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Destruction in Fukushima, September 10th:
Yuji Nagata & Hirai Kawato defeated Shota Umino & Manabu Nakanishi. This was an okay opener. Some good stuff from the young lions. Umino showed great fire again, and Kawato is a promising flyer. Nagata & Nakanishi were pretty sluggish in this one. Nagata made Umino submit to a crossface.
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI defeated Tomoyuki Oka & Katsuya Kitamura. This was a big test for NJPW's two biggest young lions. There were some clunky moments, but overall this was a solid match. Kitamura looked great when he fought back into the match by hitting Goto with a delayed suplex. Oka showed a lot of fire when he battled with Goto late in the match. He survived a Goto Boston Crab, but fell to a kick to the chest.
Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens defeated Jado & Beretta. This was okay. This did very little for Beretta and his transition to heavyweight. Being lumbered with Yujiro is a tough spot to be in. Jado needs to get out of the ring, because he isn't good at all. Beretta got to look good and hit a big dive. Yujiro pinned Jado after a DDT.
Juice Robinson & David Finlay defeated Leo Tonga & Bad Luck Fale. Tonga towers over Fale, that's how big he is. Fale took control of the match for his team, this allowed Tonga to come in and pick the bones. Finlay took out Fale with a big dive late in the match. The finish saw a stunner from Finlay and Pulp Friction from Juice to Tonga to finish the match. The finish here was very flat. There was no real back and forth or near falls, it just ended.
Ryusuke Taguchi, Ricochet, Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA & Togi Makabe defeated TAKA Michinoku, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi, El Desperado & Takashi Iizuka. This was a pretty fun match. Lots of brawling and the referee losing control. Desperado did his best to damage KUSHIDA with a stretch muffler ahead of their title match. Ricochet has the best hot tag in wrestling currently. Iizuka led an attack on Tanahashi's injured arm. The finish saw Taguchi use some eye pokes and a roll up on TAKA.
IWGP Tag Team Championship: War Machine defeated Guerrillas of Destiny & Killer Elite Squad. This match just didn't click for whatever reason. The crowd just weren't getting into it and certain parts of the match just fell flat. This would have been much better as a straight up tag between War Machine & KES. There were a couple of minutes between War Machine & GOD where everything just got sloppy. It picked up towards the end with KES going for the Killer Bomb. GOD hit Guerrilla Warfare, but Hanson hit a cannonball off the top and a suicide dive to clean house. War Machine finished off Tanga Loa with Fallout.
Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi defeated Will Ospreay & Tomohiro Ishii. This was the best match of the show up to this point. Ospreay added a whole stack of fire and energy to this, especially when he was in the ring with Hiromu. Naito went after the taped right knee of Ishii. Ospreay & Naito had some fun interactions and the last few minutes saw bodies flying everywhere until Naito hit a low blow and Destino on Ospreay to finish the match. After the bell Naito & Ishii had a stare down ahead of their match for the Wrestle Kingdom briefcase.
NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championship
BUSHI, SANADA & EVIL defeated Rocky Romero, Toru Yano & Kazuchika Okada. This was the best match of the show. Really good stuff in this one. Romero was worked over early until Okada got the tag and went at it with EVIL. Yano did some of his nonsens with SANADA. BUSHI & Romero brought the pace up as they went back and forth with near falls. BUSHI kicked out of sliced bread and Romero kicked out of two versions of MX. Yano was tied up in the ropes by SANADA. The big story was EVIL getting the better of Okada again, as he countered the Rainmaker into the STO to take the champion out of the match. BUSHI hit another MX on Romero to retain the gold for LIJ. This means that LIJ are the most successful six man champions in history with their third consecutive defence.
NEVER Openweight Championship: Lumberjack Match
Minoru Suzuki defeated Michael Elgin. This was completely ruined by outside interference and shenanigans. They never really got out of third gear even before everything got wild. Elgin had Taguchi Japan with him at ringside. Late in the match a big brawl broke out. It ended with Elgin gorilla pressing TAKA to the outside and Ricochet taking everyone out with a big dive. Elgin then hit the Elgin Bomb, but Taichi pulled the referee out. After this we had KES and War Machine get involved and brawl to the back. Just as things looked like they'd settle down, Iizuka wandered to the ring and nailed Elgin with his iron fingers, and Suzuki hit the Gotch Style Piledriver to retain the gold. This just wasn't good at all.
Not a very good show at all. Very little of note happened and nothing is really worth going out of your way to see.
Destruction in Hiroshima is the next big show of the tour and will have KUSHIDA defending the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Championship against El Desperado and Hiroshi Tanahashi defending the IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Zack Sabre Jr.
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