Csonka’s NJPW Power Struggle 2019 Preview

WELCOME back to column time with Larry! Today, I am going to discuss and preview the NJPW Power Struggle 2019 event. The show will feature Jay White vs. Hirooki Goto, KENTA vs. Big Tom Ishii, and more. So today I will breakdown and preview the event. Feel free to make your picks in the comment section. Thanks for reading! It’s wrestling, we love it and will disagree. The only rules are “have a take, be respectful, and don’t be a dick.”

EVIL, SANADA, & Shingo vs. Zack Sabre Jr, Minoru Suzuki, & Lance Archer: This should be good as they continue to build to Shingo vs. Suzuki & SANADA vs. Sabre. I also imagine that the will start a feud with EVIL & Archer here, LIJ wins with EVIL picking up the win in his return. WINNERS: EVIL, SANADA, & Shingo

Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo vs. Robbie Eagles & Rocky Romero: Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo didn’t win thetag league, but still reign as champions. Robbie & Rocky’s teams also had a good showing but failed to win the tournament. It should be good as the Bullet Club vs. CHAOS battle continues, but the champions get a rebound win here after losing to 3K at the close of the tournament. WINNERS: Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo

Super Junior Tag Team Tournament Finals: Roppongi 3K vs. Suzuki-gun: The tournament was actually a lot of fun this year and the booking to get to the finals was really good and played well as Suzuki-gun beat 3K prior to the tournament and then on night one, so 3K battled back, picked up the win on the final night to get into this match and now face Suzuki-gun in the finals; I can appreciate this. They have had some really good matches in the past, and I think they can do that again here, as long as they don’t crush this with overbooking and shenanigans. I think Roppongi 3K picks up the win to move onto WrestleKingdom… BUT WAIT, it’s going to end up a triple threat at WrestleKingdom as Suzuki-gun plays their card in the fact that the beat the champions during the tournament. WINNER: Roppongi 3K

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Will Ospreay vs. BUSHI: EVIL was taken off of the tour due to injury, which allowed for BUSHI to fill in for him and during the tour, he started to make challenges for Ospreay’s championship. On the final night of the tour, BUSHI cost the Birds of Prey their change to win the junior tag league, which infuriated Ospreay to the point that he wanted revenge, and gave BUSHI his title shot here to get his revenge. But if I had to guess, this isn’t about BUSHI, this is about setting up WrestleKingdom. BUSHI is good, he’s consistent, but he’s rarely great, Will is great, has had an amazing 2019, and that gives me hope that this can be really good. But again, this isn’t about BUSHI. I may be completely wrong here, but I think that this is the set up for Hiromu Takahashi, who will make his return post match and lay out the challenge for WrestleKingdom since never lost his title when he was injured. That would give us a big addition to WrestleKingdom, where Takahashi wins and Will finally moves onto the heavyweight division full time. WINNER: Will Ospreay

Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada & The Bastard Clone of Kazuchika Okada: This will be the first of approximately 43 tag matches used to build up Okada vs. Ibushi at the dome. Ibushi continues his quest to live up to the standards of his gods, and will tag with one of them here in Tanahashi. Meanwhile, Okada digs deep into the CHOAS roster page and counteracts with… wait, no, that can’t be right… YOSHI FUCKING HASHI? The Bastard Clone of Kazuchika Okada is the pick here? Oh well, the match should be at the very least good with Okada, Tanahashi, & Ibushi involved while HASHI will continue to get fat eating pins. My man, its WrestleKingdom season, and Ibushi will be serving up all you can eat kamigoyes for the next two months, enjoy it you worthless sack of flesh. WINNER: Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi

NEVER Openweight Champion KENTA vs. Big Tom Ishii: Big Tom was running with the NEVER championship when KENTA turned on him and joined Bullet Club. This led to the two facing off at Royal Quest, and while KENTA got knocked the fuck out during the match, there were hints of greatness there as KENTA won the title, although I doubt he remembers anything from that night. So Big Tom gets his rematch here, and while they have done some good angles on the under cards heading into the match, I hate to say for the first time in forever, I’m not excited for a Big Tom match,. First of all, KENTA hasn’t been the same since gett8ng knocked out in August. Secondly, his last few title defenses have absolutely sucked and been completely overbooked shit. Finally, the chance of Big Tom winning here feels like none because they will culminate the KENTA story (with what ever involvement Shibata has) at WrestleKingdom. Either Shibata comes back and kills him or Shibata picks someone like Goto to go after KENTA and he beats him. Hopefully, they can keep away from too much overbooking because this certainly has the potential to be great, but I have KENTA retaining. WINNER: KENTA

Tetsuya Naito vs. Taichi: Tetsuya Naito was the IC champion and looking to take that championship to WrestleKingdom, and do something special with it, use it as a bargaining chip to challenge for the IWGP Title. Unfortunately for Naito, Jay White got in his way, beat him for the championship and now White is planning to steal Naito’s plan at WrestleKingdom. Naito then starting having issues with a long time, on again off again rival in Taichi. Naito and Taichi have an odd chemistry, they have had great matches in the past, but in my opinion have also had some really overbooked and trashy matches that I have absolutely no time for. I am REALLY hoping that that we get full on Dangerous T here and no bullshit, because that will be the good stuff. I am sure that the closing stretch will see shenanigans, the mic stand, iron fingers and some such, to tease Taichi as a real threat, but he’s here to lose and get Naito back on track so that he can challenge White at the end of the night. This certainly has the possibility to be really good, as long as it’s not too overbooked. Naito tends to still deliver in his bigger matches, and hopefully he does here but my man’s hurting these days something fierce. WINNER: Tetsuya Naito

IC Champion Jay White vs. Hirooki Goto: Following Jay White turning on CHAOS and joining Bullet Club, one of the common threads has been White making has been White making Goto his bitch on several occasions. CHAOS finally got some revenge in the G1, when they picked up wins over White, including Goto scoring a huge win, which got him this title shot. I am sure that this will be good match, possibly even great, but it may suffer from a lack of drama because the likelihood of Goto actually winning here is about zero. He’s just a final roadblock for White ahead of WrestleKingdom, where the real end game is the rematch with Naito. White wins here, hopefully they can just have a fucking wrestling match without all of the Bullet Club bullshit, because a clean White win will mean more heading into the big show instead of the same old status quo overbooked finish. White wins and Naito confronts him afterwards to set up their WrestleKingdom clash. WINNER: Jay White

The 411 on Wrestling Podcast returns to the 411 Podcasting Network for episode 63. On the show, 411’s Larry Csonka & Jeremy Lambert break down week five of the Wednesday Night Wars between NXT & AEW, and preview MLW Superfight. The show is approximately 96-minutes long.

* Intro
* AEW Dynamite (10.30.19) Review: 2:45
* NXT (10.30.19) Review: 34:45
* The Comparison/Who Won Week Five: 54:45
* MLW Superfight PPV Preview: 1:02:45

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– End Scene.

– Thanks for reading.