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OCT.30.2019

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Road to Power Struggle night 12 Preview

Aichi to see penultimate night of Super Junior Tag League action as Road to Power Struggle heads toward Osaka climax.

Main event: CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, YOSHI-HASHI, Will Ospreay & Robbie Eagles) vs Kota Ibushi, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocky Romero)

The main event of the evening sees six of the names from Shizuoka’s eight man tag team clash. With Birds of Prey and in strong Super Junior Tag League contention ahead of their crucial final matches in Osaka Friday night, and Ibushi and Okada jockeying for position ahead of January 4 and night one of Wrestle Kingdom, what moves will be made in Toyohashi? Volador Junior and Titan might be out of the running when it comes to league glory, but had the best outing of any CMLL team in Super Junior Tag history, and will want to prove that they could spoil the Mega Coaches Friday in Osaka. 

The sixth match will see the night’s sole Super Junior Tag League bout.

6th Match: Yuya Uemura & Tiger Mask (0-6) vs Clark Connors & TJP (0-6)

For both senpai/kohai combinations in the tag league, this last match was the one circled on the calendar. A win for either team over more established competition was going to be unlikely, but put head to head there should be a winner.

Indeed, when Uemura and Connors met during the Young Lion Cup in Kagoshima this September, there was a winner, and his name was Yuya Uemura. Uemura’s win over the hard hitting, highly confident Connors was the highlight of his Young Lion Cup campaign, and effectively spoiled Connors hopes of being in the conversation at the end of the league. Now Connors seeks revenge along with TJP. The older hands on each side of this match also know each other well, with Tiger Mask having wrestled TJP when he was a young teenager fresh from the original LA Dojo, wrestling as Pinoy Boy. In fact, Tiger Mask was Pinoy Boy’s first ever singles opponent in NJPW, but the Boy is now a man, and will seek to hunt a Toyohashi Tiger. 

5th Match: Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & Toa Henare vs BULLET CLUB (Jay White, KENTA & Yujiro Takahashi)

With just three days to go until Power Struggle’s top two championship matches, nothing seems to be rattling the IWGP Intercontinental and NEVER Openweight Champions, Jay White and KENTA respectively. In ring, KENTA might be steely and determined as he rips physically into Tomohiro Ishii, but backstage, he remains as snide as ever, and apparently geared toward embarrassing the Stone Pitbull that is ‘#TOMO’. For his part, White may have been momentarily rattled by a furious Goto Sunday night in Korakuen, but it only took 24 hours to get his revenge. Monday night’s event ended with Goto and Ishii laid out by a Bladerunner and Go2Sleep; with time running out, can the challengers respond?

4th Match: Los Ingobernables De Japon (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & BUSHI) vs Suzuki-Gun (Taichi, Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Junior & Yoshinobu Kanemaru)

As time ticks down toward Osaka November 3, it seems as if all the members of LIJ have found the bearings that they were lacking early in the tour, but plenty of questions still remain. Tetsuya Naito is now fired up in the face of Taichi, but from his cold eyed assault of the Holy Emperor in the ring to striking and choking journalists outside of it, had El Ingobernable lost his cool? 

After making waves with solid wins as a substitute for the injured EVIL during this tour, it seems as if BUSHI might be rewarded with a title match against Will Ospreay. The wheres and whens just haven’t been decided yet. Can BUSHI have the answer? What of SANADA, who seems to be concentrating his efforts on RPW British Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Junior. Does he have title designs in mind? Then there’s Shingo Takagi, who is looking to pick the biggest fight he can with Minoru Suzuki himself. How will this issue play out in Toyohashi? 

3rd Match: Jyushin Thunder Liger & Rocky Romero vs BULLET CLUB (Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo)

After teaming with Young Lion Clark Connors Wednesday in Shizuoka, Jyushin Thunder Liger will now partner with Rocky Romero to take on Ishimori and ELP. Liger certainly has his own problems with the BULLET CLUB side, and Phantasmo in particular; he has common ground in this regard with Rocky Romero. 

Romero scored his biggest win in 2019 at ELP’s expense during Best of the Super Juniors, and though he fell short in his ensuing British Cruiserweight Championship match in Australia weeks later, can still hold his head high as one of a precious few to have beaten ELP. Romero and Liger should make for intimidating opposition to the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag team Champions.

2nd Match: Roppongi 3K (SHO & YOH) vs Suzuki-Gun (El Desperado & DOUKI)

A day before the critical final night of the Super Jr. Tag League we have a partial rematch from the first. At the Korakuen Hall tour opener, EL Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru brutally punished the back of SHO on the way to their first of four victories in the league. Now they look to finish strong against tough competition in the Birds of Prey in order to make it to Sunday’s final. While Kanemaru will team with Suzuki-Gun later in the evening, DOUKI will step in here, while SHO and YOH will look to get through the match as unscathed as possible on their way to a league closer against the team they lost the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships to back in June: El Phantasmo and Taiji Ishimori. 

1st Match: Karl Fredericks & Tomoaki Honma vs Yota Tsuji & Ryusuke Taguchi

In the opening bout of the night, Karl Fredericks goes from being opposite Tomoaki Honma in Shizuoka to teaming with him in Toyohashi. In the opposite corner, Yota Tsuji remains, joined this time by Ryusuke Taguchi as both Young Lions look to make a mark on established names. 

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