NJPW: Best of the Super Juniors 2020 Night Three Review - November 20th, 2020

NJPW: BOSJ 2020 Night Three

November 20th, 2020

1) Tomoaki Honma & Satoshi Kojima vs. Yuji Nagata & Gabriel Kidd

This was about the same as the first meeting between these two teams mixed with the formula of last night’s match. Kidd eats the same lariat Tsuji ate from Kojima that turned him inside out and that’s the finish here as well. 

Match rating - **

2) El Desperado (2 pts) vs. Yuya Uemura (0 pts) Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match 

I’m excited at this on paper. Uemura is in the biggest run of matches of his life as he found himself being entered into the BOSJ for the first time as a young lion as a replacement for... El Desperado’s tag team partner and fellow junior tag team champion Yoshinobu Kanemaru. I also am on a new appreciation kick for Despy after his match with Hiromu and looking into the history so yeah. Uemura doesn’t charge Despy at the bell like he has all his opponents so far. They go back and forth, Despy throws Uemura to the floor and into the railing and gains a short advantage, but this entire match was pretty much a constant momentum shift. Uemura locks in the crab for a false finish. Despy looked desperate, no pun intended, and the crowd bit on it. Despy really gave Uemura more than anyone else in the tourney has here and it was a super solid showing. In the end, Uemura is working the arm and Despy pokes him in the eyes and gets him in a crucifix backslide pin for the three count.

Match rating - **3/4

3) Taiji Ishimori (2 pts) vs. DOUKI (0 pts) - Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match 

Biiiig match for DOUKI here as he is facing the current Junior champion in Taiji Ishimori. DOUKI charges the champion at the bell and hits a DDT on the floor, but still ends up fighting from underneath in the early going of this contest. DOUKI hits a crazy ass looking move that I gif’d above and starts trying to mount a comeback. They trade pinning combinations and DOUKI tries to bring his bat in, Ishimori hits it with the belt and hits his finisher to win. Alright match, every Ishimori match besides the opener against Hiromu has just felt dull so far. 

Match rating - **3/4

4) Master Wato (4 pts) vs. Ryusuke Taguchi (2 pts) - Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match 

This is an interesting one, I feel like their personalities will make for something fun. Wato gets the advantage early and flies around, but before you know it Taguchi comes back and hits an inside out plancha on Wato to the floor and we are back to a stalemate. This is kinda whatever. Taguchi wins after his ass is shown again and he pins Wato with his ass in his face... gross, but vintage Taguchi. Match wasn’t bad, just lacked that fire and reason to care. 

Match rating - **1/4 

5) Robbie Eagles (2 pts) vs. SHO (4 pts) - Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match

Now this was awesome. SHO is known for big match performances and became my favorite in last year’s BOSJ as a result. Eagles may very well be the MVP of this year’s tourney especially after this performance. All of his matches just have this urgency and excitement and this one had it on another level as SHO matched him on all those things. Seeing this on paper I knew it would be a banger and it was exactly that. I think one thing that always ties Eagles’ matches together is his focus on the knee and how he throws shots at it in exciting ways throughout the match such as with his flying drop kick to the knee. He did that here so when they went back to the knee after several minutes of trading spots, it didn’t feel out of place or random, it was more like OH SHIT HE JUST WENT AFTER THAT KNEE HE BUCKLED EARLIER. So yeah, awesome stuff here from both guys.

Eagles forces SHO to tap to advance. I really wouldn’t mind an Eagles tournament win and heel turn to join the Empire tbh.

Match rating - ****

6) Hiromu Takahashi (2 pts) vs. BUSHI (2 pts) - Best of the Super Juniors Tournament Match 

LIJ members collide here in the main event. I’ve never been the biggest fan of BUSHI, but Hiromu almost never misses. BUSHI hits a flying hurricanrana to the floor to gain the advantage after an early flurry from Hiromu. A lot of people including myself can't get into BUSHI however the normal disinterest I have for his matches went away down the stretch of this. Probably because as I said before, Hiromu hardly ever misses and has been straight fire in this tournament so far, which is probably why he's main eventing most of these shows because they knew he'd deliver. The action in the final half was great and had some exciting nearfalls where I thought BUSHI might actually pull the upset on his stalemate. But NO. Hiromu prevails after another great main event. Eagles/SHO was definitely the best match on this show, but this was a close second with everything else not even making the list. 

Match rating - ***3/4

UPDATED STANDINGS FOLLOWING THIS SHOW:

Hiromu Takahashi - 4 points

Taiji Ishimori - 4 points

Robbie Eagles - 4 points

SHO - 4 points

El Desperado - 4 points

Master Wato - 4 points

Ryusuke Taguchi - 4 points

BUSHI - 2 points

DOUKI - 0 points

Yuya Uemura - 0 points