NJPW Strong results: Resurgence fallout

Matt Morris defeated Alex Coughlin

These two had a good match tonight. Morris looked good, but it was Coughlin who really stood out. He looked like a million bucks, and his new mustache makes him look like the hypothetical lovechild of the Incredible Hulk and Ron Swanson. He ragdolled Morris around early on, but the Drama King put Coughlin away later with a front-falling DDT to win his first match in New Japan.

TJP, Ren Narita & Clark Connors defeated Danny Garcia Fred Yehi & Fred Rosser

We saw another debut tonight in Danny Garcia. He’s 22 and has been active in the US indies and has had matches on AEW television recently. He and TJP were in first for their teams. Kelly mentioned Garcia has an amateur wrestling background.

Later, Connors was later able to get the upper hand over Fred Rosser before tagging TJP back into the match. Narita and Connors charged the blue corner and knocked Rosser’s partners off the apron. Rosser was able to recover in the meantime and was able to bodyslam Connors and tag out to Fred Yehi next. Yehi cleaned house for a bit, but Connors exploded in response, catching Yehi with a snap powerslam as he came off the ropes, and later a spear.

Garcia and Ren Narita were in the for their teams towards the end of the match. Narita landed a front suplex off the ropes; Garcia returned the offense with a low dropkick to the back of Narita’s head. Narita then blocked a suplex attempt from Garcia and locked him in a manji-gatame octopus hold, then transitioned to a bridging wristlock suplex for two. Narita put Garcia away next after a high bridging front suplex, picking up the win for his team.

Narita and Rosser had a small dust-up afterward. Narita pointed at Garcia and implied that Rosser may be the next wrestler he pins.

West Coast Wrecking Crew (Jorel Nelson and Royce Isaacs w/ JR Kratos) defeated Violence Unlimited (Brody King and Chris Dickinson)

Dickinson and Isaacs kicked things off. The story was that WCWC are Dickinson’s replacements in the Team Filthy group. Nelson and Isaacs quickly went into double-team offense and kept Dickinson in the blue corner for as long as they could as they went to work on Dickinson’s left knee. Isaacs locked Dickinson in a kneebar; Nelson smashed Dickinson’s knee across the ring post.

Dickinson threw some “Hail Mary” elbows at Isaacs late in the match. He finally was able to land a deadlift German suplex before tagging Brody King in. King hadn’t actually been in the match yet at this point. King put Nelson in a Boston crab but Isaacs broke it up. Dickinson used a single-underhook suplex on Isaacs, and later a fisherman’s buster on Nelson. WCWC had to resort to more double-teaming to kill Dickinson’s momentum, and since the referee couldn’t stop the two, King decided to stop them himself. When he brought the fight onto the floor, he found JR Kratos waiting for him with a huge lariat, neutralizing King for the last moments of the match.

Back in the ring, Isaacs landed a full-nelson-to-German suplex on Dickinson, which conveniently placed him in position for a big diving elbow drop off the top ropes from Nelson to put Violence Unlimited away and pick up the win. Dickinson continues to get screwed over by his old stablemates in Team Filthy.

Afterward, we saw Team Filthy minus “Filthy” Tom Lawlor backstage. Kratos looked at his cell phone and read a text from Lawlor that said he saw the match and he liked what he saw. He must be watching it on a closed-circuit channel. Isaacs said that they lost to King & Dickinson in the Tag Team Turmoil tournament, but since joining Team Filthy, they’ve now beaten the ROH team, calling it their “return on investment.” Isaacs also called out the Good Brothers and told them to watch their backs.

Final thoughts:

The Strong train continues to move along in terms of storyline. Dickinson is still fending off Team Filthy, Ren Narita picked a fight with Fred Rosse, and Alex Coughlin continues to impress despite his losing streak.

In terms of action, if you liked what you saw on Resurgence last weekend then tonight was more of that. We got high-quality matches all around, with Morris vs. Coughlin and the main event as the two to watch closely.