New Japan Pro Wrestling G1 Special In USA Night 2 Review

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: July 10, 2017

Jushin Thunder Liger, Kushida, and David Finlay defeated Yoshitatsu and the Tempura Boyz (Sho Tanaka and Yoehi Komatsu) ★★★

IWGP US Championship Tournament Semifinal: Kenny Omega defeated Jay Lethal ★★★¾

IWGP US Championship Tournament Semifinal: Tomohiro Ishii defeated Zack Sabre, Jr. ★★★★½

Dragon Lee, Volador Jr. Jay White, Titan, and Juice Robinson defeated Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, Bushi, Sanada, and Hiromu Takahashi) ★★★★

Bullet Club (The Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa) and Hangman Page) defeated War Machine (Hanson and Raymond Rowe) ★★★¼

The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) defeated Roppongi Vice (Rocky Romero and ~~Trent~~ Barreta) to retain the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship ★★★★¾

Bullet Club (Cody ~~Rhodes~~, Bad Luck Fale, Marty Scurll, and Yujiro Takahashi) defeated Chaos (Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, and the Briscoes (Mark and Jay Briscoe) ★★★★

Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated Billy Gunn to retain the IWGP Intercontinental Championship ★★¼

IWGP US Championship Tournament Final: Kenny Omega defeated Tomohiro Ishii ★★★★★

New Japan cards tend to have an underwhelming undercard before an excellent second half. This was not that. The semifinal matches of the US Title tournament certainly helped, but the three multi-man tag matches were all good-to-very good themselves. On most cards, the Young Bucks – Roppongi Vice match would be match of the night (heck of a way for that pairing to go out), but Kenny Omega and Tomohiro Ishii had other ideas. One could make a strong case for Kenny Omega as the best in-ring performer in the world right now (it’s either him or Okada – either way, I wouldn’t argue), but Ishii might have had an even better weekend, turning in fantastic matches with Naito and Zack Sabre Jr. in addition to his bout with Omega. Hopefully after this, we’ll start to see his name mentioned more among the best workers in the company and the world. Some were upset by Billy Gunn being used in the capacity that he was, but his match with Tanahashi was fine. While it was my lowest-rated match between both nights, 2.25 is not a bad score and would not have been the worst match of the night on any WWE show; in fact, it would have been in the top half of probably 75% of them. Honestly, I think Billy Gunn was a fine opponent for Tanahashi right now, as Tanahashi’s working injured and he and Gunn could put on a solid match and tell a story without killing Tanahashi.

Overall rating: ★★★★¾

Twitter: @KSchroeder_312

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com