Hikuleo and El Phantasmo leave San Jose as champs
January 13 saw the NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championships on the line in San Jose, El Phantasmo and Hikuleo defending against Alex Coughlin and Clark Connors.
The match started fast as Connors and Coughlin tried to get the drop on the champions. Though ELP and Hikuleo took down their competitionearly, the challengers were able to hurl Phantasmo to the floor and then work on the base of Hikuleo. The ring was perfectly cut in half by the champions, but Hikuleo collapsed out of the corner with a double clothesline, and Phantasmo fired up on both challengers at once.
After an impressive string of ELP offense, Connors would be rocked with a tornado DDT on the floor while Coughlin ate one more in ring. A Dreadnought driver would put the stop to Phantasmo though, and Connors came in with a huge spear to the heavyweight Hikuleo. The giant kicked out of a Hit and Run by Connors and Coughlin who wanted a Magic Killer to mock Hikuleo’s brothers; ultimately an elevated No Chaser scored instead, but the huge Tongan still kicked out.
A Hijack Pile seemed to be the finishing gameplan for the challengers, but Phantasmo hit the ring just in time. A scoop powerslam and Godsend set up the Thunder Kiss ’86 and the champions walked away with the STRONG gold.
