Kevin’s NJPW Summer Struggle 2021 Night Three Review

NJPW Summer Struggle Night Three
July 17th, 2021 | Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan | Attendance: 687

I know it’s the COVID era and this is just a “Road to” show basically but that attendance number seems quite low.

Dick Togo, EVIL, KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tomohiro Ishii, Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura
It always warms my heart to see Ishii and Tanahashi as a team. I love those guys. Obviously, the main idea here was to preview the upcoming Tanahashi/KENTA and Ishii/EVIL matches. One of those sounds fun, the other doesn’t. Togo didn’t really do anything of note but Uemura and Tsuji had the typical Young Lion fire that helped propel their efforts. Ishii/EVIL doesn’t really have anything behind it but thankfully, KENTA and Tanahashi had some pretty good exchanges in this one. I also dug the stereo Boston Crab spot from the Young Lions. Of course, they couldn’t win, so Tsuji fell to Pimp Juice after 12:56. A fine enough start that did its job. [**½]

BUSHI, SANADA and Tetsuya Naito vs. The Dangerous Tekkers and Minoru Suzuki
Oh yeah, now we’re talking. Six guys I enjoy watching. There was some fun to be had early, especially with the goofy segment of SANADA and Taichi flexing their titty muscles for the crowd. There was also a fair amount of stalling in the early goings but once this got into the action, things worked out well. Suzuki being involved added to a lot as he’s much preferred over the likes of Kanemaru or DOUKI. There was some good action and at no point did they overdo any of the upcoming singles matches. Given who was involved, the result was obvious, as was the person eating the pin. That would be BUSHI, who was put down with Zack Mephisto in 13:29. A fun multi-man tag. [***]

DOUKI, El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Robbie Eagles and Roppongi 3K
This one is more exciting. I’m so happy to have Robbie Eagles back as he’s a junior heavyweight who proved himself before the pandemic and he’s a fresh face. Him against Desperado should rule. They started the action here, giving us a preview of their title match and it was pretty great. The stuff between Roppongi 3K and Kanemaru/Desperado was also good, likely since they’ve wrestled each other so much. DOUKI was kind of just there. This felt like the Eagles showcase and I mean that as a really good thing. He busted out some of his cool offense and he made DOUKI tap to the Ron Miller Special at the 12:55 mark. Eagles is a nice addition to the junior ranks. The division feels fresh between him coming in and Desperado being on top. [***¼]

Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Taiji Ishimori
We’ve got two singles matches to close things out that preview the upcoming Jr. Heavyweight Tag Title match. Ishimori beat Taguchi at New Beginning in Osaka 2019 (***½) and in last year’s BOSJ (***). A lot of this was kind of the Taguchi special. He knows how to have a quality match when he puts his mind to it and that’s just what this was. At no point did it wow me but everything they did was smooth, made sense, and was well executed. Ishimori used underhanded tactics while Taguchi went after the ankle to set up his submission. I liked when the match neared its conclusion and they went into trading submissions, with Ishimori opting for the Yes Lock. The finish was also cool as Ishimori countered Dodon into a rollup with a handful of tights, only for bare-assed Taguchi to roll through into his own pin in 14:23. [***]

El Phantasmo vs. Rocky Romero
Phantasmo hit the ring after the previous match, bringing out Romero for a quick start. In the 2019 BOSJ, Romero scored a huge upset over ELP just shy of the 30-minute time limit (****) and then ELP beat him in a RevPro Cruiserweight Title match at Southern Showdown in Melbourne (***½). Taguchi took Ishimori to the back, leaving Romero for a one on one fight. You got the sense early on that they’d go long again since it slowed a bit after a hot start. However, they picked it up again and had a better pace than you might imagine. ELP was defiant, flipping the bird, and villainous, looking for countout wins when he could. Rocky had the fire and delivered a barrage of kicks that sent ELP back a few times. With time running out, ELP seemed to have Rocky on the ropes. Taguchi even came out to throw in the towel but didn’t. ELP, with seconds left, opted to taunt and wait for Rocky to get up so when he hit Sudden Death, Rocky was able to get a shoulder up as time expired in 30:00. There was a lot of good in here but it lacked the drama, urgency, and stakes that made their last Korakuen match special. [***½]

6.5

The final score: review Average

The 411

A pretty solid show but nothing more. Only the opener was kind of weak and everything else was good. However, it also never really surpassed that “good” level, so the show tops out at just being pretty good.