NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed results: East Coast tour begins

Submitted by Jesse Collings

NJPW’s Fighting Spirit Unleashed East Coast tour kicked off at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium in Lowell, Massachusetts on Friday night. It will continue in New York City on Saturday and then conclude in Philadelphia on Sunday. The NYC show will air live on New Japan World with Japanese commentary.

Here are the results from night one:

– Karl Fredericks defeated Alex Coughlin

Basic Young Lions match — a lot of hard chops and typical NJPW style with a lot of selling. Fredericks won with a modified half-crab.

– Lance Archer defeated Ren Narita

Archer felt like a superstar. His theme song was over and people in unison all chanted “Everybody Dies!” during it. Narita was given a lot for a Young Lion facing a veteran.

They worked a spot where Narita kept trying to slam Archer — and when he finally did the crowd popped big for it. Narita kicked out of the Texas Hightower (Archer’s chokeslam). Archer pinned him with the EBD Claw.

– Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls defeated Clark Connors & TJP

Basic tag match. They worked on Connors for a long time before TJP made a hot tag. Nicholls eventually pinned Connors after a Blue Thunder Bomb.

– Chase Owens & Jado defeated The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson)

Considering he was the only guy who could really take a lot of bumps, Owens had to work very hard during this match. Morton and Gibson were pretty over as a nostalgia act — and Morton actually hit a tope to the outside.

Owens eventually pinned Morton after a package piledriver.

– Tomohiro Ishii & Amazing Red defeated BUSHI & Shingo Takagi

The crowd was really into Ishii and Takagi and they had their typical fight: big forearm exchange spot, shoulder tackles, etc. Ishii pinned BUSHI after a brainbuster. Interesting that they didn’t pin Red since he doesn’t even work full-time for the company.

– Hirooki Goto, Rocky Romero & YOSHI-HASHI defeated Gedo, Jay White & KENTA

KENTA didn’t do much in the match. He hit a few moves but just looked like he was going through the motions. The crowd liked Goto and reacted to him like he was a star. White worked really hard and fast and crisp with all of his stuff.

YOSHI-HASHI submitted Gedo with his Butterfly Lock.

– IWGP Tag Team Champions Guerillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) defeated Roppongi 3K (SHO & YOH) to retain their titles.

This ended up being really good. Guerrillas of Destiny were over pretty big during their entrance.

They built a great series of spots at the end where YOH rolled Tonga up a couple of times for some really close near falls. Tonga then went for the Gun Stun, with YOH catching him into a backslide for an awesome near fall, since it felt like if they were going to pull off the upset, it would have to be on a move like that.

Tonga slipped out of the pinning attempt and hit the Gun Stun for the win.

– Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi defeated Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & EVIL

The match was mostly about the personalities in it. The crowd really dug the star power in the ring, especially on the babyface side. They didn’t do anything crazy, but they didn’t have to.

They built up to the finish with everyone going for their trademark moves. Naito tried to cradle Tanahashi, but Tanahashi reversed it and pinned Naito. The crowd didn’t really expect that finish.

Tanahashi stayed in the ring after the match and cut a short promo in English, saying he doesn’t have a title now but he will never give up, never retire, and that when he comes back, he will have a title.