NJPW World Tag League Finals
December 11, 2017
Fukuoka, Japan
(1) Jushin Thunder Liger, Manabu Nakanishi, Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan def. Katsuya Kitamura, Hirai Kawato, Henare, David Finlay & Togi Makabe. Good showing here from all the younger talents. The third gen stars took turns picking apart Henare like he owed them money, exploiting the injury he just returned from. Makabe eventually got the hot tag and cleaned house before trading chops with Kojima. Kawato had a great offensive flurry before things broke down into an all-out brawl, and Kojima murdered him with a sick lariat to get the win.
(2) War Machine, Jeff Cobb & Michael Elgin def. Yujiro Takahashi, Hangman Page, Leo Tonga & Chase Owens. Elgin came out swinging with a brutal lariat to Page, then powerslammed two guys at the same time. Bullet Club isolated Ray Rowe and tried to slow things down, but Jeff Cobb stole the show and started suplexing everyone left and right. He killed Chase Owens with a wild variation of his Tour of the Islands, and actually caught the giant Leo Tonga out of the air for another suplex. War Machine eventually hit Fallout on Leo to end a really fun match.
(3) Bad Luck Fale def. Bushi via disqualification. Interesting combination of things here as you almost never get a singles match in a NJPW undercard, much less a match between a junior and a super heavyweight. Bushi threw dropkicks and tried to exhaust the big man, but once Fale got a hold of him it turned into a one-sided mugging. The Underboss refused to end the match, lifting Bushi’s shoulder off the mat over and over again. He went for the Grenade but got a face full of mist instead! The ref called for the bell but Bushi hit a Codebreaker from the top rope to take Fale down, standing tall.
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(4) Chuck Taylor & Beretta def. Sami Callihan & Juice Robinson. Great tag team bout, the best of the show so far. They got a good amount of time with everyone getting their spots in, including some excellent, innovative tandem offense from both teams. At the end, Callihan and Trent went back and forth kicking out of each other’s best moves. Sami hit a modified Tombstone Piledriver into the Stretch Muffler to put it away, but Trent rolled him up into a small package to break it. Chuck took out Juice with a piledriver on the apron, and Best Friends hit Strong Zero to win.
(5) Hirooki Goto, Yoshi-Hashi, Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii def. Killer Elite Squad, Minoru Suzuki & Desperado. The goal of the match was to make the tag champs look strong while continuing the brutal rivalry between Suzuki and Goto. They succeeded on both points. KES dominated most of the in-ring action as Minoru brawled with Goto around the arena, blasting him with chairs and pieces of the barricade, keeping him out of the match. Not even Ishii could effectively overcome the Suzuki-Gun numbers. It all built up to Goto making his comeback to save Yoshi-Hashi from getting his arm ripped of his body. After another wild brawl between all eight guys, Goto got Desperado in a sleeper, hit him with the Ushigoroshi and hit the GTR to win.
– Goto demanded a NEVER title shot at the Tokyo Dome, but Minoru laughed at him and wouldn’t even get back in the ring to address the challenge. After some taunting the champion finally came back and basically said that Goto was a failure who had nothing left to offer him, and Goto said he would put his hair on the line if that’s what it took to get one more shot.
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