Four teams on six points after four nights
Super Junior Tag League went to Kusakabe in Saitama on October 26, the fourth night of league action seeing the ten teams approach the midway point.
The main event of the night saw Ichiban Sweet Boys, Robbie Eagles and Kosei Fujita take on Master Wato and El Desperado, who was still having nothing of the Tshirt wearing team spirit. Early exchanges of holds saw Wato surprise Eagles early with Vendeval, and Eagles was impressively kept in the Wato and Desperado corner, but couldn’t be contained for long, and Desperado felt the sting of Fujita’s impressive offense before finally slowing the young man with a suplex. Eagles came back in, but was dropped with a Wato neckbreaker as DespeWato continued to have the upper hand.
Eagles would fight free from underneath and connected with Fujita for an impactful double team on Wato followed by stereo submissions. Though Wato made the ropes, it was now a war of attrition, and Desperado yelling encouragement would help Wato make the tag. With Fujita on the other side, a thrilling escape to a Desperado Stretch Muffler nearly saw a German Suplex victory but for the bridge giving way for young Fujita; stereo submissions now for DespeWato almost, but didn’t quite end the match. With both teams in a do or die predicament, Desperado held the advantage on a defiant Fujita, but no amount of defiance could deny Pinche Loco for three.
Tetsuya Naito headed down to ringside along with Titan and BUSHI to offer them moral support ahead of their semi main event league match, but that wasn’t enough in the face of an angry and violent Drilla Moloney and Clark Connors. The BULLET CLUB War Dogs mauled their masked foes in the early going, but after a head scissors whip off the top from BUSHI to Connors, Titan brought pace and momentum to the LIJ side. That momentum would be cut off with a Connors powerslam on BUSHI though, and the Hi-Lo created a very near fall, broken up by Titan.
The match breaking down, BUSHI escaped Full Clip, and Titan landed a corner lariat and dropkick combo. A Moloney Gore put paid to Angel Inmortal though, and Full Clip connected on the second try, the War Dogs getting back in the win column after a blip in Korakuen Hall the night before.
SHO made it clear before he and Yoshinobu Kanemaru’s match with YOH and MUSASHI that he didn’t want to wrestle in ‘Gunma’ (the night’s event was in Saitama), something clearly evidenced by EVIL’s quick appearance to interfere. SHO and Kanemaru would work over MUSASHI, but a long awaited tag to YOH would see the CHAOS member blaze through all the members of H.O.T. MUSASHI played an expert companion to YOH as they took care of business, but a double superkick attempt would see MUSASHI pulled out of the ring and the referee indisposed. YOH grabbed Kanemaru’s whiskey and kissed it into the mouth of an intervening SHO, but Kanemaru took advantage of YOH’s eyes being off the prize, and a low blow and rollup granted the three count.
TJP was still struggling with neck issues when he and Francesco Akira battled DOUKI and TAKA Michinoku. TJP worked around the pain in the early going, but it would fall to Akira to fight on behalf of his team for the bulk of thebout, bringing in TJP to fight on the break. When in, TJP strung together offense on is Just Five Guys foes, but DOUKI would put together his own impressive combo to have TJP struggling in the Italian Stretch 32. With Akira and TAKA back inside, double submission work from Michinoku and DOUKI nearly ended things, but Catch 2/2’s 2×2 was what led to the finish.
The first league match of the night pit Kevin Knight and KUSHIDA against the DKC and Ryusuke Taguchi. With Taguchi and KUSHIDA familiar foes, and DKC and Knight frequent partners and training allies, both teams knew each other too well to gain an early advantage. The Intergalactic Jet Setters were able to take over on DKC though, until the steely buns of Taguchi and the fire of DKC caused trouble for Knight and KUSHIDA. The Super D-K-Fire nearly took down KUSHIDA, but the Hoverboard Lock would see a DKC tapout as the Jet Setters moved to six points.
The league continues Saturday in Fukushima. DKC and Taguchi face Catch 2/2, Musashi Komatsu take on DOUKI and TAKA Michinoku in a must win match for the J5G side, Ichiban Sweet Boys face HOUSE OF TORTURE, the Intergalactic Jet Setters take on Titan and BUSHI, and the main event sees El DespeWato face BULLET CLUB War Dogs.
