Good morning, and we are back!
It’s October 8th, which means it’s time for King of Pro Wrestling. Tonight, the new member of Los Ingobernables de Japon is unveiled. Unfortunately I already learned who the new Ingobernable is, which brings me to an important point. If you have a major pro wrestling website, sure, reveal outcomes of events and reveal surprises. But don’t put them into the header of an article during the first day, like “Brock Lesnar loses championship at SummerSlam”. Anyway, we have another major, at least as exciting an event tonight, as Kenny Omega defends the belt against his two close friends, Kota Ibushi and Cody. Will Cody turn on the champ? I sure hope so, though I expect Omega to retain. Let’s get to it.
IWGP Jr HW Tag Team match
Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado vs Jushin “Thunder” Liger & Tiger Mask
Kanemaru and Desperado clobber the two legends on the ramp as the show starts. Team Liger Tiger (my name) makes a comeback and cover, but the ref got knocked out by accident before that, so Desperado wakes up the ref and nails the facebuster on Tiger Mask for a count of 3 to retain the title.
You know, a lot of people reading this are probably going “Oh, Liger!”, but the truth is he is arguably the poorest wrestler in the ring based on current skill level. He has been around since the 80’s, and how many wrestlers can you name who main evented back then and still wrestle full time today? Time to free the roster spot.
2. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs Juice Robinson & Toa Henare
It feels good to realize that Juice is the US Champion any longer. I will not miss this once and former NXT reject. Juice told Henare to focus on Makabe and took Honma out of the ring, but Makabe clothesline Henare and then they finished Toa with a diving headbutt and a flying stomp.
4. Bullet Club OG vs Young Bucks, Adam Page & Chase Owens
Chase almost had Tama, but Tonga Loa interfered. Chase fought off both Guerillas, but eventually it was fireman’s carry into a diamond cutter for a 3.
5. Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & Takashi Iizuka (with Miho Abe) vs Hirooki Goto, Satoshi Ishii & Will Ospreay
Unusual six-man combination for Suzuki-gun, as soon as I saw Minoru was involved, I assume he would be teaming with Killer Elite Squad. Abe looks lovely and happy carrying Taichi’s NEVER Openweight Championship. Very good, fun match, as you would expect from all these wrestlers. Ospreay reversed Taichi’s clothesline into a Rainham Maker, Goto GTR’ed Iizuka and one Storm Breaker later Chaos won. Ospreay celebrates as though he just won the heavyweight title, G1 Climax and the lottery put together. He holds up the belt, indicating he is the next challenger. Best match of the night so far.
Los Ingobernables de Japon entered the ring. Naito made it seem like it was going to be Milano Connection A.T., but he waved it off. Video clip revealed that the new member was going to be called “Dragon”. A man covered in a mask and a hood, with seemingly Asian eyes peaking out of them entered the ring. He pulled off the mask, revealing one of Dragon Gate promotion’s biggest names, Shingo Takagi.
6. Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano & Roppongi 3K vs Tetsuya Naito, Sanada, Bushi & Shingo Takagi.
Not anything to write home about, but a very fun match, especially towards the end. Takagi hit Blood Fall on SHO, then went for STAY DREAM, but Yano broke it up. Sanada dropkicks Yano out of the ring. Okada gets nailed by Naito with a sliding dropkick. Takagi lariatooos SHO, Bushi tope’s YOH and Yano on the outside, STAY DREAM on SHO and it’s all over.
7. EVIL vs Zack Sabre Jr
EVIL comes out with druids, but one of them beats him up and turns out to be Chris Jericho. Can we stop seeing this talentless dipstick everywhere? Hope he drowns on his cruise. Match is called off. Sabre tries to break EVIL’s arm. Naito runs in and chases him off. Looks like 2 matches are set up.
8. IWGP Jr Heavyweight Championship Finals
Kushida vs Marty Scrull
Kushida pinned Scrull with two Back To The Futures.
9. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Jay White in a Wrestle Kingdom IWGP Title Shot
Tanahashi hit White with two High Fly Flow, but Gedo pulled the ref out of the ring. He then went to hit Tanahashi with brass knuckles, but Tanahashi nailed Gedo. Jay White then low blowed Tanahashi, but as he was setting him up, Tanahashi low blowed him back. He set up a chair and a High Fly Flow by Tanahashi, but Jay White rolled away, so Tanahashi hit the chair. As Jay White went for the pin, he was small packaged and pinned.
Jay White attacks Tanahashi and dismantles a crew of Young Lions, Gedo takes care of the ref. Dragon Screw by Jay White, as Gedo indicates “Blade Runner”, but there is a lot of noise so the Switchblade looks to see what’s happening. And when he does, he runs. You don’t mess with Kazuchika Okada. White tries to attack hiim from the back, but gets thrown out and Okada beats down Gedo, until stopped by Jado.
Suddenly Bullet Club OG match to the ring. They pretend to be after Gedo and Jado, but, one Tonga Cutter and Blade Runner later, we can tell this ends in a few new OG members.
10. IWGP Heavyweight Title match
Kenny Omega vs Kota biushi vs Cody
A very good match. A lot of credit goes here to Cody, who added elements of real wrestling (and I don’t mean ground-hold game) to what could have been the two guys taking turns killing each other. There was also the added tension of “is there going to be a storyline element in the resolution” and there sort of was, as Cody was definitely the more eager to hurt the other two Elite members, but ultimately did not cheat. Omega pins Ibushi after a One-Winged Angel. Cody was one second too late to stop it.
Omega dishes out love to everybody, and then says “Good-bye and good…” Tanahashi hits the ring. A peaceful exchange, and then finally the Kenny tag line is hit.
I must apologize, dear reader, for this report being late. I was almost finished with it, when I got pneumonia.
