New Japan Pro Wrestling

Best of the Super Juniors Night 7

May 22, 2019

Korakuen Hall

Tokyo, Japan

Watch on New Japan World

Taiji Ishimori defeats Taka Michinoku

TAKA has firmly established himself as the loss post in his block. Here he got dispatched by Taiji Ishimori in quick fashion. They still managed to have nice back and forth and worked this at a fast pace. Good quick opener, nothing more and nothing less.

Bandido defeats Ren Narita

Ren Narita is simply amazing. It’s yet another fantastic performance from the Young Lion and while Bandido had been a bit disappointing so far he held his own in this match. He sometimes feels like a guy just stringing together video game spots but his chemistry with Narita was immediately apparent here.

Narita’s crowd connection is always great to see and they were cheering him all throughout the match. He was more than able to match Bandido’s relentless pace and they were just going all out from the opening bell to the pinfall. As this tournament progresses it just becomes more and more apparent that Narita is a future main eventer and potential ace of the Company.

Jonathan Gresham defeats Titan

Gresham still has fingers taped up from his first tournament match against Scurll. Now this is more like the Titan I know, who has great matches with Barbaro Cavernario in CMLL. Finally Gresham has an opponent that can match his pace and keep up with him on the mat.

You could feel that each man was desperate for a win, as they only had one win prior to this match. Gresham proved once again that there is almost no one who manages to tie his opponent up like a pretzel quite like him. Here he manages to catch Titan after a great back and forth contest for a tap out victory.

YOH defeats Rocky Romero

They played up the familiarity between both men early on. l like that they are continuing the story of Rocky’s bum knee while putting over his arm work as deadly. It gives his matches a nice story to tell. This ended up being the story of this match as well as Rocky kept dissecting YOH’s arm and YOH working over Rocky’s leg in return. In the end Rocky’s bum knee proves to be too much to overcome for him and he is forced to tap out. Good match.

Dragon Lee defeats Tiger Mask

Grumpy vet Tiger Mask doesn’t have any time for Dragon Lee’s shit. These two were hitting each other with some stiff strikes early on. Unfortunately this match slowed down a lot after a hot start. They did some mat wrestling, which is not necessarily Dragon Lee’s strong suit. It was still a decent match overall though.

BUSHI defeats DOUKI

This match way exceeded my expectations. Now to be fair I am not a big fan of either man, but they managed to have a nice hot brawl. This match was exactly what it needed to be and did well with hiding the participants’ shortcomings. They didn’t overstay their welcome either and got in and out rather quickly. Crowd was hot for the match as well, which also helped it. Good effort from both men.

Yoshinobu Kanemaru defeats SHO

Ok not much to say about the match itself but the finish was absolutely perfect. Kanemaru is just a grimy bastard that will use any trick to win. It also gives SHO a loss that shows he just isn’t quite there yet as he just could get outfoxed by a veteran. New Japan also reestablishes a count out as a legitimate match outcome, which is something New Japan likes to do every once in a while.

Robbie Eagles defeats Ryusuke Taguchi

This match just didn’t work for me. It was fine for the most part but I really struggled to pay attention and stay focused on it. Decent match, I suppose, but to me it largely just happened.

Shingo Takagi defeats Marty Scurll

This match was awesome. This is the Marty Scurll I want, as he was all business right from the start. He kept his shtick to a minimum and applied it in a way that made sense as a part of the match. They were laying in their strikes very stiffly and Marty sold his ass off for Shingo’s power moves. This match was a reminder why I used to be quite a big fan of Scurll and if he would have more performances like this I would become one again.

Now I would have liked this match even more without the Brody King interference stuff. But it actually served as putting Shingo over as even more of an unstoppable monster as he essentially overcame a 2 on 1 disadvantage here. Great match and Scurll’s best match in a long time.

El Phantasmo defeats Will Ospreay

Very good match but I felt it went a little longer than it needed to. Nevertheless, both men played their roles perfectly here. ELP was just an unrelenting douchebag that you wanted to see get beat and Will was the valiant babyface trying to overcome the dastardly heel. ELP controlled the early portion of the match, Will controlled the middle and then we had a nice back and forth at the end.

They timed their big spots quite nicely and the match moved a long at a nice pace. It would have been even better if it went a couple minutes shorter as that would have allowed them to trim the fat a bit. The win is a big step for ELP as it firmly establishes him as a contender in the tournament and Ospreay loses absolutely nothing, except the match I suppose.

Overall Thoughts

This was the best night of the tournament so far. The top two matches both delivered and everything else was good to at least decent. You should watch this entire show as the matches fly by and are all entertaining to some degree, although Taguchi vs Eagles didn’t do anything for me. The rest though was very good. A top notch effort from New Japan.