[2018-01-05-NJPW-New Year Dash] Hiroshi Tanahashi & Michael Elgin & War Machine vs Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr & Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr)

[ShittyLittleBoots]

We get a lengthy Rowe FIP segment, and it's awesome. Suzuki-gun do really good work over him, with everytime he was about to tag out, outcomes the rest of the heel team to cut him off. Once he finally makes the hot tag though, he makes it to Big Mike, who delivers an awesome hot tag, indeed. His exchanges against ZSJ were fantastic. After the fantastic Elgin vs. ZSJ section of the match, the thing essentially kicks into the finishing stretch & it remains awesome. Loved Suzuki constantly targeting Tana too, setting up a future singles meeting between them. Lovely match. ***3/4

[Edwin]

This was a throwaway post Dome show Korakuen Hall multi man tag. Newly head shaven Suzuki provides quite the visual when he removes the towel from his head, but unfortunately we don't get enough of him in this match.

 

Just realized Lance Archer is Lancy Hoyt, yikes... I remember him from his TNA days and he was not fun to watch. Watching him here, I can say things don't seem to have changed in that aspect. The FIP segment was average and the hot tag wasn't really a hot tag and just a tag as the crowd barely popped.

 

The Elgin and ZSJ exchanges were pretty bad -- I've never been a fan of Elgin and have just recently began to dig ZSJ, but he looked pretty bad here. He hit a poorly executed punch/backfist? on Rowe early on and his European uppercuts during his exchange with Elgin were pretty poor.

 

That finishing stretch was pretty forgettable too and those exchanges featuring Davey Boy Smith Jr., Archer and Hanson were not good...

 

Forgettable.

[Wahoos Leg]

Solid action and advanced the IC Title feud even though it was basically a night off for Suzuki and Tanahashi. The most interesting part of this match to me was the fan reaction to Elgin from a crowd that had a higher quota of foreigns