IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship
Will Ospreay (c) defeated Marty Scurll
7/10
- This was exceptionally good, with a lot of selling from Ospreay, but the story of this entire match was the sick botch that almost killed Ospreay.
- Scurll abdandoned a lot of the comedic points to this match, and even hit a piledriver outside the ring. The chickenwing he he has applied is one of the best I've seen him do.
- Ospreay hit an OsCutter out of nowhere after having his ass kicked thoroughly and picked up a win. There were a ton of high spots, and this was an outstanding match. It's hard to get the image of the botch out of my head, though. This could have been a career ender.
Bullet Club's Cody & Hangman Page defeated The Golden Lovers
6.75/10
- The Young Bucks come out when Cody is about to jump from the top rope to the outside through a table on Omega. I cackled when Rocky Romero screamed "BUT WHO'S SIDE ARE THEY ON?" The Bucks leave Cody hanging.
- Cody gets split open big time. Don Callis plays this up really well and points out that Cody told Ibushi that he would "unpretty" Ibushi, but got split open himself.
- Ibushi eats an insane Doomsday Dropkick, and Omega goes through a table.
- Ibushi gets rolled up and pinned by Cody with the tights held
- I thought for sure that Golden Lovers would win in an effort to portray them as on a level field among the best tag teams in the world. I don't think there was a wrong way to go here as long as Ibushi or Page took the pin.
IWGP Heavyweight Championship
Kazuchika Okada (c) defeated Zack Sabre Jr
7.5/10
- I've never seen Zack Sabre Jr. better, and that's saying something. His submissions were the story of the bout, and he dipped deep into the well.
- One of my favorites was Sabre hitting a flying guillotine from the second rope, then transitioning. This was a wonderful example of exciting submission wrestling, especially when you've established many holds as being finishes.
- Masterful submissions, transitions and pins. This is textbook old school main event wrestling, sped up to fit a modern day style.
- One of my only qualms is Sabre letting go of holds to show off that he can "lean on them," as well as him bridging on a triangle attempt. The latter would get you dropped on your head fairly quickly.
- Okada hits three Rainmakers for the win, but the last one was rough because he was selling the arm. Great match.
- Tanahashi came out and challenged Okada. Great story in that Okada has to beat the man he tied for the record to get the record.
Other notes:
- I will discuss the top matches on this show towards the end of Monday's Post-WWE Raw Podcast.
- Finlay's team picking up the win helps make the push towards his match with Jay White, so that was the right call. Hopefully David Tees accepts my prediction appeal.
- If you've checked out any of the Fightful Weekender shows (now coming to Fightful Select), I'm fully behind and invested in the fracture of Bullet Club. I'm excited to find out who ends up where. Young Bucks and Bullet Club show respect ahead of the match, but let their guard down and get attacked. But they eventually win.
- Tama Tonga continued to win, and I think is being positioned to be the next Bullet Club leader. They retained the NEVER six-man tag titles.
- Suzuki-Gun retained the IWGP Junior Tag Titles, but LIJ was made to look strong in their match.
