NJPW Road to Destruction results: Suzuki-gun vs. Taguchi Japan

Korakuen Hall was home to a second show building up the big matches to the first Destruction show of the month this Sunday morning. With Minoru Suzuki battling Michael Elgin for the NEVER title just 24 hours away, their respective teams squared off in an elimination tag match. Here are the results: 

Yuji Nagata, Hirai Kawato & Tomoyuki Oka defeated Manabu Nakanishi, Katsuya Kitamura & Shota Umino

Kitamura worked on Kawato for a part of the match, and Nakanishi worked on Oka. Eventually boiled down to Oka and Umino, with the former submitting the latter with a Boston crab. Solid opener.

Hirooki Goto, Baretta & YOSHI-HASHI defeated Yujiro Takahashi, Bad Luck Fale & Tanga Roa

This was a pretty solid match; everyone looked good but there isn’t much to talk about. Focus was Baretta getting a measure of revenge over Yujiro Takahashi from a few days ago where he lost cleanly to him. This time, he scored the win by hyperextending one of Takahashi’s legs and pinning him.

Bullet Club jumped Chaos after the match, with Takahashi gaining the upper hand once again by laying out Baretta with the pimp juice DDT. This seems to be an angle that’ll play out over the next month.

War Machine & Togi Makabe defeated Killer Elite Squad & Taka Michinoku

War Machine and KES worked a lot of the match against one another, brawling around the ring before going at it inside. The action here was pretty good, particularly when War Machine was on offense. They clearly don’t have an off night. KES looked really good too. Eventually there was an opening where Makabe laid out Michinoku and pinned him with the king kong knee drop.

Rocky Romero & Will Ospreay defeated Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI

Ospreay came out with cat whiskers painted on. He and Takahashi have been arguing on Twitter over if Ospreay is a cat or not. I guess this proves Takahashi’s assumptions, though Ospreay still denies that he is a cat. Hey, don’t ask me what’s going on there. I don’t think he is a cat either, for the record. 

Match focused between those two, though others were in too and overall the match was good. Ospreay took out Takahashi with a dive, allowing Romero to strike BUSHI with a knee for the win.

The same vignette from a few days ago (and from the G1 finals) aired briefly following intermission.

Juice Robinson & David Finlay defeated Chase Owens & Leo Tonga

A lot of this was Owens working over Finlay, with Tonga coming in to do big spots. Robinson came in and cleared house on Tonga. Robinson was going for the pulp friction when Tonga was about to come in with a big boot. Robinson dodges in the nick of time, causing Tonga to lay out Owens and gave Robinson the opportunity to lay out Tonga with the pulp friction for the win.

Tetsuya Naito, EVIL & SANADA defeated Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano

Another match that was dedicated to the feuds. Naito and Ishii worked a bulk of the match, with the action looking pretty damn good, same with EVIL and Okada. Whenever Yano and SANADA were in, hijinks would ensue — turnbuckle pads removed, hair pulling, etc. SANADA eventually got the win for his team after a ref spot by Yano went awry, allowing SANADA to low blow him and roll him up.

Michael Elgin, Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA, Ryusuke Taguchi & Ricochet defeated Minoru Suzuki, Takashi Iizuka, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Desperado in an elimination tag match

Heels worked early to eliminate Tanahashi but everyone else came in to his rescue. Tanahashi gets Suzuki on the apron, but Suzuki counters with an armlock on the ropes. Heels worked on Tanahashi’s still injured bicep. Ricochet comes in and lays out Kanemaru. Taichi interferes, allowing a distracted Ricochet to be rolled up by Kanemaru for the first elimination.

Taguchi came in and got the next pin. Kanemaru jumped off the top rope and was met with a hip attack. Kanemaru tried to roll him up, but Taguchi held on and pinned him instead. Taichi pinned Taguchi with the Gedo clutch next after Kanemaru misted him with the whiskey.

Taichi was eliminated next after taking an errant whiskey spot by Kanemaru and getting hit with a springboard by KUSHIDA. After escaping the stretch muffler, KUSHIDA went for the Back to the Future, but Iizuka came in with the iron fingers, blasted him, then Desperado rolled him up to eliminate him.

Tanahashi and Desperado went at it as they were both dangling on the apron. Elgin came in to eliminate Desperado, but Iizuka grabbed Tanahashi as he was skinning the cat and threw him to the floor, eliminating him. 

Elgin took care of Iizuka with an Elgin bomb not too long after, thus leading us to the two participants for Sunday morning’s show. Suzuki grabs an arm, but Elgin deadlifts him until Suzuki stops him near the ropes. Suzuki-gun came back to interfere, but Tanahashi and Ricochet came back to even the odds.

Elgin went for his finish, but Suzuki blocked. Elgin managed to send Suzuki to the apron where he blasted him with a kick to the temple that sent him to the floor, giving his team the win in a really good main event.

Elgin says no matter where Minoru Suzuki is at tomorrow, he is going to be stepping in the ring with him. Tomorrow, New Japan has a new NEVER Openweight champion, Big Mike.