Well hey I’m back from vacation. A lot happened while I was away, as NJPW talents basically took their shows on the roads, even beyond the CEO x NJPW event. Speaking of which, there’s an update about that situation below, and I also did upload the Podblast to Place To Be Nation for you to listen to. So why not do that?

Meanwhile, on Saturday 6/30 and Sunday 7/1, much of the NJPW roster was in the UK, for the Strong Style Evolved UK shows that featured, among other things, a title change, as well as a Young Lion in a new gimmick.

Strong Style Evolved United Kingdom - 6/30/2018, Milton Keynes Ice Arena

The Great O-Khan d. Shota Umino (Diving Mongolian Chop)

Yujiro Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori [Bullet Club] d. Kyle Fletcher & Mark Davis (Ishimori > Fletcher, Bloody Cross)

Tiger Mask IV d. David Starr (Tiger Driver)

WALTER d. Yuji Nagata (lariat)

YOSHI-HASHI [CHAOS] d. Chris Brookes (Karma)

Will Ospreay [CHAOS] d. Yoshinobu Kanemaru (Stormbreaker)

Takashi Iizuka, Taichi & El Desperado [SZKG] d. Jay White, Toru Yano & Gedo [CHAOS] 

British Tag Team Championship: Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. [SZKG] © d. Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii [CHAOS] - Suzuki/ZSJ succeed their 2nd defense

- 7/1/2018, Manchester Altrincham Arena

The Great O-Khan d. Dan Duggan (Diving Mongolian Chop)

Yuji Nagata d. Shota Umino (Nagata Lock II)

Takashi Iizuka, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado [SZKG] d. YOSHI-HASHI, Toru Yano & Gedo [CHAOS] (Kanemaru > Gedo, Deep Impact)

WALTER d. Yujiro Takahashi [Bullet Club] (Powerbomb)

Taichi [SZKG] d. Will Ospreay [CHAOS] (Taichi-Style Last Ride after interference)

David Starr d. El Phantasmo, Tiger Mask IV and Taiji Ishimori [Bullet Club] (Starr > Tiger, rollup following mask pull)

Jay White [CHAOS] d. Chris Brookes (Blade Runner) 

Zack Sabre Jr. [SZKG] d. Kazuchika Okada [CHAOS] (European Clutch)

Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship: Minoru Suzuki [SZKG] d. Tomohiro Ishii [CHAOS] © (Gotch Style Piledriver) - Ishii fails his 2nd defense - Suzuki is the 9th champion

Suzuki-gun as a unit did not lose a single match on this tour, and indeed Suzuki-gun now hold two out of the three titles with Minoru Suzuki himself holding two of them. Zack Sabre Jr. got a revenge win from Sakura Genesis over Okada, with Okada now having had 2 singles losses in a row. [EDIT: Post-main on Night 2, WALTER laid out Ishii and stared down Suzuki. WALTER v. Ishii is now happening at Summer Sizzler on 8/17/2018.]

The Great O-Khan is a new gimmick for now-graduated Young Lion, Tomoyuki Oka. He was described as looking like Kin Corn Karn from the NES Pro Wrestling game. He does Mongolian Chops like Tenzan. Pretty interesting he’s been graduated now, since he really didn’t look like he was ready to be moved on from Young Lion matches, and indeed maybe he still hasn’t. It just makes me miss Katsuya Kitamura, mostly.

These shows either are or should be on RPWOnDemand soon, and will probably end up on NJPWWorld eventually as well.

Also happening on Friday 6/29 and Saturday 6/30 were a PPV/TV taping cycle for Ring of Honor. In NJPW-related matches, the opener of the PPV had The Kingdom defeat EVIL, SANADA & BUSHI to retain the ROH World 6-Man Tag Team titles. (Say, um, where are the NEVER ones lately?) KUSHIDA also lost to Jay Lethal. Dalton Castle miraculously retained against Cody Rhodes and Marty Scurll, despite them telegraphing Cody’s win from a mile away.

This was pretty short-lived, however, as the next night Dalton would lose the title to Jay Lethal from a 4-way match also featuring Cody and Matt Taven. Something tells me this is just tranisitionary so Cody can get the title and have his NWA title match at All In.

Also at the next night, KUSHIDA beat Jonathan Gresham, and LIJ beat both Young Bucks/Adam Page and SoCal Uncensored in a 3-way match. 

These shows also featured participation from STARDOM, the Japanese women’s promotion, as Mayu Iwatani and the unit Odeo Tai were in matches here.

Lastly, after being cajoled into it  (read: first doubling down), Kenny Omega did tweet out an apology and statement about the booking of Chasyn Rance on the CEO x NJPW show. He is offering refunds for anyone who was affected by the booking, which almost kind of isn’t the point. I’m not even sure anyone in attendance really knew who Chasyn Rance and Aaron Epic were. And to have to be cajoled into it... yeah I don’t know. Due dilligence wasn’t done dilligence here, and just Do Better is what’s being asked. Maybe Omega really didn’t know about Rance’s sex offender status. When told, don’t act like everyone is picking on you. These are grown adults we’re talking about, and yet nobody ever wants to actually take responsibility. Maybe that’s the first step in changing the world.

In a related note, I can honestly say at this point that the delays in starting the CEO x NJPW show may not be on NJPW, but rather CEO. I say this after trying to go to the convention itself on Sunday, and there were delays delays delays in the Fighting Game Championships (to wit, when we went there, Dragonball FighterZ should have been started, however Smash was delayed, which then delayed Tekken 7 [We did get to see THAT final and THAT WAS REALLY COOL], which delayed DBFZ, which delayed Street FIghter V, which was what we really had wanted to see. SFV didn’t start until around 11pm and ended at 2am. Oy...). Which, again, is unprofessional looking, but it seems localized to CEO. As I’d mentioned elsewhere, all the Long Beach shows started on time thus far. And I’m pretty sure San Francisco will as well.

To continue the very-Kenny-Omega-heavy theme here, this week’s premiere episode of NJPW on AXS is a 2-hour special, showing the 60+ minute Best 2 Out of 3 Falls Match for the IWGP Heavyweight title between Kazuchika Okada v. Kenny Omega from Dominion 6.9 at Osaka-Jo Hall. It starts at the usual time, but will fill 2 hours between the match length and commercial breaks.

On Saturday 7/7, starting at 12pm EDT, they are running the “Bullet Club Is Fine” marathon on AXS, with a heavy focus on Bullet Club oriented repeats of NJPW on AXS, to lead in to the main event of G1 Special in San Francisco, naturally. 

That show, of course, starts at 8pm EDT / 5pm PDT live on AXS if you are not in San Francisco. If you are outside the USA, it will be on NJPWWorld, which, you may be better off because I am honestly dreading JR and Barnett live on the mic.

G1 Special in San Francisco - 7/7/2018, Cow Palace, San Francisco, CA (AXS TV [USA] / NJPWWorld)

YOSHI-HASHI, Gedo, Rocky Romero, SHO & YOH [CHAOS] v. King Haku [FREE], Tama Tonga [Bullet Club], Tanga Loa [Bullet Club], Yujiro Takahashi [Bullet Club] & Chase Owens [Bullet Club]

Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano [CHAOS] v. Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. [SZKG]

Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA v. Adam Page & Marty Scurll [Bullet Club]

NEVER Openweight Championship: Hirooki Goto [CHAOS] © v. Jeff Cobb [FREE]

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Matt & Nick Jackson [Bullet Club] © v. EVIL & SANADA [Los Ingobernables]

Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay [CHAOS] v. Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI [Los Ingobernables]

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi [Los Ingobernables] © v. Dragon Lee [CMLL]

IWGP US Heavyweight Championship: Jay White [CHAOS] © v. Juice Robinson