New Japan Pro Wrestling
Road to Power Struggle Night 3
October 19, 2018

Watch: NJPW World

We are in the Green Arena in Hiroshima as four teams do Super Junior Tag League battle. This was the first stop of the tour where only the two Tag League matches were taped, so here are the other results:

  • Shota Umino & Yota Tsuji defeat Ren Narita & Yuya Uemura
  • Chris Sabin, KUSHIDA & Toa Henare defeat Ayato Yoshida, El Soberano Jr. & Volador Jr.
  • BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) defeat CHAOS (Beretta, Hirooki Goto & Chuckie T)
  • CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) defeat Minoru Suzuki & TAKA Michinoku
  • Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tomoaki Honma defeat BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi)
  • BULLET CLUB (Gedo, Jay White, Robbie Eagles & Taiji Ishimori) defeat CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Rocky Romero, SHO & YOH)

TIGER MASK & JUSHIN THUNDER LIGER (4) DEF. BUSHI & SHINGO TAKAGI (4)

Well, I certainly didn’t see this coming. Naito came out with BUSHI and Shingo as a nice surprise for the fans. He was probably in town for the Hiroshima Carp game that day anyway. This was a bog standard tag match. Shingo did show off his power a couple times, pulling Tiger Mask up from a cross armbar up into a Death Valley Driver and suplexing Liger and Tiger simultaneously. That will probably add some fuel to the needless Twitter arguments about him being a heavyweight. Liger took out Shingo with a cannonball on the floor, which led to Tiger rolling Bushi up for the win. I wouldn’t count on LIJ dropping another match in this tournament until the final, but stranger things have happened. **1/2

ACH & RYUSUKE TAGUCHI (2) DEF. EL DESPERADO & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU (2)

Another surprising result here, as the junior tag champs drop another fall in this tournament. Now, only three days in, but Despy and Kanemaru are basically in sixth place. They’re behind on points to both teams in the earlier match and Ishimori/Eagles, and they’re behind on the tiebreaker to Roppongi 3K and now ACH and Taguchi. With four matches to go, the champs essentially have to win out if they want a shot to make the final. As for this match, the crowd was more lively in this one than in the Tiger/Liger win earlier, thanks to ACH getting them into it during his comeback. Match quality wise though, the matches were the same. There was a lot of Taguchi’s ass-based offense, so a warning if your mileage is low on that. Taguchi thwarted that old bastard Kanemaru and his cheating tactics, and got the win with a Dodon to the nuts. **1/2