New Japan Pro-Wrestling continued their Summer Struggle tour on Sunday, crowning new NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Champions in the process. Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI battled their own stablemates for nearly 25-minutes, and are now the 21st NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Champions. The win is an important one for YOSHI-HASHI, as it is his first championship in his 12-year career.
After the match, Kazuchika Okada, SHO & Toru Yano took their loss in stride to celebrate their stablemate’s big moment. Okada strapped the belt around YOSHI-HASHI’s waist, as commentator Milano Collection AT wept with joy. There are very few underdogs quite like YOSHI-HASHI, and his 12-year journey to his first title is finally at an emotional end.
Elsewhere on the card, Hiromu Takahashi returned from shoulder injury to get a measure of revenge on Taiji Ishimori, even at the expense of Naito & BUSHI’s match. Plus Suzuki & Takagi’s rivalry continued, and Tanahashi & Ibushi continue to find their balance as a team again.
The show is available on NJPWWorld.com
8/9
NJPW Summer Struggle
- Bullet Club (Yujiro Takahashi & Gedo) def. Yuya Uemura & Gabriel Kidd by pinfall. (8:33)
Yujiro Takahashi pinned Yuya Uemura via Pimp Juice. - Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima & Ryusuke Taguchi def. Tomoaki Honma, Togi Makabe & Yota Tsuji by pinfall. (9:50)
Satoshi Kojima pinned Yota Tsuji via Lariat. - Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA & Shingo Takagi) def. Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki & DOUKI) by pinfall. (12:09)
SANADA pinned DOUKI via Japanese Clutch Pin.
After the match, Suzuki continued to challenged Takagi for the NEVER Championship. - Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Master Wato def. Suzuki-gun (Taichi, Zack Sabre Jr., El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) by pinfall. (12:45)
Hiroshi Tanahashi pinned Yoshinobu Kanemaru via High Fly Flow. - Bullet Club (EVIL & Taiji Ishimori) def. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI) by disqualification. (10:45)
Hiromu Takahashi attacked Ishimori, causing the disqualification. - NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Championship Match: CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI) def. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, SHO & Toru Yano) by pinfall to win the vacant title. (24:21)
Tomohiro Ishii pinned SHO via Vertical Drop Brainbuster.
After the match, all of CHAOS congratulated YOSHI-HASHI on his first title win ever. Okada strapped the belt on YOSHI-HASHI, and all 6-men posed for a picture together.
#AndNew Along with Hirooki Goto and Tomohiro Ishii,
after over 12 years and on the 1260th time to answer the bell…He has kept standing up and now he can call himself a champion! Congratulations @YOSHIHASHICHAOS!#njpw #njsst pic.twitter.com/WiNvRwMbCD
— NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) August 9, 2020
