This coming weekend sees Ring of Honor and NJPW partner up to put on two huge back to back shows at the famous Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan on Sunday and Monday at 09:30 am GMT live only on New Japan World.
With a total of fourteen matches taking place across the two nights you may ask which ones you should go out of your way to see. Well thats where we take over and breakdown the matches which you simply cannot afford to miss.
Night One;
The huge eight man tag match pitting Chaos against the Bullet Club should be lots of fun and features some real heavy hitters. Will be interesting to see how Brit Will Ospreay can stand out amongst such strong characters as Okada, Goto and Takahashi but I for one am a sucker for a good stable and these two are truly two of the best stables in the World right now.
Young Bucks and War Machine are almost World’s apart in respect of their style of wrestling but I think that these four men will put on a great match with lots of energy. Both teams have worked in Japan a lot so will know how to work the crowd and I certainly think that will be a key factor in them putting on a great bout.
The six man match featuring two of the Los Ingobernables de Japon with Punisher Martinez taking on Taguchi, Tanahashi and Castle could be great and would definitely be one to watch. The flair of both Takahashi and Castle could be too much for the Korakuen Hall to handle and I just cannot wait to see how Naito and Takahashi react. Add in Punisher Martinez and this one just has all the makings for a great.
Night Two;
Ospreay, Okada, The Briscoes, Cody, Omega & The Young Bucks are arguably some of the very best names on the indy scene right now and so I think this one speaks for itself. I simply cannot recommend watching this match highly enough and whilst Okada will be the single Japanese wrestler in this match, everyone else has competed in Japan on many occasions and so will be able to really draw the crowd in to what has the potential to be match of the weekend.
Goto Vs Punisher Martinez should be a cracking bout and I am really looking forward to this one. Goto is just a scary dude and it is going to take someone as crazy as Punisher Martinez to take the NEVER Openweight Title from him. That being said I would be very surprised to see a Title change in this one but we will definitely get a great outing from these two men.
I am very much looking forward to seeing Adam Cole take on Yoshi-Hashi and I really feel that its in singles matches were Cole shines. He is putting his ROH World Title on the line and you can expect a very physical gruelling match between these two men. Again I don’t suspect we will see a Title change as I don’t think that Yoshi-Hashi really appeals to the ROH audience but I think we will get a stand out performance from both men, in particular Adam Cole, Bay Bay!
Here are the full cards for both shows;
Honor Rising Night 1 – 26th February, 2017
The Briscoes vs. Kenny Omega & Adam Cole (Bullet Club)
Jay Lethal & Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hangman Page & Cody Rhodes (Bullet Club)
Ryusuke Taguchi, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Dalton Castle vs. Hiromu Takahashi, Tetsuya Naito & Punisher Martinez
War Machine vs. The Young Bucks
Will Ospreay, Yoshi-Hashi, Hirooki Goto & Kazuchika Okada (Chaos) vs. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Yujiro Takahashi & Bad Luck Fale (Bullet Club)
Tiger Mask, Jushin Thunder Liger & Delirious vs. Bushi, Evil & Sanada (Los Ingobernables de Japon)
David Finlay, Juice Robinson & Kushida vs. Jado, Gedo & Silas Young
Honor Rising Night 2 -27th February, 2017
Will Ospreay, Kazuchika Okada & The Briscoes vs. Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks (Bullet Club)
Adam Cole (c) vs. Yoshi-Hashi for the ROH World Championship
Hirooki Goto (c) vs. Punisher Martinez for the NEVER Openweight Championship
Juice Robinson, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jay Lethal vs. Hangman Page, Yujiro Takahashi & Bad Luck Fale (Bullet Club)
War Machine vs. Guerrillas of Destiny
Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask, Jushin Thunder Liger, Dalton Castle & Delirious vs. Hiromu Takahashi, Bushi, Evil, Sanada & Tetsuya Naito (Los Ingobernables de Japon)
Henare, David Finlay & Kushida vs. Jado, Gedo & Silas Young