To say I'm happy because NJPW is back would be an understatement. On June 15th they held The Together Project Special. It's been 110 days since their last live show. So I thought I'd make some remarks (Smark Remarks?) on their return.
It was their first attempt at doing an empty arena and I think they did a good job or at least as good as they possibly could. Matches are kept short for the most part, except for maybe the main events. The audio was done well, enough so that you do not hear the static silence of the earlier WWE run empty arena shows. The commentators being high energy the whole time helped as well. They get major points for keeping the show under two and half hours. They set the tone for The rest of the New Japan Cup and it looks to be a hit.
Now in terms of the “Prevailing circumstances” or the pandemic, you can tell they’re taking it seriously or as much as possible. As announced prior to this event, staff and wrestlers are subjected to antibody testing and the venue was carefully prepared for the return. They used a three man commentator team. Each kept the recommended six feet from each other. They even had Plexiglas between them. Between the first two commentators, they set up a flat screen that had a live feed of the third commentator. This was a nice touch. It allowed them to have all three in the shot. You see staff cleaning the ring and wiping down the ropes.
Now for the Wrestling. I’m not going to break down each match. Especially for this Together Special, it was a bunch of really good serviceable, three to three and a half Snark(Our rating system) matches. I’ll leave my ratings below. I will take note of some key wrestlers from this special. Such as Gabriel Kidd. He stayed. He could’ve gone home when the pandemic peaked but he committed to NJPW and stayed at the dojo. Tomohiro shii is one of my favorite wrestlers today, and it was great to see him not layered in Kinesiotape. It has been 110 days of him just healing up and training and it shows. Young lion, Yuya Uemura, spent those days jacking up.
So if you can’t tell, I highly recommend watching the special. It’s fun and a breeze to get through.
TOGETHER PROJECT SPECIAL MATCH RATINGS
Yota Tsuji Def. Gabriel Kidd *** ½
El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru Def. Tomohiro Ishii & Yuya Uemura *** ½
Yujiro Takahashi, Taiji Ishimori, Gedo & Jado Def. Hirooki Goto, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Tomoaki Honma ***
Ryuske Taguchi, Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan Def. EVIL, SANADA & BUSHI ***
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Yuji Nagata & Togi Makabe Def. Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr., Taichi & DOUKI ***½
Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi & Hiromu Takahashi Def. Kazuchika Okada, SHO & YOH *** ½
The New Japan Cup tournament began on June 16th. This tournie is elimination. So not a point system round robin like The G1 Climax. You lose you’re out. You win and you move on to the next round. This is also the first time it is an open-weight tournie. Not going to break down each match, but I will comment on some of my favorites.
TOGI MAKABE DEF. YOTA TSUJI. I am not the biggest Makabe fan, but I really liked this match. Makabe must have been itching to get back into the ring. I don’t know what the future holds for the young lion, Tsuji, but NJPW sees something in him and clearly so does Makabe. Makabe is not one to bump and sell. He put in work in this match. He made Tsuji look good. Tsuji being a young lion, Makabe did not have to whip out his usual finish of the King Kong Knee Drop. An awesome lariat and then a bridging german was all he needed. Nice touch.
HIROMU TAKAHASHI DEF. TOMOAKI HONMA. I never thought I would ever be recommending a recent Honma match as a must watch. Well that's what I’m doing. This was better than it had the right to be. This was intense and hard hitting. There’s a Death Valley Bomb that Takahashi gives to Honma on the apron that was awesome.
TOMOHIRO ISHII DEF. EL DESPERADO. My match of the night for night one. I was really looking forward to this one when it was announced and it did not disappoint. I love both these guys. Ishii looked great and he did what he does best and made Despy look great. This is a definite must watch. Going put this here. Tomohiro Ishii is my pick to win this.
NEW JAPAN CUP 1ST ROUND
TOGI MAKABE DEF. YOTA TSUJI ***½
TORU YANO DEF. JADO **
ZSJ, MINORU SUZUKI, TAICHI, YOSHINOBU KANEMARU DEF. YUYA UEMURA, YUJI NAGATA, KOTA IBUSHI, HIROSHI TANAHASHI ***
HIROMU TAKAHASHI DEF. TOMOAKI HONMA ***¾
TOMOHIRO ISHII DEF. EL DESPERADO ***¾
June 17th was night two of the New Japan Cup. Listen, most of night two is worth watching, but if I had to choose one match for the first three nights of NJPW’s return, it would be YUJI NAGATA DEF. MINORU SUZUKI.
These two have had great matches together in the past. They went into this 5 wins each. From the start you can feel the tensions explode between these two. As they just lay into each other. This was brutal. This is how you do an empty arena match. The hard hits just kept coming. They did some call back from their previous matches. This was brilliant. This was two of the old guard showing the young bloods how it is done. This was great. Do yourself a favor and watch this match.
NEW JAPAN CUP 2020 NIGHT 2
TAIJI ISHIMORI DEF. GABRIEL KIDD ***
YOSHINOBU KANEMARU DEF. YUYA UEMURA ***½
HIROOKI GOTO, YOSHI-HASHI, SHO & YOH DEF. SANADA, EVIL, SHINGO TAKAGI, & BUSHI ***
YUJI NAGATA DEF. MINORU SUZUKI ****½
KAZUCHIKA OKADA DEF. GEDO ***
Final thoughts. None of the cards of the three nights overstayed their welcome. Nagata vs Suzuki is a must watch. NJPW is doing empty arena shows properly. All three nights get a thumbs up from me. Welcome back the King of Sports.
Franky DeJesus
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