The New Japan Cup traveled to Okayama on Tuesday featuring two more opening-round matches including SANADA vs. Tomohiro Ishii.
The main event of the show was a strong match that saw SANADA pin Ishii after more than twenty-five minutes.
The two had a sprint at the end with multiple counters, reversals, and pop-ups ending with a pop-up TKO and top-rope moonsault by SANADA for the victory.
It was a well-wrestled match and at or above the level you would anticipate from the respective participants.
There was a sequence of suplexes mid-way through the match where each popped up immediately and got the crowd engaged. SANADA was sent into the corner with a release German suplex but came back with the Skull End that Ishii used the rope to escape from.
Ishii, as always, had tremendous fire and an air of frustration as he pounded the mat following SANADA’s kick-out from a Sliding D.
It was an entertaining main event and held the attention for the duration.
In the other tournament match, Yuji Nagata defeated Yota Tsuji with a Teacher vs. Student theme as Tsuji was slated for an important match in his career through his inclusion in the tournament.
It was a similar story to Zack Sabre Jr. and Gabriel Kidd over the weekend, although this wasn’t at the level of that technical clinic.
Tsuji threatened with the Boston Crab but the story was Nagata having all the counters and answers to thwart Tsuji. The Dojo product executed several brutal slaps but Nagata ate them and responded with a spinning heel kick before executing the Backdrop Hold and winning the match.
SANADA and Nagata will meet in the second round this Sunday.
There are three more matches in the opening round and they all take place Wednesday from Kyoto:
*Chase Owens vs. David Finlay
*YOSHI-HASHI vs. Yujiro
*Jay White vs. Toa Henare
The main event of the show is White vs. Henare and is easily the biggest match of Henare’s career and the winner meets Hiroshi Tanahashi in the next round, who received a bye.
Here are the results from Tuesday’s card in Okayama:
*EVIL, Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro over Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Yuya Uemura in 8:58
*Will Ospreay, Jeff Cobb & The Great O-Khan over Satoshi Kojima, Tomoaki Honma & Gabriel Kidd in 8:36
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, Juice Robinson, David Finlay & Toa Henare over Jay White, KENTA, Chase Owens & Gedo in 11:34 with Henare pinning Gedo with a modified Death Valley Bomb
*Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto & SHO over Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi & BUSHI in 13:31
*New Japan Cup Opening Round: Yuji Nagata over Yota Tsuji in 13:42
*New Japan Cup Opening Round: SANADA over Tomohiro Ishii in 25:18
