[2015-01-04-NJPW-Wrestle Kingdom 9] Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly vs Alex Shelley & KUSHIDA vs Young Bucks vs Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov

[Loss]

I had a review written out for this and got an IPS Driver Error because of the apostrophe in Kyle O'Reilly's name. Ugh. Anyway, this was a solid match. I don't remember a ton about it, but it was fun while it lasted. They didn't really get the crowd into it very much, but I credit that more to the perils of working in a dome than I do the way they worked the match. There isn't much art to matches like this because the psychology isn't really important - they're just throwing bombs. But the bombs were well paced and hit cleanly, so I think they accomplished what they were going for just fine. Good.

[Timbo Slice]

I think Johnny's comment about him seeing a bunch of ROH Scramble matches from a decade ago being better than this rings true, but I think they were also told to cut time and it actually helped out a lot. Decent stuff and I like O'Reilly in a team, especially with Fish having been around the block in Japan a few times. Bucks stood out (INDYTAKER!) and it was good fun.

[The Thread Killer]

I thought it was much better than the similar matches they've had in ROH over the past year - it had more traditional wrestling at times and wasn't just non-stop SPOT-FU~!

 

I don't get the NJPW/ROH fetish lately for 4 Way Tags. Too much going on for my tastes, no time to tell a story, it's just everybody trying to cram their spots in before the inevitable pile up on the outside after all the obvious planchas and suicide dives. I could never see that routine again and I'd live a long and happy life. I guess I prefer my tags either Old School Southern or Kings Road Heavyweight style.

 

Also, I hate the Young Bucks with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. On the other hand, I LOVE the Time Splitters...they have made up for my sadness regarding the loss of the Motor City Machine Guns.

 

Now having said all that - I thought this match was good, and based on it's structure, booking and placement on the card, did what it was designed to do.