NJPW The Story So Far This Year part 3 Drink From the Cup

The New Japan Cup is an annual staple of the company's program, which features a single elimination tournament of non title holders, the winner of which gets an opportunity to challenge for any of the company's titles at the next major event. This year that will be Invasion Attack.

New Japan Road was an event added to NJPW World shot in the unspectacular manner of limited camera angles and no commentary accompaniment. There was no Bullet Club presence on the show, though some among their ranks would make a showing at the upcoming New Japan Cup shows.

The show was opened by the lions in training, Sho Tanaka and Yohei Komatsu. Tanaka won this one, causing Komatsu to tap out to a Boston Crab, that started with a single leg variation before both legs were secured.

Also of note, there was a good tag team match between Yuji Nagata and Captain New Japan and opponents Hiroki Goto and Kazuyori Shibata. Past matches involving Nagata and the team of Goto and Shibata have resulted in seriously heated exchange between Yuji and both members of the recently dethroned tagteam championship holding team. The match ended with Goto taking Nagata out of action with a sick looking lariat. Then Goto hit the Captain with his patented maneuver that flips his opponent out of a fireman's carry driving the back of the skull into his knee. This set up for Shibata to hit a nasty penalty kick to the Captain's chest and pick up the pin.

CHAOS was represented strongly in the two final matches: First Okada and YOSHI-HASHI beat the team of Naito and Taguchi, with Okada hitting the Rainmaker lariat on the previous Junior Heavyweight champion. Then, Nakamura, Ishii and Yano fought the ragtag combination of Tanahashi, Makabe and Honma. This was a very good match with Honma mounting impressive offense on the 'King of Strongstyle' near the end, including a flying kokeshi headbutt to the chest. The onslaught was broken up by an Ishii lariat, allowing Nakamura to eventually hit a running bomaye knee to the skull of Honma for the win.

New Japan Cup day 1

The March 5 show featured the opening round tournament bouts, which went at a rather brisk pace, surrounded by a mix of multi-man tagteam matches. The show opened with newcomers Jay White and Yohei Komatsu, KUSHIDA, and Liger taking on Mascara Dorada, Tiger Mask, Rysuke Taguchi, and the fledgling Sho Tanaka. Macara Dorada continued his impressive showing with a corkscrew dive off the top rope onto Jay White for his team's win. Several first round tournament matches followed.

Bullet Club member Yujiro Takahashi defeated CHAOS' youngest member YOSHI-HASHI. Makabe defeated his stand-in at the NEW BEGINNING show, Honma with a brutal performance of his King Kong knee drop from the top turnbucke that landed scarily close to Honma's neck. When watching NJPW strongstyle wrestling, the physicality makes it easy to suspend disbelief and sometimes the reality of the action is impossible to deny. Here I would speculate if some genuine aggression was on display: disappointment at Honma's loss to Ishii, that would make sense as part of storyline, or irritation at Honma having such a great standout performance in his match for the Never title when he was just serving as a replacement for Makabe. The pain Honma sold after the match made me really question whether some unnecessary harm was carried out, or are these guys just that good at simulating credible athletic violence?  

Shibata defeated Kojima in a match where both of these guys hit each other with very hard hitting offense. Shibata won with a gift to fans of CM Punk and Hideo Itami/Kenta, first applying a sleeper hold to bring Kojima to near unconsciousness; then hoisting him up for a stiff looking GTS followed by a kick to the side of his head. Shibata's tag team partner Goto would defeat Nagata in good match, with Goto landing another one of his patented moves, lifting his opponent into a vertical suplex position and then swinging him forward to collapse under a neckbreaker-like move.

The tournament action would be broken up by another multi-man tagteam match pitting the members of CHAOS holding titles, Nakamura and Ishii, along with Sakuraba who here again would be included in the faction's ranks. They took on Captain New Japan, veteran Nakanishi (who used to be in a popular tag team with Yuji Nagata, but has held up far less well than the Anti Aging Hero), and Tenzan. What I recalled most from this match is Nakanishi landing some very difficult to believe offense on Nakamura, who could run circles around the lacking in mobility old timer. Ishii put down the Captain with a brainbuster and the pin. After the match there was some tension teased by Tenzan and Ishii, but it would follow that Tenzan, a popular veteran likely close to his end run, is inviting confrontation with more than one of his peers.

Back in the tournament, the high flying Ibushi and Naito defeated Bullet Club bullies 'Doc' Gallows and Karl Anderson respectively in their first round matches. Next would come two seemingly unlikely results. Tanahashi would lose to the far less agile CHAOS member, Yano, known for getting by with heelish techniques like low blows and tearing off the turnbuckle mats to slam opponents into the post back first, landed several very close pin attempts from out of nowhere. Then, he blocked a move by Tanahashi and yanked the former Heavyweight champion down by the hair, cradling him into an embarrassing pinfall victory.


Kazuchika Okada and 'Bad Luck' Fale had their first round match in the main event, and it was a match built to by several confrontations amidst tag team matches. This seemed like the moment Okada would gain retribution for failing to take down the Bullet Club heavy, but it would not come to be quite yet. Fale dodged a Rainmaker lariat and took out the fan favorite with a Samoan Spike finisher. The Bullet Club home team - AJ Styles and The Young Bucks presently doing ROH and presumably some indie shows in the US - would stand triumphantly in the ring with Anderson promising the tournament would be won by Fale. Here was an interesting move by the company, taking out its two top stars, promising to either put the tournament in the hands of next generation talent or the mega heel faction that dominated the one of the previous shows.


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