All in all, NJPW’s Strong Style Evolved Show was solid until the fantastic tag match involving the Golden Lovers (Kenny Omega/Kota Ibushi) and The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson).
These guys worked their asses off and told a compelling story in the ring. I highly recommend you see this match. It’s simply amazing.
The Bullet Club/Kenny Omega/Cody storyline continues to be intriguing and the added wrinkle of the Young Bucks decision on whether they’ll stay with the Bullet Club adds many layers to an already fascinating story.
Cody continues to carry himself as a star and I’m looking forward to what he does after this storyline wraps up.
Liger/Osperay was fun and it continues to amaze me how good Liger is at the age of 53. It’s interesting that NJPW is teasing Mysterio/Osperay. That should be one hell of a match if it truly does happen, but with all the WWE talk in regards to Rey Mysterio, I’m a bit skeptic that it will anytime soon.
The IWGP United States title match was really good, but the lack of crowd interest hurt the match overall. “Sling Blade” Jay White on paper is a cool idea, but I just don’t think White has the charisma to pull it off. The kid can go in the ring no doubt, but he definitely needs work on some aspects of his persona.
As mentioned above, the rest of the show was solid from start to finish. If you watched the first couple of matches then great, you had fun. If you didn’t, then you really missed nothing consequential. Like I said, go out of your way to see The Golden Lovers vs. The Young Bucks. There’s only so many ways I can say fantastic match, but it was a freakin’ awesome roller coaster ride that you didn’t want to get off of.
Roppongi 3K (SOH and YOH) and Rocky Romero defeated Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky
Juice Robinson and David Finlay defeated Gedo and Hirooki Goto
Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer defeated Chuckie T and Toru Yano
Cody Rhodes and Marty Scurll defeated Guerrillas of Destiny
SANADA, Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI, and Hiromu Takahashi defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA, Dragon Lee, and Rysuke Taguchi
Will Ospreay defeated Jushin Liger via Pinfall
Zack Sabre Jr. and Minoru Suzuki defeated Kazuchika Okada and Tomohiro Ishii
Jay White (c) defeated Adam Page (IWGP US Championship)
Golden Lovers (Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi) defeated The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt Jackson)