NJPW and ROH put on the first Honor Rising card today and it was a great start at Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall. Heading into the show there was much hype about the return of Kenny Omega who hadn’t competed in a New Japan ring since Wrestle Kingdom 11.
Starting off the card was a great six man match with some great spots between Robinson and Silas which resulted in Juice seeming to break his nose. That didn’t stop him though and he picked up the win for his team hitting Gedo with Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Clutch for the victory.
Los Ingobernables de Japon retained the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Titles against a team of Liger, Tiger Mask & Delirious in another exciting bout. Despite his age, Liger showed that he can still compete with the very best in the world and the end came when SANADA sunk in the Skull End on Delirious, retaining the Titles and proving that LIJ are one of the very best stables in wrestling today.
It wasn’t a great night overall for The Bullet Club and it kicked off with a loss in a big eight man tag team match against Chaos. For me the stand out star was Will Ospreay who despite being surrounded by some big names was able to let his talent shine through, albeit he was on the receiving end of a fair amount of punishment. Chaos picked up the win when Yoshi-Hashi pinned Takahashi.
War Machine served the Bullet Club another loss when they defeated ROH Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks. Hanson & Rowe provided a great amount of entertainment in this one and matched the Bucks charisma and flair, with Hanson even showing off with a cartwheel. Some great chemistry between the teams and the end came when War Machine hit Fallout on Matt for the three count.
Tanahashi and Taguchi coming out dressed as Dalton Castles boys just made this match for me, such a fantastic opening. Castle was so over with the Japanese crowd it was insane and were just eating up everything he served them. I genuinely can’t remember much about this one as I was too busy revelling in the fantastic entrance, but the end came when Punisher Martinez pinned Castle and was shortly thereafter given the middle finger by his teammate Naito.
The main thing that everyone was waiting for in this one was for Shibata to get his hands, or rather his feet on Cody and Cody built up to it in spectacular fashion. A cartwheel followed up by blowing Shibata a kiss was all the fuel that he needed and when he finally made the hot tag he did not let Cody off lightly. Classic Shibata drop kick to the corner followed up by some rather stick punts into the face should of ended it, but Jay Lethal was the man getting pin after hitting Page with the Lethal Injection.
In the main event it was always going to be hard to overcome just how excited the Korakuen Hall fans were to see Omega back inside the squared circle and this one did suffer a bit because of that. The Briscoes did put up a good showing and Omega returned to crazy Kenny, deciding to put everything on the line in a series of insane moves. I don’t think anyone was expecting a technical masterpiece in this one and we didn’t get it, but we did get a very well paced high spot match which ended when Cole pinned Mark Briscoe to give the Bullet Club their only win of the show. After the match there seemed to be some tension between Cole and Omega which could potentially lead to a split but who knows?
Here are the full results from for the NJPW & ROH Honor Rising;
Juice Robinson, David Finlay, & KUSHIDA defeated Gedo, Jado, & Silas Young
EVIL, BUSHI, & SANADA defeated Delirious, Jushin “Thunder” Liger, & Tiger Mask to retain the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Title
Chaos (Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, Will Ospreay, & YOSHI-HASHI) defeated The Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, & Yujiro Takahashi)
War Machine defeated The Young Bucks
Punisher Martinez, Tetsuya Naito, & Hiromu Takahashi defeated Dalton Castle, Hiroshi Tanahashi, & Ryusuke Taguchi
Jay Lethal & Katsuyori Shibata defeated Hangman Page & Cody
Kenny Omega & Adam Cole defeated The Briscoes