NJPW Road to Wrestling Dontaku live results: Two title matches
Two titles are on the line at today’s NJPW Road to Wrestling Dontaku show.
In the main event, Hiromu Takahashi defends the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against Yoshinobu Kanemaru.
In the semi-main, TJP & Francesco Akira defend the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against challengers KUSHIDA & Kevin Knight.
Tetsuya Naito takes on DOUKI in a featured singles bout.
The entrants for the upcoming Best of the Super Juniors 30 tournament will also e revealed on the show.
The undercard:
- Shingo Takagi & BUSHI vs. SANADA & Taichi
- Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs. Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado, Ren Narita & Shota Umino
- TMDK (Zack Sabre Jr., Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste) vs. Aussie Open & Jeff Cobb
- Tama Tonga, Hikuleo & Master Wato vs. David Finlay, KENTA & Taiji Ishimori
- Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, Toru Yano & YOH vs. EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, SHO & Dick Togo
- Great-O-Khan & Aaron Henare vs. Oskar Leube & Boltin Oleg
Our live coverage begins at 5:10 a.m. Eastern time.
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United Empire (Aaron Henare & Great-O-Khan) defeated Oleg Boltin & Oskar Leube
This was a great opening tag. It was brief and to the point, but still showed off the young lions’ potential.
Oleg and O-Khan opened the match with an excellent bit of grappling. Throughout the match, the pair continued to interact, proving to be a real highlight.
Ultimately, Henare won the match for UE with Ultima, which he used to submit Leube.
CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, Toru Yano, YOH & YOSHI-HASHI) defeated House Of Torture (Dick Togo, EVIL, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi)
This is the kind of match you would expect from this pairing. It was total silliness and filled with cheating for most of it. Bishamon attempted to increase the match’s seriousness but didn’t accomplish much.
In the end, YH pinned Togo after hitting GYR with Goto.
BULLET CLUB (David Finlay, KENTA & Taiji Ishimori) defeated Guerrillas Of Destiny (Hikuleo & Tama Tonga) & Master Wato
The match opened with a babyface-initiated brawl. This, unsurprisingly, worked in BC’s favor as the match continued.
Finlay would go on to finish the match after hitting Wato with Trash Panda.
KENTA and Hikuleo continued to fight after the match, further setting up their future Strong title bout.
TMDK (Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste & Zack Sabre Jr.) defeated United Empire (Jeff Cobb, Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis)
This was a good six-man that did nothing but add to the upcoming title matches between these teams.
Aussie Open and Haste and Nicholls opened the match with a burst, leaving Cobb and ZSJ free to grapple early on. After Cobb landed a suplex, Davis and Fletcher would establish substantial control over ZSJ.
Haste and Nicholls tried to maintain TMDK’s lead after Davis tagged in but couldn’t hold on. Instead, Aussie Open and Haste and Nicholls went back in forth, forcing Cobb and ZSJ to interfere to keep their partners alive. In this chaos, Haste and Nicholls hit Fletcher with Tank Buster to score a win over the tag team champions.
Strong Style (El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki & Ren Narita) & Shota Umino defeated CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii) & Great Bash Heel (Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma)
While not great, this was a good match that accomplished a lot.
This eight-man set out to achieve multiple goals: Okada continued to explore his impatience during segments with Ren and Desperado; Ishii and whoever he was in the ring with went to war; and GBH was here to beat down Shota so he could shine in the end.
After being on the receiving end of a kokeshi, Shota recovered and hit Makabe with a Death Rider, leading to the win for his team.
Both during and after the match’s runtime, Okada and Ren had numerous heated exchanges, with Okada showing visible frustration throughout. Suzuki was seen eyeing down Okada, but he left most of the fighting to his protege.
Just 5 Guys (SANADA & Taichi) defeated Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI & Shingo Takagi)
Taichi and Shingo opened the match with a prolonged singles exchange. The pair fought both in and out of the ring until they were both forced to make a tag.
BUSHI gained a bit of an upper hand on SANADA, scoring a near fall with a rollup and landing a dive to the floor. All of this proved inconsequential as SANADA locked in Skull End and forced the submission.
Best of the Super Juniors Lineup
A video package was played to reveal the lineup for the upcoming BOSJ.
A Block: Hiromu Takahashi, Ryusuke Taguchi, DOUKI, Taiji Ishimori, SHO, TJP, Titan, KUSHIDA, Lio Rush, Mike Bailey
B Block: El Desperado, Master Wato, YOH, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, BUSHI, Clark Connors, Robbie Eagles, Francesco Akira, Kevin Knight, Dan Moloney
Tetsuya Naito defeated DOUKI
DOUKI started the match strong, rushing Naito, not giving him time to undress. After escaping the DOUKI chokey, Naito landed a neckbreaker to buy himself a breather.
On the outside, Naito gained control by whipping DOUKI into the barricades, and in the ring, Naito maintained his control long enough to force a desperate DOUKI rally.
In the end, Naito held on through DOUKI’s offense. He survived a DDT on the floor, a DOUKI chokey, and Daybreak before finally landing Destino to win the match.
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Jet Setters (Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA) defeated Catch 22 (Francesco Akira & TJP) (c)
The match opened with a scramble between TJP and KUSHIDA, leaving both men on equal footing. Akira and Knight tagged in for an athletic sequence that ended with a dropkick to Knight’s nether regions.
The match then developed into a two-on-two affair, with Akira landing a dive to take out both opponents with aid from TJP. This led into an extended period of Catch 22 control, with a focused effort made to isolate KUSHIDA.
Once Knight tagged in, he was able to turn things around for his team. A dropkick to Akira, while he was positioned on KUSHIDA’s shoulders, scored the challengers a nearfall. This wasn’t the end, though, as Catch 22 fought back, hitting Knight with a tandem facebuster and a top rope double-foot stomp for a pair of nearfalls.
Kushida pulled TJP from the ring to block Catch 22’s finish before tagging in. Once in the match, TJP caught KUSHIDA in a leg submission, which he had set up earlier. Kushida survived and landed a lariat simultaneously with TJP, resulting in a match reset.
Knight tagged in and missed a frankensteiner. TJP capitalized, hitting a splash and a sandwiching double knee strike with Akira; Kushida hit the ring to make the save.
Knight tried again for the frankensteiner, hitting it on his second attempt. Then, Kushida lifted Knight onto his shoulders, allowing Knight to hit their rolling DDT on Akira. Knight then pinned him to win the match and the belts.
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi (c) defeated Yoshinobu Kanemaru
The match opened slow, with Kanemaru trying to gain an advantage with a headlock early. As Hiromu gained control, he matched Kanemaru’s pace with a leglock. Kanemaru answered Hiromu’s leg targeting with dropkicks to Hiromu’s knee before slamming Hiromu knee-first onto the floor. Hiromu spent a ton of time on the floor to recover.
Back in the ring, Kanemaru continued his leg-based attack, using a leglock of his own for quite some time. Eventually, Hiromu mounted a comeback after interrupting Kanemaru’s whiskey spot. Hiromu landed timebomb for a nearfall.
After surviving Hiromu’s finish, Kanemaru landed another dropkick to the knee and returned to the leglock. Kanemaru landed a DDT, a moonsault, and Deep Impact, but Hiromu kicked out. Growing desperate, Kanemaru landed Touch Out, but Hiromu kicked out again, so he returned to the leglock.
After escaping another extended period in the leglock, Hiromu dropped Kanemaru on his head, and a lariat knocked Kanemaru off of his feet. Hiromu took this opportunity to finish the match, following up with a timebomb and a timebomb 2 to win and retain his belt.
In his show-closing promo, Hiromu adjusted his sights to his match with SANADA.