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NJPW return to Osaka this Sunday morning (November 7th) with Power Struggle. The show will be live on NJPW World at 17.00 JST (8AM UK, 3AM Eastern). This is one of the last major shows before Wrestle Kingdom in January and we should see some more matches for the big Tokyo Dome show take shape. Here’s a look at the card.
Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask IV, Mascara Dorada & Ryusuke Taguchi vs Yohei Komatsu, Sho Tanaka, Jay White & David Finlay
Much like the opener at King of Pro Wrestling, this opener sticks with the theme of veteran’s vs young lions. There’ll be a whole lot of great action to give a hot start to the show. You have to imagine it won’t be long until Komatsu & Tanaka head off on their foreign excursion.
Togi Makabe, Captain New Japan & Juice Robinson vs Doc Gallows, Tama Tonga & Cody Hall
This is just a random tag that doesn’t seem to have implications on anything. Captain New Japan might actually not take the fall here for once.
Hirooki Goto vs EVIL
Now known as EVIL, Takaaki Watanabe made his return to NJPW at King of Pro Wrestling and sided with Los Ingobernables member Tetsuya Naito. It was a hell of a return for Watanabe, who has improved a lot and had some great performances in his last few months with ROH. His opponent Goto, is someone that he had a run in with at KOPW and is also someone that Watanabe has been compared to. This should be a really hard-hitting match as Watanabe looks to make an impression in his return match. Watanabe should get the win. Naito & EVIL vs Goto & Shibata could be a big part of the upcoming World Tag League too, so we will see what direction EVIL heads with this match.
KUSHIDA, Alex Shelley, Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish vs Kenny Omega, Chase Owens & The Young Bucks
This match took place as a preview to the Super Jr Tag Tournament a few weeks ago and was all sorts of fun. On a bigger stage, this one should be even crazier. You know what to expect from these sort of matches. If Chase Owens isn’t going to be an NJPW regular he will probably take the fall.
Super Jr Tag Team Tournament Final: Ricochet & Matt Sydal vs Rocky Romero & Beretta
History has shown that the debuting team in the tournament will most likely win it. The Young Bucks won in their debut in 2013 and ReDRagon won in their debut last year. That says Sydal & Ricochet will most likely win this and become a regular team in NJPW. Although, don’t count out RPG Vice who beat the IWGP Jr tag champs, Time Splitters on the way to the final. That has already made them top contenders to the title, so a Sydal & Ricochet win would make sense as NJPW love to do a multi team Jr tag title match at Wrestle Kingdom. This match should be awesome.
Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI vs AJ Styles & Bad Luck Fale
It’s very possible that AJ Styles will be challenging Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP IC title as this show goes off the air. This match will be all about Styles getting his win back after losing to Okada at KOPW and setting him in his new direction towards Wrestle Kingdom.
NEVER Openweight Championship: Tomohiro Ishii vs Tomoaki Honma
Honma scored his first big singles win in the G1 by upsetting Ishii in what was probably the NJPW moment of the year. Honma then picked up another singles win over YOSHI-HASHI and went on to make the title challenge after Ishii finally took down Togi Makabe. Ishii & Honma have met for the NEVER title before and each match has been outstanding. Their match this past February is still one of the best NJPW matches of the year. This will be another thrilling ride as the NJPW crowd will rally behind Honma on his quest for singles gold. I really wish this match was saved for Wrestle Kingdom, especially if Honma wins. If he does, it will be an incredible moment.
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Katsuyori Shibata vs Kazuchika Okada & Kazushi Sakuraba
On paper this looks like it could be something really spectacular. Obviously this is designed to build towards Okada vs Tanahashi, but throwing Shibata & Sakuraba in the mix could make this really interesting. Shibata & Sakuraba had a sensational match in July at Dominion and will hopefully clash again here. Okada & Shibata have had very few meetings on NJPW, so that could be really interesting too. If we are to get a Shibata vs Sakuraba WK rematch out of this I certainly wouldn’t be complaining.
IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Shinsuke Nakamura vs Karl Anderson
The Machine Gun picked up a big win over Nakamura in the G1 to put himself in title contention. Their interplay in tag matches leading up to this has been hugely entertaining with Anderson mocking Nakamura every chance he gets. The story is that Anderson is just one Gun Stun away from putting Nakamura down and has had the upper hand over Nakamura in most of their meetings. Anderson is the best kept secret in wrestling and the most underrated American in the world. This match will be outstanding and will remind people just how good Anderson is, and just how much he has to offer as a singles wrestler.
Nakamura will win this and has said that he will be holding an open challenge for the IC title at Wrestle Kingdom. He has told the challenger to come forward at Power Struggle. The obvious option is AJ Styles. There is also Go Shiozaki, who has left All Japan and rumours are that he might be heading to NJPW. Maybe Michael Elgin will be the man to make the challenge after his G1 match with Nakamura never happened. Either way, we will find out this Sunday.
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