Exhibition: Boltin Oleg vs. Ryohei Oiwa 3:00
NJPW King Of Pro-Wrestling Title 2023 Right To Challenge / New Japan Rambo: Great-O-Khan vs. Shingo Takagi vs. SHO vs. Toru Yano vs. Aaron Henare vs. DOUKI vs. El Phantasmo vs. EVIL vs. Hikuleo vs. Jeff Cobb vs. KENTA vs. Mikey Nicholls vs. Rocky Romero vs. Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Shane Haste vs. Taichi vs. Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Yujiro Takahashi 30:37
Satoshi Kojima & Togi Makabe & Yuji Nagata vs. Minoru Suzuki & Tatsumi Fujinami & Tiger Mask 9:10
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title: Francesco Akira & TJP vs. Lio Rush & YOH 10:29
IWGP Women's Title: KAIRI vs. Tam Nakano 5:47
IWGP Tag Title: Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood vs. Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI 10:10
NJPW World Television Title Tournament Final: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Ren Narita 10:32
NEVER Openweight Title: Karl Anderson vs. Tama Tonga 9:36
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Keiji Muto & Shota Umino vs. BUSHI & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito 9:20
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title: Taiji Ishimori vs. Hiromu Takahashi vs. El Desperado vs. Master Wato 16:43
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title: Will Ospreay vs. Kenny Omega 34:38. Excluding an AEW Dark match against the artist formerly known as Mr. X3, this was Kenny Omega's first singles match since losing the AEW World Title to Hangman Page on 11/13/21. Omega was on top at the height of 21st century New Japan, managing to pull memorable matches out of both the overrated and over the hill, including corporate robot Okada, the staller Naito, and repetitive Tanahashi, as well as guys like Goto & Ishii that actually put forth the effort and are quite good, deserving of far better than whatever few scraps they got from Gedo. This was Omega's first match back since losing the IWGP Heavyweight Title to Tanahashi on 1/4/19, and boy has New Japan missed him, as their roster had no hope to recover once they lost so many of their top performers at the start of 2019, including their best singles wrestler in Omega, best tag team in the Young Bucks, and best junior KUSHIDA to WWE because they wouldn't give him any possibility of advancement despite the majority of their heavyweights having started off as juniors, including his former rivals Omega, Ibushi, Ospreay, & Prince Devitt. There wasn't much new of interest in NJPW since the formation of AEW other than Shingo Takagi getting a run and the promotion of Ospreay & Ibushi. Most of the foreigners were gone during COVID other than the great Zack Sabre Jr., who was mostly wasted teaming with awful Taichi, and all the natives in this aging company of 40+ year olds are just four years older and more broken down now, with the youngest native in the 2022 G1 Climax being SANADA, who was born in 1988, but there are still some dream matches for Omega in New Japan, and one that everyone has wanted to see was against Will Ospreay, who hadn't yet been shifted to heavyweight during the time he & Omega were in the promotion together. This was the best sort of high profile New Japan match, as when every big match is going 30-35 minutes, what becomes really important is consistency. This is also the thing that's most lacking, generally, as the length just puts guys, especially when they're old and broken, into time shaving mode, and for the most part at least half the match has technically passed before it really gets started. Omega vs. Ospreay didn't quite feel like a junior match in the sense of it being fast paced and explosive, it was more dramatic and hard hitting despite having all those moves, which were just spaced out more and done at a more moderate pace. Omega always felt like the favorite, and while Ospreay was the more spectacular of the two when he was on offense, unlike the AEW Vikingo match where Omega mostly was the rudo base, Omega got the majority of the offense here, and thus brought plenty of big, hard hitting power offense and athletic moves, whether it be the poisonrana or the avalanche style Dragon suplex that Ospreay landed on his feet to avoid. Omega's big show table was used, of course, with Omega putting a hole through it with a double footstomp off the apron then Ospreay suplexing Omega onto it to set up his sky twister press to the floor. The first half was all very good, useful, and interesting stuff, but the crux of the match came when when Ospreay tried to set up an avalanche style move of his own, but bladed when Omega countered it by DDTing him on the exposed top turnbuckle. This really slowed the match down, as Ospreay sold huge for several minutes, but it slowed it down in a very dramatic and effective manner, with a sadistic Kenny Omega essentially just beating him when he was down & out, but somehow never quite being able to finish the wounded but determined warrior. Although Will barely did anything for a lengthy stretch beyond show a ton of heart and fighting spirit in refusing to quit, the selling during this portion was quite good, as rather than Ospreay just laying around endlessly, Omega stayed on him, and thus the ref and officials looked good playing up the idea that they were contemplating stopping the match rather than ridiculous because they allowed a guy who was KO'd for 2 minutes to continue. They did a great job of building up to Ospreay finally coming back, only to fantastically fool us by having Omega counter the avalanche style Frankensteiner by dropping poor Ospreay headfirst onto the exposed turnbuckle again! This was such a great ironic spot, and after several more minutes of Ospreay getting beat within an inch of life, he finally got backflipped taking a clothesline, but in landing on his feet, he was able to come back with a Ligerbomb. My biggest criticism of this match, and this shows how amazing it was, is that they did such a great job of putting over near dead Ospreay that it was hard to buy his huge fast comeback without something equally massive as the big turnbuckle spot to slow Omega down. Ospreay threw all he had at Omega during this brief stretch, but was too far gone, and even though they were mostly exchanging big shots in the final few minutes, Omega just had too much more left in the tank for him. Although it shows how badly Tony Khan owns Gedo that Omega, coming off nearly a 14 month singles layoff, still takes the New Japan title on New Japan's biggest show of the year, with Gedo getting nothing comparable or even useful in return, the Ospreay underdog storyline was done so well by the wrestlers themselves that the loss still helped Ospreay, though obviously not as much as the win should have. ****1/2
IWGP World Heavyweight Title: Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada 33:03
Kosei Fujita & Ryohei Oiwa vs. Taishi Ozawa & Yasutaka Yano 12:12
Daiki Inaba & Masa Kitamiya vs. Oskar Leube & Tomohiro Ishii 10:28
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Satoshi Kojima & Takashi Sugiura & Toru Yano vs. El Phantasmo & Gedo & KENTA & Naomichi Marufuji 12:20
El Desperado vs. YO-HEY 10:57
Alejandro & AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki vs. Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi & Tiger Mask 9:37
Kaito Kiyomiya & Yoshiki Inamura vs. Kazuchika Okada & Togi Makabe 6:35
Kongo vs. LIJ Best Of Five Series Match #1: Tadasuke [Kongo] vs. BUSHI [LIJ] 11:09
Kongo vs. LIJ Best Of Five Series Match #2: Hiromu Takahashi [LIJ] vs. Hajime Ohara [Kongo] 13:05
Kongo vs. LIJ Best Of Five Series Match #3: Manabu Soya [Kongo] vs. SANADA [LIJ] 13:57
Kongo vs. LIJ Best Of Five Series Match #4: Shingo Takagi [LIJ] vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima [Kongo] 18:28
Kongo vs. LIJ Best Of Five Series Match #5: Tetsuya Naito [LIJ] vs. Keno [Kongo] 26:57
Toru Yano & YOH vs. Oleg Boltin & Ryusuke Taguchi 3:45
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Callum Newman & Great-O-Khan 7:37
EVIL & Ren Narita & SHO & Yujiro Takahashi vs. El Desperado & Shota Umino & Tiger Mask & Tomoaki Honma 8:43
DOUKI & SANADA & Taichi & TAKA Michinoku & Yuya Uemura vs. BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito & Yota Tsuji 11:05
Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi 16:50
IWGP Tag Title: El Phantasmo & Hikuleo vs. Chase Owens & KENTA 13:11
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Bryan Danielson 32:46. Watch Review. *****
War Games Steel Cage: David Finlay & Alex Coughlin & Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney & Gabe Kidd vs. Will Ospreay & Francesco Akira & HENARE & Jeff Cobb & TJP 64:05
IWGP World Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership New Japan Rambo: Hirooki Goto vs. Alex Zayne vs. Great-O-Khan vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Josh Barnett vs. KENTA vs. Oleg Boltin vs. SANADA vs. Satoshi Kojima vs. Taichi vs. Togi Makabe vs. Tomoaki Honma vs. Tomohiro Ishii vs. Toru Yano vs. YOSHI-HASHI vs. Yuji Nagata vs. Yujiro Takahashi 34:35
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Ladder: Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA vs. Kosei Fujita & Robbie Eagles vs. Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney vs. Francesco Akira & TJP 13:05
IWGP Women's Title: Mayu Iwatani vs. AZM 8:46. You know a show has far surpassed the edge of excess when a match with the champion in "zombie mode" is the best example of something that doesn't feel like complete bs. The main event, despite featuring possibly my favorite active male wrestler, ZSJ, was the typical New Japan boredom stretching 5 minutes of action into 45 minutes of no intensity standing and laying around, and Konosuke Takeshita vs. Shingo Takagi, which seemed a surefire winner given it was two actual high quality wrestlers in a match that was short and should be action packed since NEVER title matches are the ones that actually move, was such a ridiculous overdramatic example of jokey overselling 101 (the incredibly obvious overcooperative choreography didn't help either) that it was hard not to just laugh at what they were doing, or more accurately overdoing. This Mayu vs. AZM match, of course, wasn't what one would call realistic either. AZM is one of the most choreographed workers around, but she moves fast enough to mostly hide the obvious aspects of her choreography (whereas you could tell, for example, when Shingo was throwing a shot Takeshita was supposed to duck under because they don't have chemistry and familiarity yet), but this didn't feel like it was simply empty forms combined with looking for every opportunity to take another break. These two went at each other hard, showed passion, and made you believe they were actually trying to win. This was a TV style title defense that was mostly just a showcase for Mayu, which is unfortunate because AZM is one of the most useful under 25 wrestlers. There were a couple ridiculous double sells in this, but they moved fast enough the rest of the time that they at least earned their breaks. This didn't feel like a complete match, and I'm probably overrating it by virtue of it being something that actually had action amidst so much unwatchable silliness. It was rushed because they gave them less than 10 minutes, but actually leaving me wanting more was a novel concept on this show where everything else had me struggling not to move on to something that might feel less like some friendly exchanges occassionally broke out during a Z grade theater practice. Desperado vs. DOUKI presumably would have exceeded this as the match of the show if not for the early injury, so that was real bad luck for everyone, doubly for poor DOUKI. ***
NJPW World Television Title: Ren Narita vs. El Phantasmo vs. Jeff Cobb vs. Ryohei Oiwa 10:04
Lumberjack: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. EVIL 15:07
AEW International & NEVER Openweight Double Title: Konosuke Takeshita [AEW] vs. Shingo Takagi [NEVER] 12:42
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title: DOUKI vs. El Desperado 5:23
IWGP Global Heavyweight Title: David Finlay vs. Yota Tsuji 19:39
Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiromu Takahashi 17:08
IWGP World Heavyweight Title: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Shota Umino 43:44
International Women's Cup Final Momo Watanabe vs. Athena vs. Persephone vs. Willow Nightingale 11:13
ROH World Tag Title: Dustin Rhodes & Sammy Guevara vs. SHO & Yoshinobu Kanemaru 9:27
Lucha Gauntlet: Taiji Ishimori vs. El Desperado vs. Hechicero vs. Kosei Fujita vs. Mascara Dorada vs. Master Wato vs. Soberano Jr. vs. Titan 16:23. This match isn't going to change anyone's mind about the contrived nature of multi-man matches. Obviously in the absolute, six guys inexplicably pretending to be paralyzed is worse than the usual two, but this match kept moving because there were always at least two guys doing something energetic, whereas the typical New Japan match feels like it has more time where two half dead guys are doing nothing rather than something. The staggered entry actually helped because starting this as a singles match and adding a wrestler at a time made it a little less goofy that only 2 wrestlers were doing anything no matter how many were technically involved. The Mexican wrestlers totally stole the show. They worked really well together, this cooperative chaos setting is much more conducive to the Lucha Libre guys shining because they have a lot of options to be spectacular, and are used to doing brief bursts of crazy aerial offense. They were able to bring enough athletic action to surmount some of the shortcomings of the multiman match. Hechicero isn't a junior heavyweight, but he was the key wrestler here being the base that allowed the other 3 spectacular flying luchadors to do their thing. All of the New Japan guys were fine, but none of them really stood out to the level that even whoever the least of the CMLL guys did. The most annoying aspect of the match is they would literally just stop pretty much during the duration of each new wrestlers lengthy walk to the ring. The one exception was that since El Desperado has the IWGP Junior Title, everyone rushed him on the ramp, and then they made a circle around him in the ring. taking turns beating him up. This wasn't nearly as malicious as it sounds, but even though the gang up wasn't that serious, it's good to see an actual realistic strategy in a match once in a while. Desperado and Fujita weren't really at home in this match in the sense that they are more grappling based wrestlers. Desperado didn't really get a chance anyway because they ganged up on him. He finally got a segment with Fujita at the very end where they were exchanging submissions, which felt very out of place after counting the rotations Soberano was doing in the air. The finish out of nowhere where Ishimori threw the ref into Fujita to break Fujita's submission on Desperado, then pinned Desperado with the Gedo clutch was silly. ***
Exhibition: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Katsuyori Shibata 5:00
NJPW STRONG Women's & RevPro Undisputed British Women's Double Title: Mercedes Mone [NJPW] vs. Mina Shirakawa [RevPro] 14:06
David Finlay vs. Brody King 12:53
Shota Umino vs. Claudio Castagnoli 14:31
AEW International & NEVER Openweight Double Title: Konosuke Takeshita vs. Tomohiro Ishii 13:30
IWGP Tag Title Decision: Matthew Jackson & Nicholas Jackson vs. Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito vs. Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb 13:46
IWGP Global Heavyweight Title: Yota Tsuji vs. Jack Perry 13:12
Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd 31:55. Watch Review ***1/2
IWGP World Heavyweight Title: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Ricochet 20:57. After what may have been the most boring match of Zack's career, standing around for 45 minutes occasionally posing a lifeless, fireless Shota Umino, he came back with a match that was start to finish action, even though it was mostly from the opponent. Ricochet was clearly motivated for the first time since his 10/2/24 match against Will Ospreay. He was a lot more energetic here, and really stepped it up to try to answer the call of a Tokyo Dome main event. He got off to a really fast start, which was important to move the crowd past the show stealing Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd match, including a space flying Tiger drop and swandive 450 Splash. This had more action in the first two minutes then the entire 43 minutes of ZSJ vs. Umino, and while it had it's issues, at least it was never dull. The announcers were comparing Ricochet to Will Ospreay, who Zack has had many classic matches with. One of the joys of their matches is that ZSJ keeps countering into submissions. Normally Zack is great at transitioning from defense to offense, but here everything was pretty standard. While Ospreay can, at the minimum, move in and out of seemingly any hold that Zack wants to do, Ricochet seemed to be devoid of even the most basic mat skill, and just avoided technical wrestling entirely. This really compromised Sabre's ability to be, well, Sabre, and resulted in him just taking for 80% of the match. Even when Sabre did get offense, it was rarely a submission hold. Zack was a lot more aggressive and chippy today then in the listless endless match the night before, but he was resorting to weakening the body with forearms to the back rather than something more interesting and elegant. Ricochet did a ton of moves rather than standing around helplessly and having Zack hit or pose him, but while he was a lot more entertaining than Umino, he still didn't give Sabre a ton to actually play off of. At least Ricochet avoided the New Japan melodrama, and just proceeded to fly all around the whole time like he would do anywhere else. He's one of the worst choppers around because he doesn't get his body into anything, just throws very slowly, all with the arm, but he didn't suddenly think he was a striker just because he was in New Japan. ZSJ didn't get much opportunity to be himself though, and was just taking all Ricochet's stuff and occasionally landing a strike or some standing move back that didn't go anywhere. Even when they did suplexes, it was mostly Ricochet that actually landed his. There was a cool one where he held on to his vertical suplex on the apron, then did another suplex on the floor. The match was almost over by the time Sabre got a real submission in, going into his armbar after hitting an avalanche Zack driver. Arguably Sabre's best comeback was simply landing the penalty kick and the Zack driver after Ricochet missed the 630 splash. When Zack finally countered the spirit gun, aka the visible blade, it was believable that Ricochet lost because he doesn't have the answers as far as we can tell to being knotted up, but it wasn't the typical modern match where each guy arguably survives five more things than he should, it was basically ZSJ taking all match then winning on his first real chance. ***1/4