NJPW x ROH Honor Rising: Night 1
Tokyo, Japan
February 26, 2017
(1) Juice Robinson, David Finlay & Kushida defeated Gedo, Jado & Silas Young in the opening 6-man tag match. Young and Robinson were the stand-outs, and Juice came off like a major star, especially after possibly breaking his nose and getting busted open the hard way. Juice won it with the jumping Unprettier he’s now calling Pulp Friction, and went up into the bleachers to celebrate with the fans after the match.
(2) Sanada, Evil & Bushi [Los Ingobernables de Japon] defeated Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask & Delirious to retain the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships. A bit of comedy early on as Delirious was playing his usual insane, unintelligible lunatic self, and Liger had no idea what to do with him. Sanada tapped out Delirious with the Skull End to win, after Evil hit him in the face with a chair.
(3) Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi [Chaos] defeated Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi [Bullet Club]. This was Bullet Club’s first match in New Japan since the January 5th New Year Dash show. They controlled most of the match until Okada rallied back and hit his signature dropkick on Loa and Fale. Yoshi-Hashi hit Karma on Takahashi for the win.
(4) War Machine defeated The Young Bucks [Bullet Club]. A fun tag team match and something we don’t get to see too often in New Japan with juniors stars mixing it up with heavyweight stars outside of the big 6-man and 8-man tags. So Bullet Club is 0-2 on the night so far.
(5) Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi [Los Ingobernables de Japon] & Punisher Martinez defeated Dalton Castle, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ryusuke Taguchi. Tanahashi and Taguchi came out as Dalton Castle’s boys, which was a hilarious sight to see, and really speaks to Tanahashi’s desire to just go out there and have fun and put a young star’s gimmick over, even though he is perhaps the greatest champion in New Japan history. Martinez picked up the win with the South of Heaven chokeslam on Castle. After the match, Naito offered him a spot in LIJ but he refused, and Naito flipped him the bird and walked away.
(6) Jay Lethal & Katsuyori Shibata defeated Cody Rhodes & Hangman Page [Bullet Club]. Lethal hit the Lethal Injection on Hangman Page to send Bullet Club to 0-3 so far.
(7) Adam Cole & Kenny Omega [Bullet Club] defeated The Briscoes. Omega absolutely made a statement that he was “back” in his return match, hitting a moonsault off the guardrail to the floor, turning the Doomsday Device into a crazy DDT, and pulling out all his signature spots…except the One Winged Angel. This was the only Bullet Club win of the night, and interesting that it ended up being Cole who got the pin via the Last Shot.
Kenny grabbed a mic for the traditional post-show promo, and was instantly greeted with loud chants welcoming him back. He said that he isn’t going anywhere, he’s back in New Japan, and that 2017 will be the year of Kenny Omega. Adam Cole grabbed the microphone out of his hand and said that while that was all well and good, he is the first three-time ROH World Champion, and the year everyone is going to remember will be the year of Adam Cole. Kenny wants to talk again, but Cole just drops the mic in front of him. Omega picks it up and says that the fans are Japanese and can’t understand him (big laughs), and ends the promo with “goodbye and good night, bang!” Cole freaks out and starts yelling “what was that!?” at him, but Kenny offers him a handshake which he accepts, but clearly doesn’t want to. Kenny leaves and celebrates with some fans (he was pretty much full babyface here) as Cole stands in the ring yelling “this is my show!” to end the night. Interesting…
