I was going to watch and review NXT Spring Breakin’ today because I’m still putting myself through the motions of reviewing their big shows. But the USA website and app are straight up broken, so I’ll have to wait for the show to come up on Peacock and review it tomorrow. Or Friday. Or whenever I get to it as the farther away from it occurring it is the less I feel compelled to review it.
This brings me back to my days of reviewing BxB Hulk and YAMATO’s visiting appearances in this tournament in year’s past. Of course, that was before NJPW World existed, so I could only watch the televised matches. I have a hunch that might have been for the best. Every match in this post is from the Best of the Super Junior XXVI tour. Takagi was done with the junior tag title scene, but this was his attempt to reach the top of the junior singles division. Dragon Lee was the champion, and this tournament would decide his next challenger. He’s in the tournament too, and will pick his opponent at Dominion should he win. That’s according to Kevin Kelly on commentary during Takagi’s match against Titan.
May 13, 2019 – Sendai, Miyagi
Shingo Takagi def. SHO {Round Robin Tournament Match}
It’s tough to watch SHO, a guy who looks great and works so hard, in this great match against Takagi, knowing that he’d be stuck in the dead end House of Torture stable not long after this. Reminds me of Daniel Garcia being stuck in the dead end Jericho Appreciation Society in AEW. Takagi humiliated SHO in a pre-match promo, saying the reason this match wasn’t the night’s main event was because SHO wasn’t a main eventer. You didn’t have to go that hard, Takagi. It looked like perhaps SHO had neutralized the Pumping Bomber by working the arm, as Takagi had a hard time gaining any ground with lariats. SHO also paid off a German suplex he’d been teasing but largely unable to hit in past tag matches against Takagi. Eventually, Takagi hits the Pumping Bomber, but it’s not strong enough and SHO kicks out. Then, SHO counters the Last of the Dragon to an armbar. This match rules. And then he kicks out of another Pumping Bomber. But this time, the subsequent Last of the Dragon hits and Takagi gets the win at 25:07. ****¼
May 15, 2019 – Hirosaki, Aomori
Shingo Takagi def. Titan {Round Robin Tournament Match}
You’d think a call called Titan wouldn’t be eligible to be in a cruiserweight tournament. This is very fast-paced right out of the gate. The commentators point out that speed from a luchador is nothing Takagi isn’t familiar with. They also point out that SHO was the only wrestler in the block that was singularly preparing for Takagi, so there won’t be much of a chance for anyone else. I love that the house lights are dimmed for smaller shows now. Pre-World NJ house shows looked so amateurish because of the lighting. Takagi countered all of Titan’s lucha stuff and hit the Noshigami, Pumping Bomber, and Last of the Dragon for the win at 10:25. Takagi was still working through the arm injury here, but the message I got was that it’s not going to hold him back. He makes sure Titan is okay before heading to the back. What a mensch. ***
May 18, 2019 – Yamagata, Yamagata
Shingo Takagi def. Yoshinobu Kanemaru {Round Robin Tournament Match}
Everything I said about the lighting in the last match should be disregarded, as the building here uses the house lights. Drag. Still, it’s nice to see Takagi in the main event here. Kanemaru had hit Takagi’s leg with a chair two nights earlier. His arm is also still bandaged up. Kanemaru wastes little time before hitting a shinbreaker through a table. This is probably the most Takagi had been on defense since his debut. Kanemaru keeps him on the mat for a good long while, working the leg. Then, he hits another chair shot to the leg. He almost wins by keeping a figure four leglock on Takagi on the floor until the 13 count, but Takagi makes it back into the ring. Taichi helped him cheat from there, but all the cheating comes back to bite him. Takagi uses the chair that Taichi brought into the ring to block Kanemaru’s alcohol mist, and then Takagi uses the mist on Kanemaru. Takagi hits the Noshigami, the Pumping Bomber, and the Last of the Dragon for the win at 15:24. On its own, this is a good battle of two veterans, one using every trick he had to hobble the other, and the other using all of his strength and experience to hold on by a thread. But in the context of the wider tournament it was even better. It showed that Takagi is quite likely beatable, but that it’s going to take more than a one-dimensional approach to beat him no matter how strong the opponent is in that one dimension. I’ve never heard anyone praise this match, but they should because it’s extraordinary. ****
May 22, 2019 – Tokyo, Japan
Shingo Takagi def. Marty Scurll {Round Robin Tournament Match}
The commentators make no mention of the tag match that these two had against each other three nights earlier, so I assume it was uneventful. Scurll has Mike “The Rock” Davis in his corner, which is dangerous for sure. Hopefully, Takagi won’t be a problem. The bandage is off of Takagi’s arm and he’s not limping, so his four days outside of tournament action have clearly been good for him. If this isn’t Takagi taking liberties with Scurll for 15 minutes then it’s hard for me to get excited about it. Scurll controls the entire first five minutes and I hate it. It’s not bad, I just hate it. Takagi does put an end to it with an absurdly stiff lariat, so there’s that. Accusations against Scurll aside, all of his ambiance dissipates the moment his entrance ends. He’s just a little dude who is fine in the ring who has a bad haircut and a beard. He was very over with New Japan fans though, which I guess explains why he was so competitive against Takagi here. King gets involved and gets in a few shots at Takagi, but there was no way that was going to be how they set up Takagi’s first loss. Takagi lays out King with a lariat after King accidentally does the same to Scurll. Scurll then botches taking the Noshigami, but the Pumping Bomber and the Last of the Dragon put him down at 14:07. I dunno, the match was hard fought and kept the crowd’s interest, and I try to separate the wrestling from the wrestler as much as possible, but this dude is an admitted pedophile. So I’m not sure how much my rating reflects the action vs. how little fun I have watching Scurll’s matches. ***
May 23, 2019 – Tokyo, Japan
Shingo Takagi def. Dragon Lee {Round Robin Tournament Match}
It’s good that they did this match here, because to date it’s the only match between these two. This was preceded by a Will Ospreay vs. Bandido match that’s very highly regarded, and Juice Robinson worries on commentary that the crowd will be too tired from that to react to this. I believe in Takagi. The commentators also suggest that if Lee were to beat Takagi that he’d give the Dominion title match to Taiji Ishimori, the only person to beat him in the tournament so far. Lee hits a super jump in this match that was scarier than any I’ve seen before. He basically put his arms to his side and dove head-first into Takagi. At this point in the tournament, it’s safe to say the Pumping Bomber is dead as a finisher. I think everyone has kicked out of it except for Titan. Lee kicks out of it too. He comes back with an insane flurry of offense, made even better by the temper tantrum that Tkagi throws while kicking out. Takagi blocks a suplex and throws Lee into the Last of the Dragon for the win at 17:20. The commentators suggest that this was the closest that Takagi came to losing, but I say it was Kanemaru. And now the logic is that if somehow Lee wins the tournament, Takagi would be up for a title shot. Lee didn’t win the tournament, and Takagi never got a shot at the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. I’ll explain why later in this post, but it’s related to Robinson’s comment during this match that Takagi was only a Hershey’s Kiss away from being a heavyweight. ****
May 24, 2019 – Tokyo, Japan
Shingo Takagi def. TAKA Michinoku {Round Robin Tournament Match}
Michinoku was the designated tournament jobber, and that didn’t change here. The commentators bet on how quickly Takagi would beat him. Kelly brags about the original Kaientai t-shirt he got from the group when they came to the States in the ‘90s. Still in the packaging. Wear it or give it away, bro. Michinoku dominates for the first few minutes by cheating and working the leg, and the commentators freak out about how much money they’ll lose on their bad bets. After almost losing by countout, Takagi slams Michinoku and then never gives up control. An eye poke doesn’t stop him and a knee kick is countered to the Last of the Dragon for the win at 7:23. This is fun in that hearing the commentators lose their minds at Michinoku’s success is a cool change of pace from them. And also seeing Michinoku essentially take Kanemaru’s heel tactics (which makes sense as they’re partners) and use them in such quick succession was a lot of fun. I guess you’d call this a sneaky good match. I was ready for this to be a throwaway squash, but it was something else. Michinoku was injured during the match and didn’t wrestle again in the tournament. I guess that’s fine in the sense that he probably wasn’t booked to win any matches anyway. ***
May 26, 2019 – Chiba, Chiba
Shingo Takagi def. Tiger Mask {Round Robin Tournament Match}
This was slow and pretty dull, but that’s sort of expected from two guys over 40. Takagi needs his opponent to be his junior so he can drain their youth. Mask kicked out of the Pumping Bomber twice, so that move is strickly an hors d’oeuvre for the Last of the Dragon now. Takagi hits the LotD at 9:22 for the win. Very skippable. I get that Tiger Mask is going to be an everlasting gimmick, but if they’re going to keep the gimmick on this old man, why put him in positions like this? **½
May 29, 2019 – Nagoya, Aichi
Shingo Takagi def. Jonathan Gresham {Round Robin Tournament Match}
At this point, only Takagi or Ishimori could win the block, so this was strictly an opportunity for Gresham to make Takagi’s seemingly inevitable win more questionable. Gresham came into this favoring his ribs, so he was fucked. Gresham mostly sticks and moves early on, and then utilizes the submission count out trick that the Suzuki-gun guys tried too. It doesn’t work, but it keeps Gresham in control. Everything in this match was so smooth until Gresham had trouble taking the Noshigami. Why can’t gaijin take that move properly? He also kicks out of the Pumping Bomber. Why does that bother me so much? I don’t know, but it does. Takagi casually counters the Octopus to the Last of the Dragon at 11:11. The crowd didn’t buy Gresham winning for a second, but the match was interesting despite their silence and Gresham came out of the match looking pretty good. ***
May 31, 2019 – Matsuyama, Ehime
Shingo Takagi def. Taiji Ishimori {Round Robin Tournament Match}
If Ishimori won here, he’d win the block by virtue of tying Takagi’s score and having a win over him. So Takagi would advance to the finals with a win or a draw. Kelly suggests on commentary that Takagi could have legally put on a lot of weight since the start of the tournament, as they only have the wrestler’s weight in just before the tournament starts. This was pretty good, especially fun because Ishimori is kind of like a fusion between Naruki Doi and Masato Yoshino. For one thing, he has a lot of the same arsenal as Yoshino and he’s very quick. But he’s also too muscular for his height (think Chris Benoit but shorter, so Gresham might be a better analogy) and very dickish in a Doi kind of way. But the match was also too long. There were a few moments two-thirds of the way in when I would have been more satisfied with a finish than I was waiting six or seven more minutes for it. Takagi struggled to hit the Last of the Dragon the whole match, but finally pulled the trigger on it at 20:51. Did NJ make him stop using MADE IN JAPAN? Because he had Ishimori in position for that move but then did the extra work to hit the LotD instead. It was weird. ***½
June 5, 2019 – Tokyo, Japan
Will Ospreay def. Shingo Takagi {Number One Contender Match}
This match starts with a moment that very clearly shows why Takagi is better than Ospreay. They do their kung-fu movie dodging moves dance, and they end it with Ospreay doing a superhero pose. Meanwhile, Takagi actually moves away from him, showing that he has a real human reaction to what just happened and not some anime fetish response like Ospreay. If it wasn’t for all his absurd posing, which at times buries Takagi by forcing him to stay in impractical positions for too long, then things like countering the Pumping Bomber to a wild powerbomb would count for more in my book. That said, Takagi worked his ass off to make Ospreay look like a million bucks here. That was very entertaining, to the point that I’d say I slightly underrated this match the first time I watched it. Ospreay ate a bunch of lariats near the end, but then recovered rather miraculously (eye roll) and hit the Hidden Blade, the Os Cutter, and the Storm Breaker for the win at 33:36. That’s the first time Takagi was pinned in New Japan. Ospreay beat Dragon Lee for the junior title a few days later. ****½
Right after the tournament, Takagi announced that he was done with the junior division and was going to be wrestling at heavyweight from now on. When I come back, I’ll check out his intro to the heavyweight division at Dominion, and then his big dive into the deep end at the G1 Climax tournament.