Champions log second defence
The semi main event on night two of the Road to Destruction saw the NEVER Openweight 6 Man Tag Team titles at stake, Tomohiro Ishii, Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi defending against Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima and Tiger Mask.
Watch the replay now!
After Ishii had provoked Tenzan into a wild fight the night prior that had led to a no content, the two bulls locked horns early; Tenzan was pressured into the champions’ corner before battling back to tag in Tiger Mask. Tiger brought more movement to Okada, but a flapjack planted the masked man to the mat, and the veteran junior heavyweight was rooted in the wrong corner for the next several minutes.
Despite the best efforts of the challengers to get involved on Tiger’s behalf, the masked man only finally got free with a monster armdrag to Okada off the top. Makabe was there for the tag and a barrage of hard hitting offense to Tanahashi cut off by a Twist and Shout; the challenger side continued to be under the collective thumb of the champions until a crunching powerslam from Makabe to Ishii at the ten minute mark. Tenzan licked his chops as the Raging Bull came in and suplexed Ishii for two, but as Okada came inside, a triple team DDT nearly ended Tenzan’s night.
The three time G1 winner continued to take punishment and continued to keep standing. As Makabe and then Tiger Mask made the save, the match broke down and for the first time in the match, Ishii was in a one on three situation. A Tiger Driver and then King Kong Knee scored on Ishii before Tenzan landed a brutal implant DDT on the Stone Pitbull. After an Anaconda Buster, Tenzan thought for a second of a Moonsault, but Okada put those thoughts to bed with a German suplex.
Now with his back against the wall against all three of the champions Tenzan kept swinging, but a Vertical Drop Brainbuster from Ishii finally ended a valiant effort from the veteran side. Backstage, Hiroshi Tanahashi led the comments for his team, making an appeal to IMPACT Wrestling to bring a team to compete for the NEVER 6 Man gold. After coming up just short of Alex Shelley and the IMPACT World Championship back in August, perhaps the ACe wants revenge against the promotion, but who might IMPACT put to the task?
