Yuya Uemura & Christopher Daniels make Charlotte STRONG title finals
The main event of NJPW STRONG this week saw the first semifinal in the STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championship tournament, Yuya Uemura and Christopher Daniels facing former GHC Tag Team Champions in Shane Haste and Mikey Nicholls.
Uemura and Daniels started out pushing for the upset, as they connected with some impressive teamwork, but after a trip from Nicholls, he and Haste took over on Uemura. The young Noge graduate soon had his nose broken and bloodied as TMDK continued to put in the brutal work. A wild counter would bring Daniels in, and a Blue Thunder scored two, but Nicholls countered the Angel’s Wings and put Daniels on the back foot once more.
The Fallen Angel kicked out of the Tankbuster, and flipped out of a double suplex attempt to tag Uemura back in. Battered but unbroken, Uemura fired up on TMDK, and unleashed the Deadbolt Suplex, but a trip to the top rope would see him planted with the Tower of Doom superplex from haste and Nicholls. Uemura still refused to stay down for three, and Daniels broke up the Thunder Valley, sacrificing himself to take the move; moments later, Uemura was able to snap off a Frankensteiner for a shocking three.
The 100th episode of NJPW STRONG saw a legendary figure make his appearance as Negro Casas teamed with Adrian Quest and Lucas Riley to face Rocky Romero, David Finlay and Mascara Dorada. Team Casas held an advantage thanks to the wiles of the veteran and energy of his young partners, Casas burying a dropkick in the corner to Romero that Quest followed with using a running shooting star.
A hard overhand right from Rocky to Casas brought Dorada in for high impact offense to the veteran. Quest and Riley were able to respond, and came close with tandem offense on Romero, but it would be the Sliced Rocky on Riley that secured victory in the end for his team.
JR Kratos was not in celebratory mood on the STRONG 100th episode as he faced Jordan Cruz. The young hopeful Cruz would do what he could, and pieced some strikes together, but was run over by the Most Feared, who dominated on the way to victory with a Black Hole Slam, and called Alex Coughlin out after the match for when the Android returns from injury.
