New Japan Pro Wrestling
World Tag League Night 10
November 30, 2016
Sports Park Sun Arena Sendai – Satsuma-Sendai, Kagoshima, Japan

Watch: NJPW World

NJPW World Tag League 2016 – B Block
Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto Billy Gunn & Yoshitatsu

One of the most surprising developments in the 2016 World Tag League is the shocking competence of Billy Gunn. Look, he hasn’t been good—he’s Billy Gunn for god’s sake, what’s the peak, really?—but he has put some effort into his match, more than I would have ever expected. He played power big man throughout this match and even got to no-sell an Ishii brainbuster and lariat. Unfortunately, this match was just no good. Ishii and Goto clearly used it as a day off so the match was about 75% strikes, 20% grunts and 5% signature moves. Goto won with a Shouten Kai, GTR combo pinning Yoshitatsu. Ishii and Gunn faced off through much of the match and stared down one another in the post. Goto and Ishii continue their run atop of the B Block bringing their record to 4-1 (8 points) while Tatsu/Gunn fall below .500 at 2-3 (4 points). **

Bullet Club (Kenny Omega & Chase Owens) def. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI)

10 minutes into this match I started writing my review talking about Kenny Omega sleepwalking through the match, far too focused on comedy in a match that for all intends and purposes is a preview of the biggest match of his career and one of the biggest matches in the New Japan Pro Wrestling year at Wrestle Kingdom 11. I had to delete everything I wrote because the final 7-8 minutes of the match was crazy and may have made this the standout match of the 2016 World Tag League.

The name of the game for Bullet Club on this night was isolate Okada. Omega & Owens spent a majority of the opening 10 minutes keeping YOSHI-HASHI on their side of the ring punishing him with back rakes, leg holds and more. Everyone was hoping for and eventually got the Okada hot tag which swung the momentum back to CHAOS. This time, however, Bullet Club was smarter knowing if they could just get rid of Okada they’d have it in the bag. Omega tossed Okada into the guardrail (real hard, I might add, even Gedo cringed on the outside). Thinking they had YOSHI where they wanted him, Bullet Club went to work but Okada slid in to breakup a pinfall. This set of a chain reaction of nearfall saves from both teams. YOSHI-HASHI hit a Senton, broken up. Chase Owens hits a Cradle Piledriver into an Omega running knee… nope. It would take me four paragraphs to list every reversal and nearfall save in the last five minutes so I’ll spare you.

After an intense back and forth, Omega was finally able to get YOSHI-HASHI one-on-one in the ring and eventually the One-Winged Angle was too much for TACOS to handle as Omega picked up the win for his team. This was awesome.

Omega/Owens are now inching closer to .500 at 2-3 (4 points) while Okada/YOSHI-HASHI fall to 3-2 (6 points).

****