Six or Nine best BULLET CLUB’s Cutest at Hyper Battle

Ryusuke Taguchi and Master Wato scooped their first defense of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships on April 9 in Ryogoku Sumo Hall, as an unconventional bout with an unconventional finish saw them best challengers El Phantasmo and Taiji Ishimori.

A match for all seasons, the bout showed the strengths of all four athletes, from the punishing and technically proficient to the perverted. After a technical start for Taguchi and Ishimori, Six or Nine took over on Phantasmo, with some slick and hitherto unseen tandem work. When Taguchi opted for a high risk, and highly risqué, double team though, Wato would taste the Coach’s buttocks, and the challengers took control.

BULLET CLUB’s Cutest would humiliate Taguchi, but not into submission, and Wato was waiting for a tag, bringing high impact offense until cut off with an ELP dropkick. Eager to have their fun perhaps above winning the match, the challengers saw to it that champions were put in a deeply compromised position, but retained control on Wato, who fought gamely and refused to lose.

A combination DDT and face buster would bring in Taguchi, who used his assets to their full potential in a series of B-Triggers. A double stomp from Wato almost got the job done, before Ishimori made the save and connected with a series of double teams, but still the blue haired prodigy stayed in the hunt, and saved himself as he escaped Sudden Death and planted Phantasmo with a leaping Complete Shot.

When Taguchi got the tag, he would go to his technical roots as he almost stole a win with a series of flash pin falls. Phantasmo joined the counters and went for a roll up, but the inventive coach pulled down his own tights, sitting on ELP’s face to pick up a stunning, if morally dubious victory.