Kevin’s NJPW New Japan Cup 3.10.21 Review

NJPW New Japan Cup
March 10th, 2021 | Sandan-ike Park Gymnasium in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto

It’s time to wrap up the first round of this year’s tournament. The final three matches are here and this will fill out the second round.

New Japan Cup First Round: Chase Owens vs. David Finlay
Owens is a consistently solid hand, while Finlay is someone who I actually really enjoy. He hasn’t had a ton of chance to shine and is trapped in the dead-end world of NJPW’s tag division but he’s a lot of fun. Like the Young Lions, both guys still have something to prove. That worked to their advantage as they brought quality effort here. The exchanges were crisp, which makes sense given they’ve met in several multi-man tags over the years. I appreciated that Owens was confident but once he couldn’t put away Finlay, he resorted to other tactics. I will always pop when someone pulls up the floor mats. It’s just good old fashioned heeling. Juice Robinson at ringside took issue with it. The final exchange saw Finlay counter the Package Piledriver attempt with a rana to secure the win after 11:20. Tidy match that delivered the goods and was entertaining throughout. [***¼]

New Japan Cup First Round: YOSHI-HASHI vs. Yujiro Takahashi
I have low expectations for this one. YOSHI-HASHI is the definition of hit or miss, while Yujiro is more often than not a miss. Yujiro does hold a 2-0 advantage though. Considering the pushes of each guy over the past year, the winner felt obvious here. Honestly, I don’t have much to say here. Yujiro did the shitty little heel things that are expected of him and YOSHI fought valiantly but with no real drama behind it and Yujiro not having the most interesting offensive skills, it was hard to get into. YOSHI won with Karma in 15:50 that should’ve been about 9:50. [**½]

New Japan Cup First Round: Jay White vs. Toa Henare
An intriguing match for several reasons. 1) Jay is arguably the best in the company right now. 2) Henare is very good. 3) Commentary kept harping on this being Henare’s year and an overconfident Jay might’ve slipped up and allowed another upset to happen. Alas, it wasn’t to be but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t get something very good. Henare put up an impressive fight and brought the power that gave him the advantage over White at times. He even forced Jay to lose his confidence at a few points, doing better than he expected. White is no slouch though, so he was able to weather the storm. He also got a bit of help from Gedo and his brass knuckles, though Henare managed to get past that. In the end, White used the Blade Runner to win in 24:46. A bit long for what they did and I never fully bought into Henare pulling off the upset but it was still a really good match. [***½]

6.0

The final score: review Average

The 411

A better than average way to end the first round. Yujiro/YOSHI was wildly basic and did nothing of note. However, Owens/Finlay was better than expected and White/Henare was a very good main event.