NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIORS 30 SEMIFINALS
MAY 26, 2023
YOYOGI 2ND GYMNASIUM
TOKYO, JAPAN

Watch: NJPW World (free!)

After two weeks of intense battles, Best of the Super Juniors 30 has come down to the final four! Speedball Mike Bailey, El Desperado, Titán, and Master Wato faced off to determine who would make it to Sunday’s final.

TALES FROM THE UNDERCARD (NAMES IN BOLD INVOLVED IN THE FALL)

  • TMDK (Kosei Fujita & Robbie Eagles) def. BULLET CLUB (Clark Connors & Gedo) – That’s right! Ichiban Sweetboy, who was the legal man the entire match, scored the fall over Gedo with the European Clutch.
  • United Empire (Aaron Henare & Great-O-Khan) def. Tomoaki Honma & Toru Yano
  • United Empire (Dan Moloney, Francesco Akira & TJP) def. Intergalactic Jet Setters (Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA) & Ryusuke Taguchi
  • CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, Lio Rush, YOH & YOSHI-HASHI) def. House Of Torture (Dick Togo, EVIL, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi) – After the match, Great O-Khan & Aaron Henare attacked Bishamon and made a challenge to enter the Tag Title match at Dominion in place of Aussie Open. House of Torture then low-blowed everyone and denied O-Khan’s challenge, with the announcers noting that it wasn’t their call.

  • Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, & Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Oleg Boltin, Oskar Leube & Shota Umino
  • Just 5 Guys (DOUKI, SANADA, Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) def. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito)

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIOR 30 SEMI-FINAL MATCH
MASTER WATO DEF. MIKE BAILEY

Watomania is indeed running wild, as Master Wato punched his ticket to the Super Junior finals here with the Tsutenkaku German. I’ve seen a lot of people surprised by this result, but if you’ve been paying attention to New Japan this year, this shouldn’t be surprising. Wato got a major spotlight in the Jr. Title match at Wrestle Kingdom. He got a showcase singles match at New Beginning against Taiji Ishimori. He main evented the All Star Junior Festival. One of the stories of this year has been the deliberate elevation of Master Wato, and it is culminating here with a major win and a berth in the Super Junior Finals.

Speedball Mike Bailey has been the MVP of the tournament, and his great performance continued here with his onslaught of offense on Wato. He pummeled Wato with his offense and survived most of Wato’s attempts at a comeback.

Speedball hit the Ultima Weapon, but Wato kicked out, marking the first time anyone had kicked out of the Ultima Weapon on this tour. Speedball still had the Flamingo Driver in his back pocket, but Wato was able to escape Bailey’s grip and pull off the Tsutenkaku German to score the win. This may not have been his tournament to win, but I would welcome Bailey back to New Japan with open arms any day. ****1/4

BEST OF THE SUPER JUNIOR 30 SEMI-FINAL MATCH
TITÁN DEF. EL DESPERADO

Now this one is a shocker.

When writing about Night 8 of the tournament, I noted that Titán never left a strong mark on me when watching him. It wasn’t about his work. His wrestling was good, as he brought a lot of crisp, unique offense. What was missing were real stakes for him to fight for and investment on my part. He’d always just been a name in the Super Junior field. A perennial 6-pointer who, at most, would play the part of spoiler on the deciding nights. He joined LIJ, but he was second fiddle to Hiromu. It just looked like he was going to be around for more tours, which made sense as rumors began – and have since been debunked – that BUSHI was on the way out.

Even in this tournament, while he was scoring wins, Titán never felt like a threat to be a factor come playoff time. I even wrote that he was “mathematically alive, but realistically not winning” in my Week One round-up last week. But lo and behold, he sweeps his last three, tapping out Hiromu to earn his spot here. And with all of Los Ingobernables in his corner, he tapped out Desperado with Llave Inmortal to make his way to the Super Jr. Finals. Titán is the first Mexican to make the finals since Dr. Wagner Jr. in 1998, and now he has the chance to be the first Mexican winner of Best of Super Juniors since Eddy Guerrero (as Black Tiger II) won it in 1996.

The match itself was a wild battle that went all over the building, seeing Titán take flight out of the stands onto Desperado with a crossbody.

Titán then worked on Desperado’s legs with submission holds, including a Mexican Figure Four. Titán took one too many risks, catching nothing but the floor when Desperado avoided a top rope double stomp to the outside. It was a controlled version of the fall Mercedes Moné took at Resurgence that broke her ankle. Desperado immediately went to work on the leg, cranking on Numero Dos. But Titán would survive, turning the Numero Dos into a Destroyer. Titán hit the top rope double stomp, then when Desperado kicked out, he locked on Llave Inmortal. Desperado fought hard to keep Titán from getting the grip under his chin, but Titán locked it in and quickly got the submission win. ****1/4

Post-match, we got the faceoff between the Super Juniors finalists.

Sunday night, it will be Master Wato vs. Titán to determine the winner of Best of the Super Juniors 30!

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