Kevin’s NJPW New Japan Cup Night Five Review

NJPW New Japan Cup Night Five
March 13th, 2019 | ZIP Arena Okayama in Okayama, Japan | Attendance: 2,801

The easiest New Japan Cup shows to review. Since Gedo chose to space the tournament out to an insanely long time, there are nights like this where only two matches matter. The quarterfinals have begun.

New Japan Cup Quarterfinals: Chase Owens vs. YOSHI-HASHI
Owens bested IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Juice Robinson in the first round, while HASHI beat Manabu Nakanishi. Owens was a cocky jerk throughout this. He shoved HASHI as if he was trash almost instantly. We got some failed finisher attempts and interference from Bullet Club lame Jado. He wasn’t a good booker in NOAH and he’s an even worse character/wrestler. At least Gedo is fun as a wrestler sometimes. Anyway, Owens came close to winning after Jado interference. Then, Jado accidentally hit him and HASHI got going. He finished him off with Karma in 14:09. This was fine but nothing special. It felt kind of hollow and featured two uninteresting characters. [**½]

New Japan Cup Quarterfinals: Taichi vs. Tomohiro Ishii
A more interesting matchup, if only because Ishii rules. Taichi is mostly a miss, but can hit here or there against the right opponent. Luckily, Ishii was that kind of guy. He always brings his best and he got Taichi to put on his working boots. He kept the shenanigans to a minimum and actually put in some effort. It’s the kind of thing I want to see more of. Think about Taichi’s first foray into being a heavyweight, when he had that really good match with Naito. He did shove the referee and go low late, but it wasn’t too much. Taichi came close to winning a handful of times, but Ishii is a resilient boy. He caught the superkick and went into a flurry that saw the sliding lariat and Brainbuster put Taichi down in 22:55. Like a lot of NJPW stuff, it did go a bit too long. Still, I commend them for putting on an entertaining match without much nonsense. [***¼]

6.0

The final score: review Average

The 411

One average match and one that was good. I can’t go higher than a six because neither match was great. Still, with there only being two matches, it wasn’t bad as it didn’t take up too much time.