Kevin’s NJPW Destruction in Beppu Review

NJPW Destruction in Beppu
September 17th, 2018 | Beppu B-Con Plaza in Beppu-Shi, Oita

The second stop on the Destruction tour feels like possibly the weakest on paper. A NEVER Title match featuring two relatively uninteresting wrestlers and a main event that doesn’t really have anything on the line. The Hiroshima show was solid and had a strong main event, while WWE put on a great PPV 24 hours ago. Do we get another enjoyable show this week?

Manabu Nakanishi, Yuji Nagata, and Yuya Uemura vs. TenKoji and Yota Tsuji
Following his injury, this marked the “big” return for Satoshi Kojima. He was on a “Road to” show, but this is a bigger event. B-level PPV stuff. There’s not much to write about these opening tags. They usually follow the same formula. The New Japan Dads did their thing, while the Young Lions brought fire to the table and continue to show improvement. The main point was to see their growth and how well Kojima is still going after the injury. Nagata ended Tsuji with an Exploder and Nagata Lock at 9:08. Fine way to start a NJPW show. [**½]

David Finlay and Ren Narita vs. Shota Umino and Toa Henare
More Young Lion stuff! And it’s cool because Finlay and Henare were Young Lions in recent years. This was kept shorter than the previous match. It also lacked something that one had. Fire from the Lions. I expected more from Narita and Umino, who are usually rather solid. The Henare/Finlay stuff was interesting, so they have different styles. It made for a cool little battle. Umino ended up with a busted nose, possibly broken, and lost to the Stunner in 6:38 Finlay considered this a defense of his C-Block trophy. The match was fine, nothing more. [**½]

Ayato Yoshida vs. Takashi Iizuka
No. Do not subject me to Iizuka singles matches. However, I commend Iizuka for entertaining me by attacking Kevin Kelly during this match. Other than that, Iizuka didn’t do much of anything other than bite and run around like a lunatic. He used the iron claw thing for a DQ at 4:30. Not good at all. [¼*]

Jushin Thunder Liger, KUSHIDA, Ryusuke Taguchi, and Tiger Mask IV vs. Rocky Romero, Roppongi 3K, and Will Ospreay
The CHAOS juniors! Commentary talked about how this would be a fun match. I expected the same, since I mostly enjoy seven of the eight competitors. After his Best of the Super Juniors run, I always enjoy seeing SHO (and YOH to be honest) mix it up. They were the highlight here. With Ospreay and KUSHIDA gearing up for the Jr. Heavyweight Title Tournament coming up, you’d expect one of them to be involved in the finish. Instead, Tiger Mask used a Tiger Driver to best Romero at 10:00. This was ultimately fine, but didn’t quite get to the level I wanted. Plus, not having anyone who currently matters get the pin made it feel kind of pointless. [**¾]

The Best Friends vs. The Killer Elite Squad
This is here to seemingly remind us that the World Tag League is a thing coming up in a few months. That’s easily my least favorite time of the year for NJPW. I tune out for it because endless tag matches (that usually aren’t that great) don’t interest me much. Anyway, these are two teams who are kind of polar opposites. KES hate everything and Best Friends love…well, each other. I thought this was a solid little tag match. Both teams played their roles well and the action allowed for a mostly back and forth encounter. Beretta got the hot tag and did well, but his offense struggles to look imposing against guys like KES. He’s one of the smallest heavyweights in the company. Beretta ate the pin when he was hit with the Killer Bomb at 10:34. A solid tag match, though another that never reached the next level. [**¾]

BUSHI, EVIL, and SANADA vs. El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, and Zack Sabre Jr.
Can LIDJ save this show from mediocrity? They’ve done it before for NJPW. Suzuki-Gun didn’t attack before the bell, but we were still subjected to a brawl and ringside fighting. While Kanemaru is one of my least favorite members of the mostly boring stable, I really like Desperado and Sabre. Watching them interact with the highly talented trio from LIDJ was fun. Like the last Destruction card, I dug EVIL vs. Sabre. It’s such an odd pairing, but an intense one that works better than expected. They played into the way this match ended, when Sabre countered Everything is Evil into a cradle and got the three count at 8:31. They kept it short, to the point, and mostly filled it with action. The best thing on the show to this point. [***]

Hiroshi Tanahashi, IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Juice Robinson, Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma vs. Jay White, Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano and YOSHI-HASHI
On Saturday’s Destruction in Kobe event, the headliner is Okada vs. Tanahashi for Tanahashi’s G1 briefcase. I expect Okada to win it to set up Okada/Omega V, though I love the idea of Tana vs. Omega in a big match. Anyway, the reason this kind of CHAOS tag worked so well on the Hiroshima show was because of Jay White. He’s adding a ton to these generic tags by throwing wrenches into the plans of CHAOS. He’s a thorn in Okada’s side and is fighting with him for control of the group. It makes for compelling stuff and is my favorite NJPW angle going right now by a country mile. But yea, the match was solid and wildly unspectacular. Juice beat YOSHI with Pulp Friction at 12:31. [***]

Nothing about Tanahashi/Okada is interesting right now, but Okada/White is. Give me Tanahashi vs. Omega and White vs. Okada in the Tokyo Dome for something fresh.

NEVER Openweight Championship: Hirooki Goto [c] vs. Taichi
It’s a battle of two of the most uninteresting wrestlers in NJPW. It’s a shame to say about Goto because he’s very good, he just doesn’t mean anything after getting bitched out by Okada in 2016. Taichi is Taichi. He had good matches with Tanahashi and Naito earlier this year, but decided against bringing that level of effort to this. He stalled and did nothing for the first two minutes. Literally nothing. It was riddled with the cheating and nonsense we’ve seen from Suzuki-Gun at all times. That’s not terrible in small doses, but it was on another level in this one. It was a boring match filled with all kinds of bullshit and it sucked. Taichi used a ton of help and the Air Raid Crash to capture the title at 21:14. Don’t get me wrong, I’m good with a new champion because Goto is boring. But this sucked something fierce. [¾*]

Minoru Suzuki vs. Tetsuya Naito
On paper, this should work. They’re two of the best in the world. Suzuki is a legend and Naito is neck and neck with Ishii for the best wrestler in NJPW. Their contrasting attitudes make for a combination that has given us some cool moments in the build to this. Yet, their IC Title match earlier this year was only good, not great (***). Suzuki did what his fellow stablemates didn’t and jumped his opponent before the bell. That set up a brawl that went around the arena. Surprisingly, it felt like there was little to no heat for this segment. These are two big names who are over, yet the crowd didn’t seem to care. That’s rare in Japan. Most of the match had the same issue and it was because it just wasn’t interesting. They went 32:12 and it felt much closer to an hour. That’s not good. At one point, they worked a figure four for what seemed like an eternity. Naito ended our suffering with Destino. This was ass and a far cry from what most people have come to expect from an NJPW main event. Hugely disappointing even if I came in with no expectations. [*½]

3.0

The final score: review Bad

The 411

What the hell was that? I criticize NJPW for shows that usually have a lot of fluff and then one or two big matches. Well, this one had all the fluff we’re used to, but ended on two terrible notes. Throw in a bad Iizuka match and some lackluster tags and you’ve got a recipe for a disaster. Only Jay White and the Sabre/EVIL combo kept this from being a true downer.