Csonka’s New Japan Pro Wrestling BOTSJ Night Two Review

Introduction
As a reminder, this will not be another traditional recap, but instead it will be a mash up of the Rs, Instant Analysis and my usual Twitter ramblings I would do during the shows; completely uncensored and as the ideas flow unfiltered to the old keyboard. Remember, this is a review; and I am here to review the show. As always, I encourage discussion and even disagreement, just do so in a respectful manner. I will be doing the review for Raw and most PPVs and iPPVs going forward.

New Japan Pro Wrestling BOTSJ Night One 5.22.15

OFFICIAL RESULTS
* BOTSJ Block A Tournament Bout: Gedo defeated Yohei Komatsu via pin [***¼]
* BOTSJ Block A Tournament Bout: Ryusuke Taguchi defeated Barbaro Cavernario via pin [½*]
* BOTSJ Block B Tournament Bout: Nick Jackson defeated KUSHIDA via pin [**½]
* BOTSJ Block B Tournament Bout: Rocky Romero vs. Alex Shelley did not happen

* Note: This is one of the many shows that New Japan World is not airing live, but instead are making matches available the next day via VOD. On the next day airings they are only making the tournament matches available, so that is all that will be reviewed here. I will try to keep up with the full tournament this year.

Rocky Romero vs. Alex Shelley: Alex Shelley was injured during his night one match, it looks to be an ankle or lower leg injury. At this time it is not exactly clear what is going on here. Some think that the match was a forfeit, and some think that the match was postponed. As of this writing, Shelley is still in the tournament. That poor bastard is cursed when it comes to this tournament. So in the overall standings, I will consider this a forfeit until there is more of a clarification. Lets hope that Shelley has a speedy and complete recovery.

Gedo defeated Yohei Komatsu: THE MAGICAL RUN OF GEDO CONTINUES! Dear lord I know that people are going to shit all over this, but again I have no problem with Gedo getting some run in the tournament. He is still working and he mainly puts guys over but he does need some wins to make his losses mean somwthing. Plus the guy can still have good matches, so I don’t see a big issue with it. I liked the match here as it is basically the same story as the Komatsu vs. Liger match; the young lion trying to prove himself against the established veteran and it works when done right. They got time, they worked a nice pace and Gedo won with the Gedo clutch. Again I liked this, Gedo is working good matches and Komatsu continues to grow as a performer. He didn’t get as much here as I may have liked, but his growth as a performer is there and he continues to impress so far through two matches.

Ryusuke Taguchi defeated Barbaro Cavernario: This match was not good. They did some comedy spots, which while I can enjoy comedy in wrestling I didn’t find what they did particularly good. They largely did nothing, and then hit some dives and then went to the finish out of nowhere where Taguchi hit his ass attack for the win. Taguchi matches are taking the life out of me these days. He drives me insane, and I generally do not enjoy his matches. This was comedy, a couple of dives and the ass finish, literally the ass attack finish. This was easily the worst thing of the first two nights; moving on.

Nick Jackson defeated KUSHIDA: They had a perfectly fine back and forth match here. There was nothing really special at all, as it felt like a basic house show match. They had a nice pace, the stuff they did was fine, KUSHIDA got control down the stretch and appeared to have things in hand. Nick then connected with a kick and then picked up the win with the 450, in what I felt was a surprising result. I felt Nick was here to lose more than win and especially against a guy like KUSHIDA, but in a way I appreciated the result because I didn’t see it coming. It was fine, but completely forgettable.

* End scene.

* Thanks for reading.

* Here are the updated standings…

BLOCK A
* Gedo (2-0)
* Jushin Thunder Liger (1-0)
* Kyle O’Reilly (1-0)
* Bárbaro Cavernario (1-1)
* Ryusuke Taguchi (1-1)
* Baretta (0-1)
* Chase Owens (0-1)
* Yohei Komatsu (0-2)

BLOCK B
* Bobby Fish (1-0)
* Tiger Mask IV (1-0)
* KUSHIDA (1-1)
* Alex Shelley (1-1)
* Nick Jackson (1-1)
* Rocky Romero (1-1)
* David Finlay (0-1)
* Máscara Dorada (0-1)

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”