El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru won the Super Junior Tag League tournament on Tuesday after defeating the IWGP junior heavyweight tag champions.
After Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask were officially eliminated after losing to Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato, it came down to the final match on the show where the champions, El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori, suffered their lone blemish during the Tag League.
The match went just over 21 minutes and ended with Kanemaru catching Ishimori with a roll-up. The win gave each team eight points with Desperado & Kanemaru winning based on the tiebreaker of beating the champions.
Taguchi & Master Wato and Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask finished with six points, and Roppongi 3K and Dick Togo & Gedo finished with zero points.
After the match, Desperado & Kanemaru issued a challenge for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Champions. Desperado & Kanemaru have held the championship three times together.
This was the first Super Junior Tag League tournament since 2019 with Roppongi 3K winning the tournament the last two times it was held.
The Tag League dates to 2010 where the inaugural version was won by El Samurai & Koji Kanemoto and was a single-elimination tournament featuring eight teams. Previous winners also include Alex Shelley & KUSHIDA, The Young Bucks, reDRagon, and Ricochet & Matt Sydal.
NJPW is off until next Tuesday when the Summer Struggle tour resumes with four straight nights at Korakuen Hall beginning August 24th.
Below are the results from Tuesday’s show:
*Super Jr. Tag League: El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru over El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori in 21:04
*Super Jr. Tag League: Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato over Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask in 15:40
*Zack Sabre Jr., Taichi, Minoru Suzuki & DOUKI over Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima in 15:21
*Toru Yano & Togi Makabe over Chase Owens & Jado in 11:21
*Great O-Khan over Tomoaki Honma in 10:50
