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Csonka’s NJPW on AXS TV Review 5.22.15

May 22, 2015 | Posted by Larry Csonka
9
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Csonka’s NJPW on AXS TV Review 5.22.15  

Introduction
As a reminder, this will not be another traditional recap, but instead it will be a mash up of the Rs, Instant Analysis and my usual Twitter ramblings I would do during the shows; completely uncensored and as the ideas flow unfiltered to the old keyboard. Remember, this is a review; and I am here to review the show. As always, I encourage discussion and even disagreement, just do so in a respectful manner. I will be doing the review for Raw and most PPVs and iPPVs going forward.

NJPW on AXS TV Review 5.22.15


OFFICIAL RESULTS
* 2014 BOTSJ Semifinal Match: KUSHIDA beat Taichi (7:29) with the Hoverboard Lock [***]
* 2014 BOTSJ Semifinal Match: Ricochet beat Ryusuke Taguchi (5:49) with the Benadryller [**¾]
* 2014 BOTSJ Finals: Ricochet beat KUSHIDA (23:06) with the Benadryller [****½]

2014 BOTSJ Semifinal Match: KUSHIDA vs. Taichi: Taichi only got into the semifinals because of Alex Shelley’s injury. Taichi ambushed KUSHIDA pre-match with a chair shot, something he did regularly in the tournament. They worked well together and put out a perfectly good semifinal effort. Shelley and TAKA were at ringside and were heavily involved with each other, and TAKA also helped Taichi try to win. It eventually became a bit too much for me and in some ways made the match not as enjoyable when I went back to watch it here (I watch NJPW and other things so I can avoid the extracurricular bullshit). KUSHIDA was able to overcome the odds, and won with the hoverboard lock.

2014 BOTSJ Semifinal Match: Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Ricochet: This was designed to shock the crowd and throw things off a big, since it was the semifinals and everyone expects them to go a certain length. With the first semifinal not breaking 8-minutes, you would expect the second one to go longer. Part of that is done as a “make up” to fans who want the longer matches, and the other part of that is one man has to work the longer match, he has the story of being tired in the final to use as a storytelling tool. They worked a fun and short match here, and then Ricochet hit the Benadryller at 5:49 to score the win. I liked it because it felt different, and the finals will feature two fresh guys.

2014 BOTSJ Finals: KUSHIDA vs. Ricochet: They hade a great layout here, as they were having this really good athletically based match with clean and crisp work. And then the energy kept building, and then worked into something special. The closing stretch or the match was amazing, tremendous near falls as both men emptied their arsenal for the right to call themselves the best of the super juniors and really captured the crowd. KUSHIDA survived a top rope Benadryller and 630 splash down the stretch, and actually was able to get the Hoverboard Lock. This was just some excellent stuff, with a great crowd and a beautiful athletic story being told. Ricochet would hit the Benadryller again and that was all. For KUSHIDA, I felt that this was the best performance of his career and the one that made me think that he could be the man in the juniors division, and going back and watching it again I still feel that way, it was not only a tremendous performance, but easily the most complete performance of his career and still is. The match is also a very important one when looking back at Ricochet’s career and the year 2014. Ricochet had an excellent year in 2014, first he defeated Yoshino for the Open the Dream Gate Championship (the first gaijin to hold the title) and that gave him a clean sweep of the Dragon gate titles. Then he defeated Johnny Gargano WrestleMania weekend to win the Open the Freedom Gate Championship and close out their yearlong feud in an outstanding match. On this show, he defeated Ryusuke Taguchi and then KUSHIDA to win the 2014 NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Tournament; making him the fourth ganjin (Benoit, Guerrero and Devitt) to win the tournament. You cannot write an accurate history of the best wrestler of the year for last year without giving a big chapter to Ricochet.

THE OTHER STUFF ON THE SHOW: Josh Barnett and Mauro Ranallo continue to work very well together and make these matches, which I have already watched, feel fresh with their commentary. They tell the story and have just the right amount of emotion while also never feeling fake. KUSHIDA did the sitdown interviews for the show, and spoke about the Hoverboard Lock. He started to use it during this tournament and was inspired by Sakuraba. He also explained that Liger has been encouraging to him and told him to become the man in the division. Finally, KUSHIDA did an excellent job of putting over Ricochet and the finals as a whole I really wish that they could have got Ricochet to do an interview, since he won, but that just didn’t happen. We also got the post match press conference comments from KUSHIDA, where he questioned what he would take to finally succeed. We also got Ricochet’s post match promo from the ring, where he gave a great promo about winning and challenging for the title. Ibushii also came out to set up the title match. We also got more new interview footage with KUSHIDA and his AWESOME HAT, where he says he hopes to lead the division and make it even more important than it is.

* Next week’s show features Kota Ibushi defending the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship against Ricochet at “Dominion 6.21” as well as The Young Bucks defending the IWGP Jr. Tag Championship against KUSHIDA and Alex Shelly.

* End scene.

* Thanks for reading.

 photo fe36ffd0-0da4-4e3b-a2d3-b026b341dd87_zps41ef5d61.jpg
“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia.”

9.0
The final score: review Amazing
The 411
This was an excellent show to showcase the Best of the Super Juniors Tournament, which happens to start on the same day as this show’s return to AXS TV. The semifinals are perfectly fine, but are part of the bigger story to get to the finals, which was a MOTY contender for last year. Not only that, you get to see what I feel is KUSHIDA’s best performance, and a big part of Ricochet’s very successful 2014. Make time to watch this show for sure.
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