sufficiently creepy
tongue gestures. The Kingdom, being the team of Bennet, Matt Taven, and Maria
Kanelis, fired back with their own prerecorded promo, talking about the
victories they have achieved in Ring of Honor over the Young Bucks and, at the
ROH 13th Anniversary Show, one half of the Bullet Club in a 3 way
tag team match that included the Addiction (Anderson represented the Bullet
Club on his own, as Gallows had flight troubles keeping him from the show. A
Roppongi Vice video also played, with the duo speaking of their penchant for
embracing the city’s night life. In fact, the details of these videos were hard
to discern due to a rather lacking sound quality, but for the benefit of those
in the arena, and as a plus for those practicing Japanese at home, the
Caucasian promos were subtitled. There was also a commercial for a mobile phone
NJPW game, trading card game sets (Goto was in a shop buying them from store
clerk Taguchi), a NJPW theme song CD (I wonder if the fact that these could be
played when the audio for ring entrances is yanked off World for copyright
reasons was a selling point?), an animated commercial for NJPW themed
collectible mame-shiba (which translates as something like mini bean puppies)
figures featuring Tanahashi and Nakamura, an ad for NJPW themed stamps for the
LINE social networking APP featuring Toru Yano…And in case you missed any of
that, they cycled through the entire rundown at least once more.
Hiroki Goto and Kazuyori Shibata and Tomoaki Honma vs Karl Anderson and
Luke ‘Doc’ Gallows and Toma Tonga
The announcement of this matchup held some promise of
tension between Shibata and Honma, which was the story of their previous match
on the last New Japan Cup show against Hall and Tonga. They remained on the
same page throughout the match, though; perhaps Goto had sat them down and laid
down some ground rules before the match. Tonga seemed like the ideal candidate
for taking the loss, and he held true the role, although Honma could’ve also
conceivably pinned to help make Anderson and Gallows look strong for their
title defense against Ring Of Honor team The Kingdom at Invasion Attack.
The NJPW representatives got the advantage on Tonga. Honma
went for his kokeshi headbutt off the top turnbuckle and missed, but Shibata
followed up with the running penalty kick to a seated Tonga to pick up a
pinfall victory for his team. During the match Honma had turned things around
at one point with a crowd pleasing diving headbutt into Gallows, who was running
off the ropes. There was also good chemistry between Honma and Anderson and it
occurred that could be a very fun match; maybe during the next G1 Climax
tournament. After the match tempers did flare between Shibata and Honma
resulting in some shoving. Potential lies for the two of them to have a dynamic
match as well.
Tomohiro Ishii,
Shinsuke Nakamura, Toru Yano, and Ropongi Vice (Rocky Romero and Trent Barreta)
Vs Togi Makabe, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Naito, and Time Splitters (KUSHIDA and Alex
Shelley)
A couple of stories were unfolding amidst this rather packed
multiman tag team match. The most tension would arise in the conflict between
Ishii and Makabe, still feuding over the Never Openweight Title. Yano has
gotten the better of Tanahashi, pinning him twice in a row in singles and tag
team matches. And the match was an introduction to the newly formed tagteam of
Romero formerly in Forever Hooligans) and Barreta, going under the name Ropongi
Vice plus an official acknowledgment that the pair are wrestling as a part of
the CHAOS faction. This was a very busy match, in which not a lot stood out.
The lack of camera angles prevented lot of the action around the ring and
outside of it from getting seen clearly. Ropongi Vice came to the ring to a
funky hip hop tinged theme song that Romero apparently produced himself,
previewing it earlier on the Talkin’ Shop podcast he hosts with Karl Anderson
and ‘Doc’ Gallows. Yano pulled off a series of the irritating offensive on
Tanahashi that has characterized their recent matches, namely grabbing
Hiroshi’s hair from behind and yanking him to the mat when he attempted to run
the ropes. Four of the members of CHAOS hit a powerful sequence of moves into
Togi Makabe as the former Neverweight champion was in the corner, after which
current champ Ishii hit him with a big powerbomb.
There was a lot of action between Time Splitters and
Roppongi Vice featuring double teaming techniques. Things ended when Barreta held
KUSHIDA in a suspended backdrop position, allowing Romero to hit a drop kick to
KUSHIDA’s side, followed by Baretta dropping down and driving KUSHIDA’s head
into the mat with legs hooked
for the pinfall
victory. Afterwards, Makabe and Ishii exploded into a physical confrontation
that had to be broken up. Their feud will apparently continue into the
foreseeable future, with both of them on either side of a six man tag team
match on Invasion Attack.
Gedo, YOSHI HASHI,
and Kazuchika Okada VS Yujiro Takahashi, ‘Bad Luck’ Fale, and AJ Styles
Here was a match-up between the two main factions of NJPW:
CHAOS and the Bullet Club. It served as a precursor to Okada’s rematch against
Fale, after losing to ‘Underboss’ in the opening round of the New Japan Cup ;
that followed numerous interactions in tag team combinations, with Okada never
managing to pin his towering adversary. It also gave a look at IWGP Heavyweight
champion AJ Styles before he defends his title at Invasion Attack against Kota
Ibushi. With Gedo having a far leser in-ring role than his partners, spending
more time performing as a spokesman for Okada (and in the behind the scenes,
determining the direction of the company) he was a shoe-in for the man to take
the fall in this bout. Sure enough, Gedo took the Styles Clash from AJ for the
Bullet Club to pick up the win and AJ to look strong heading toward his
upcoming battle with Ibushi. Afterwards, AJ took the mic and asserted his, as
well as Fale’s dominance at Invasion Attack. Often keeping a low profile as
Anderson does the talking, this promo proved AJ to be quite assured and
confident on the mic.
After Thoughts
Overall this was an entertaining show that moved at a
brisker pace than many of the earlier ‘road to’ shows I’ve seen. The number of
matches did not seem overwhelming, and there were not too any instances of
matches being so overstuffed with wrestlers on either side that keeping track
of who’s who becomes a nuisance. It was nice to have only one match with more
than 3 wrestlers per team, and all of the matches contained one or more
stories, thus a reason for happening.
A more clearly defined landscape has been emerging, in which
you have NJPW talent and the two factions of the Bullet Club and CHAOS. Bullet
Club is still the out and out heel group with CHAOS embracing some ‘in between’
tendencies. Yano, Nakamura, and the added CHAOS all have some heelish-ness to
their tactics, to varying degrees, although the members of the group are too
beloved to be booed. There is an interesting triangular dynamic of all 3 of
these groups being embroiled with 1 another: Okada (CHAOS) going at it with
Fale (Bullet Club), Tanahashi (NJPW) and Yano (CHAOS), and the teams of
Goto/Shibata (NJPW) and Anderson/Gallows (Bullet Club).
It is interesting to see the ‘special attraction’ effect
with wrestlers like Ibushi and Sakuraba not appearing regularly. In the case of
Ibushi, though, if his other gig is the extreme wrestling based DDT promotion,
I would much rather see him focusing his energy on NJPW so he could attain the
greatest heights possible and reduce risk of injury.
I wonder about Nakamura and the apparent lack of a
one-on-one program going into Invasion Attack. At once Ibushi seemed as though
he would challenge for a rematch until he chose to use his New Japan Cup win to
challenge Styles. With Okada taking on a diminished status coming out of
Wrestle Kingdom, I wondered if Nakamura may be suited to lead a charge against
the Bullet Club in a contest between the two factions to wipe the other out.
Perhaps Naito will step up as the next challenger to Nakamura’s
Intercontinental title. Both of them were on opposing sides of a match tonight
and will face each other in the six man tag team match at Invasion Attacks.
Naito seems to need a bit of something to make him feel like a truly major
player, but he definitely has the potential, with a little tweeking, to
challenge for a major title again.
Stay tuned for a preview of the Invasion Attack show April 5
and a report following the event.
Twitter: @MondocurryMARK
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