NJPW World Tag League results: The finals are set
The finals of this year’s World Tag League will be set after tonight’s show in Akita.
There are four teams at 18 points, and coincidentally enough they are all facing each other tonight: Killer Elite Squad vs. EVIL and SANADA and Guerrillas of Destiny vs. Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano. The winners of these two matches, should they be clean finishes with no draws, should determine the two teams that will advance to the finals on December 9.
It seems like the end of the road for the rest of the teams in the tournament, but there are still plenty of other tag team matches that will determine rankings. It would be interesting to see if Shota Umino and Ayato Yoshida, who have scored 0 points in the tournament so far, will be able to pull off a win against Manabu Nakanishi and Yuji Nagata.
Another eight man tag headlines tonight’s show. HIroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, KUSHIDA and Rocky Romero will team up to take on JAy White, Bad Luck Fale, Taiji Ishimori and Gedo.
Join us this morning starting at 5 a.m. ET. Kevin Kelly and Excalibur will be on commentary.
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World Tag League: Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi defeated Ayato Yoshida & Shota Umino
This was fine, but your typical opener between young lions and the old guard in Nagata/Nakanishi. Umino showed great fire in selling all of Nagata’s offense. He eventually fell to the Nagata lock while Nakanishi kept Yoshida at bay. So in other words, Yoshida and Umino fail to score any points in the tournament.
World Tag League: Tencozy defeated Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka
This too felt atypical. I’ve seen plenty of times where Suzuki or a cohort take someone to the crowd, only for them to magically come back to the ring at 19. Iizuka came in and did whatever he calls offense. He escaped a 3D once, but fell for it a second time. Tenzan went and did the moonsault and connected as well as he could for the win.
World Tag League: Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi defeated Togi Makabe & Toa Henare
This time around it was Taichi and Sabre who took it into the crowd. Another countout tease. Sabe works on Henare’s leg. Suzuki-gun are in control for awhile until Makabe is finally tagged in. Makabe went for the king kong knee drop, but Sabre held him back.
Henare missed a charge in the corner as he and Taichi went at it. Henare went for a charge to the corner but Taichi grabbed his cane and whacked Henare with it. He finished things off with the press powerbomb. Another okay match, but nothing to write home about.
World Tag League: Juice Robinson and David Finlay defeated Best Friends by DQ
This was a much better match than previous bouts, lots of good back and forth action crowd was kind of quiet, though. Best Friends worked over Finlay and isolated him from Juice. Chuckie T was on offense and got a nearfall with a piledriver.
Chuckie T has a new gimmick now where he introduces weapons for no real reason other than I guess these tournaments need someone to do DQs now. He just whacks Finlay with a chair for the DQ. He then piledrove the referee which got the crowd to boo.I hope this is going somewhere.
World Tag League: Hangman Page and Yujiro Takahashi defeated Jeff Cobb & Michael Elgin
Hangman & Cobb, as well as Elgin & Yujiro, paired off against each other early. Hangman & Cobb’s offense looked good. Hangman eventually works over both men, launching off with a giant moonsault off the top to the floor.
Elgin came back to mount some offense, but Yujiro raked him in the eyes and hit the pimp juce DDT. Cobb came back and laid out Yujiro with the tour of the islands. Page fired back with the buckshot lariat then pinned Cobb with the rite of passage. This was pretty good, but this crowd was quiet tonight and it hurt match quality as a result.
Kevin Kelly pushed Hangman Page vs. Jeff Cobb ahead of their Final Battle match next week. Page said on commentary after the match that Cobb had one week to rest.
Jay White, Bad Luck Fale, Taiji Ishimori and Gedo defeated Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA and Rocky Romero
Okada didn’t even wait for the bell as he went right after the Bullet Club crew, the rest of his team following suit. KUSHIDA was getting the heat when White cut him off, allowing the rest of the Bullet Club to jump everyone, take them into the crowd and throw them into the barricades.
Back in the ring, the heels worked over KUSHIDA, grinding him down with sleeper holds. Tanahashi was eventually tagged in and worked on Fale’s knee. KUSHIDA and Romero worked over White and Ishimori together. Okada hit White with the dropkick as Tanahashi laid out Fale with the slingblade.
Romero scored some nearfalls, with Okada coming in for an assist. However, White manages to grab Romero, laid out Okada with Romero then pinned him with the Switchblade. Pretty good while it lasted.
The story being pushed here is that Okada & Tanahashi failed each time they faced off against the Bullet Club on this tour.
World Tag League: EVIL & SANADA defeated Killer Elite Squad
This started off as a good back and forth match. Archer pushed EVIL into Red Shoes, who rolled out of the ring into the floor. Archer then grabbed the exposed turnbuckle and threw EVIL into it. Archer introduced a chair and went to whip EVIL into it, but EVIL countered and sent Archer head first into the chair.
SANADA and DBS worked for a bit before Archer came in helped DBS plant SANADA with an avalanche powerslam. DBS went for the bulldog bomb but SANADA countered with a roll-up and got the surprise win. EVIL & SANADA advance to the finals in a good match.
Archer argued it wasn’t a three count after the match. DBS put someone through a table in anger.
World Tag League: Guerrillas of Destiny defeated Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano
Heels worked over Yano early, avoiding Ishii. Ishii came in for a hot tag, then Yano came in to continue the momentum, taking out Loa with a belly to belly. Both Loa and Tonga made a comeback, hitting stereo splashes on Yano. They hit Guerrilla Warfare on Yano, but he kicked out.
Yano continued to fight back, pushing Tonga into Loa. Loa distracted the referee but Yano was about to low blow him when Tonga interrupted. Jado struck Yano in the back, giving the GoD an opportunity. They planted Yano with a powerbomb off the middle rope, with Loa getting the pinfall.
That makes it Guerrillas of Destiny vs. EVIL and SANADA in the finals of the World Tag League on 12/9.
Loa says this show isn’t over yet. He calls out SANADA and EVIL who obliged, selling the match they had with KES earlier. He asked them to enter the ring. He brought up that last year GoD lost to them, but they beat them during the World Tag League. It’s now one and one, and they’ll get the win on Sunday.
They all started to leave, but GoD, along with Jado and his cane, jumped them. They hit the magic killer on SANADA and posed over them to close out the show.
Final Standings:
- Guerrillas of Destiny (10-3) — 20 points
- EVIL & SANADA (10-3) — 20 points
- Killer Elite Squad (9-4) — 18 points
- Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano (9-4) — 18 points
- Michael Elgin & Jeff Cobb (8-5) — 16 points
- Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi (8-5) — 16 points
- Juice Robinson & David Finlay (8-5) — 16 points
- Best Friends (7-6) — 14 points
- Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka (5-8) — 10 points
- Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi (5-8) — 10 points
- Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima (5-8) — 10 points
- Togi Makabe & Toa Henare (4-9) — 8 points
- Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi (3-10) — 6 points
- Ayato Yoshida & Shota Umino (0-13) — 0 points