New Japan Pro Wrestling was back in Singapore this morning for their annual Wrestling World event, held at the Marina Bay Sands. Here are the results:
Juice Robinson defeated David Finlay
Solid opener. Lots of support for Robinson, who was pretty over with the crowd. Good, basic match leading to a Robinson win after hitting the unprettier.
Roppongi Vice defeated Jushin Liger & Ryusuke Taguchi
They did the fake babyface spot where Romero wanted to shake hands, but Liger stalled. When he finally did, Romero did the turn but Liger blocked him. They worked on Liger until Taguchi did a hot tag. Liger was tagged back in and was isolated as he was pinned by Romero after RPG Vice did their double team finish.
Guerillas of Destiny defeated Tomohiro Ishii & Gedo
Gedo was enjoying himself here, channeling Ric Flair (or is it Jado?) in doing the strut. Ishii looked good in warding off the two, but of course Gedo was the weak link. He fell to the Guerilla Warfare, giving the win to the heavyweight tag team champions.
Hirooki Goto defeated Tomoaki Honma
Good match, but there have been better between these two. Lots of stiff slaps and punches throughout. Honma was being worked on until he made a comeback with the Kokeshi and worked on Goto’s arm, but Goto turned the tide with an ushigiroshi and pinned Honma with the GTR.
Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA & Togi Makabe defeated BUSHI, SANADA & Tetsuya Naito
They brawled around the ring to start things off. Ingobernables were over and this, by far, had the most heat of any match up to this point. Cool six-man man match, about what you would expect. The finish was pretty cool as it looked like KUSHIDA was going to finish off BUSHI with a moonsault, but instead did a leap to the floor wiping out SANADA. Tanahashi finished the match instead with a High Fly Flow.
Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI defeated Kenny Omega & Yujiro Takahashi
Standard tag match, which means it was good, but nothing beyond what you would normally see on a New Japan house show. Omega always comes across like someone with headliner potential; his work at this point is stellar. Okada got the win for his team with the Rainmaker.
Katsuyori Shibata defeated NEVER Openweight Champion EVIL to regain the title
This was good, but the crowd was just kind of there – I think they may have peaked earlier for the six-man. As far as a championship match though, this was really well worked.
Shibata worked on EVIL’s arm to start. They went to the outside where Shibata tried to use a chair, but failed, instead letting Evil put the chair on his head and slammed it against the post. He also trapped it on Shibata’s arm and smashed it against the steps. EVIL targeted the arm but Shibata hulked up and fired back.
Shibata locked in the sleeper but EVIL grabbed the arm and wrung it on the top rope, sending Shibata to the floor. After a back and forth battle, Shibata put on the sleeper but bumped into the ref by accident. EVIL grabbed more chairs, wrapped Shibata around one and swung the other onto him.
EVIL hit a tree slam but Shibata still kicked out. He tried the STO but Shibata countered with one of his own. He got the sleeper back on, hit a sleeper suplex, then hit the penalty kick to regain the title.
Overall, this was pretty much your typical New Japan house show event with a pretty good main event. Everyone worked hard, leading it to be a very solid show.