wrestling / TV Reports
Pantoja’s NJPW New Year Dash 2024 Review
Image Credit: NJPW
Loading...NJPW New Year Dash
January 5th, 2024 | Sumida City Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan | Attendance: 2,910
Man, there is so much wrestling to cover in this first week. Wrestle Kingdom took a while but I still have this, I’ll try to get a New Year’s Revolution Smackdown review up, and there are two STARDOM shows that I’ll do. That means this will likely be a shorter review than usual so I can make sure I cover as much as I can over the next few days.
This show feels weird not being in Korakuen.
NJPW Television Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi [c] vs. Ryusuke Taguchi
I dig the random aspect of this show with nobody knowing the card going in. My President and TV Champion out here defending already. We love to see it. Ace vs. Ass. While Tanahashi gave us a strong performance in the Dome, this was a more subdued Ace and that makes sense since this wasn’t a big deal. I’ve heard some bad things about this but those feel like people who take things too seriously. This was lighthearted, back and forth action with some comedy and jokes thrown in. That’s fine to open this kind of show. Tanahashi got his cheeks exposed so he mooned the crowd on a rollup and kept going through it to retain in 5:40. Fine for what it was. [**¼]
Post-match, a video played hyping up Matt Riddle as he challenged Tanahashi. Our Ace accepted on the microphone but admitted that he had no idea who that was (hilarious) so he needs to do his homework.
Bishamon vs. Kaito Kiyomiya and Ryohei Oiwa
Kiyomiya is literally just around to job. I do like the idea of putting Oiwa with him over in NOAH. There was no real drama to this one since Bishamon is this company’s only consistent tag team and there was no way they’d lose two in a row with the second being to these two. Also, the match was kept relatively short so there was no real time to build anything. Kiyomiya always impresses even in short stints and I think Oiwa showed potential here. As you’d probably expect, Oiwa ate the pin after getting hit with Shoto in 7:40. Not much to this one but inoffensive. [**]
El Phantasmo and Hikuleo vs. Oskar Leube and Yuto Nakashima
In terms of in-ring quality, this show isn’t off to a great start and this doesn’t seem like it will change things. Non-title action here. It was announced that Leube and Nakashima are known as “Young Bloods” and this is their send-off match before excursion. As usual, the Young Lions, er, Bloods, brought the energy and fire they usually do. However, they had a little more to them probably since they knew they were on the way out. There was nothing special here though it did give the Young Bloods a relatively high profile match before departing. Hikuelo wasn’t moving as well here as he did in the Dome. Maybe big match Hikuleo is a thing. He hit some Godsend Chokeslams before ELP wrapped this up with a springboard moonsault in 8:06. [**¼]
Post-match, Chase Owens hit the ring and planted ELP with a Package Piledriver. He challenged them for the titles with KENTA as his partner and Hikuleo accepted. Riveting.
Dick Togo, EVIL, Ren Narita, SHO, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yujiro Takahashi vs. El Desperado, Great Bash Heel, Master Wato, Shota Umino & Tama Tonga
Oh, no. It’s the House of Truth. Guess what, though? This was actually better than most of their matches for one simple reason. They were all involved so there was no one left to do run-ins and cheat outside. They still did all their other usual antics and tactics so it’s not like this was great or even remotely good but I’ll take a step up whenever I can get them. Otherwise, I don’t have much to say about this so I’ll get through it quickly. The only thing of note to happen was that EVIL and Tama started a program. Shota beat Togo with a Death Rider in 9:02, which was too long. [*¾]
After the bell, EVIL posed with the NEVER Title so he might be the one to dethrone Tama upon his departure.
Alex Coughlin, Clark Connors, David Finlay, Drilla Moloney & Gabe Kidd vs. Catch-22, HENARE, Jeff Cobb, & Will Ospreay
Bullet Club War Goofs against United Empire. TJP was no longer in his goofy monster mask and such but he remained in a somber mood and had red eyes. Bullet Club attacked before the bell and brought chairs to the ring, looking for revenge after losing their Jr. Tag Titles and getting put through a table by Ospreay. Meanwhile, Willy wanted vengeance against Finlay so this was a brawl from bell to bell, in and around the ring. That included Akira hitting a dive off of a balcony of sorts. NEW JACK AKIRA! This was complete chaos in the best possible way, making for a really fun and wild sprint. That style is quickly becoming the Gabe Kidd Special. It ended when Connors Speared the referee, resulting in a DQ at the 5:10 mark. Very good for a short sprint ending in a DQ. [***¼]
The post-match brawl kept going, including Gedo hitting Ospreay with a low blow and Finlay getting TJP’s red mist spit at him. When things settled, Ospreay said his last match for New Japan will be on 2/11 and he’ll be standing with his stable against Bullet Club, 5-on-5. He let Finlay choose the stipulation and he chose a Steel Cage match, which hasn’t happened in this company in 20 years.
BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito & Yota Tsuji vs. DOUKI, SANADA, Taichi, TAKA Michinoku & Yuya Uemura
Interesting match considering SANADA helped Naito get his moment yesterday. LIJ has mastered these matches over the years and while this was far from their best, it was still pretty darn good. It moved well like most New Japan multi-man tags and I always like seeing Hiromu interact with DOUKI. I think they have good chemistry. The highlight here was Yuya vs. Yota, with better exchanges here than we got in the Dome yesterday. I was a bit surprised to see them seemingly building toward a SANADA/Naito rematch already. New Japan rarely repeats a match like that on the very next tour. The finish was a nice surprise though as TAKA picked up the win with the Michinoku Driver on BUSHI in 8:47. Good stuff even if the apparent upcoming direction isn’t interesting. [***]
NJPW KOPW Championship: The Great-O-Khan vs. Taiji Ishimori vs. Toru Yano vs. YOH
This gimmick title thing has never really worked for me. I’m all for a goofy trophy but it has never been as entertaining as it should be and making it into an actual title was lame. I do appreciate the Scramble Match concept here because that’s a match style I love. Basically, however is the holder of the final pinfall will be the winner. They seemingly botched a pin early as Yano looked to get three on a rollup but it didn’t count. The first fall came in the opposite fashion as YOH beat Yano in 3:20. At 8:05, O-Khan beat him with the Eliminator and then he pinned Yano. That made no sense and commentary noted that because it’s not who has the most pins, it’s who gets the last pin. O-Khan, you need defense, not offense! Ishimori took advantage, using a low blow to roll up O-Khan at the 9:02 mark. Then he played it smart, running away and breaking up a pin attempt on Yano to end up retaining as the 10:00 expired. More like the goofiness I want from this concept, though not quite as fun as it should be. [**]
Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kosei Fujita, TMDK & Zack Sabre Jr.
So commentary said that Moxley and Danielson were gone but they pulled that last year with Kenny Omega too. With the card not announced in advance, that made for a great bit of surprises that the crowd popped hard for. The photo the Chaos Combat Club posed for was so cool. The matchup meant that we got Danielson/ZSJ for the first time since WrestleDream and ZSJ got right in Bryan’s face before the bell. They also confirmed Okada/Ospreay as the main event for the 1/13 show. Bryan and ZSJ opened this with their usual brand of great grappling. When Haste and Nicholls were in there this wasn’t as interesting. However, Fujita stood out for going after Okada in disrespectful fashion as payback for Okada doing it to him weeks ago in Korakuen. He also went after Okada’s arm, which was damaged from Wrestle Kingdom. The ending saw a furious finishing sequence where Fujita took out Okada with a dive and then Haste and Nicolls beat Ishii with their tandem finisher in 13:50. A damn good main event on top of seeing a special quartet team up, complete with a surprise ending. I’m guessing TMDK go for the Six Man Titles. [***¾]
Afterward, ZSJ said he wants Danielson one more time so that’s likely to come on a major show soon. Then Fujita got on the mic to issue a challenge for the Six Man Titles, though Okada said the kid is in no position to challenge him.
