2014.02.21

[Kevin Elliott]

Pacific Jr. Heavyweight Grand Prix - Night Three
2014.02.21
Tochigi Gymansium
1,920 Fans (No Vacancy)

1.  Jr. Grand Prix Block B - El Desperado [4] defeated Atsushi Aoki [0] with the Guitarra de Angel

2.  Jr. Grand Prix Block A - Shuji Kondo [4] defeated Kotaro Suzuki [0] with the Gorilla Clutch

3.  Jr. Grand Prix Block B - Naomichi Marufuji [4] defeated Minoru Tanaka [0] with the Shiranui Kai

4.  Jr. Grand Prix Block A - Katsuhiko Nakajima [6] defeated Atsushi Kotoge [0] with a bridging German Suplex

5.  Kota Ibushi Challenge - Kota Ibushi defeated PAC (NWA South Beach) with the Phoenix Plex

6.  Special Tag Team Match - Kyle O'Reilly ^{(NWA Hybrid Pro)} & Mike Mondo ^{(NWA Ohio Valley)} defeated Hirooki Goto & Hiroshi Tanahashi when O'Reilly used the Brainbuster on Goto

7.  NWA World Heavyweight Championship Tournament Round One - Magnus ^{(NWA UK)} defeated Go Shiozaki with the King's Lynn Cloverleaf

It is another full venue as we hit the halfway mark of the Pacific Jr. Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament at the Tochigi Gymnasium in Tochigi, Tochigi.  The tournament was fairly lackluster, though, with all the favourites picking up victories tonight.  El Desperado defeated Atsushi Aoki to get back into the winning column; Shuji Kondo remains undefeated with a victory over Kotaro Suzuki; Naomichi Marufuji also remains undefeated with a victory over Minor Tanaka, and; Katsuhiko Nakajima picked up his third victory of the tournament by defeating Atsushi Kotoge.  With two nights to go, it appears as though Kondo, Nakajima, Marufuji, and the idle BUSHI are all the front runners with undefeated records thus far.

Kota Ibushi's quest to become the best Jr. Heavyweight in Kenshiki continued. Coming off victories over NWA Fight Entertainment's Justin Gabriel and NWA Southwest's Kalisto, Ibushi challenged NWA South Beach's PAC tonight.  The contest was as even as expected with PAC using his larger frame to his advantage.  After PAC knocked Ibushi to the outside, he missed a Suicide Dive, changing the momentum in the contest.  Moments later, Ibushi hit the Phoenix Plex to win the contest.

The first round of NWA World Heavyweight Championship tournament was also underway tonight.  Prior to the Special Tag Team Match, a special video was played on the big screen wishing Kazuchika Okada luck on his trip to the United States.  Okada challenges Samoa Joe in a few hours time at the NWA Hybrid Pro television taping.  That match will be shown on the big screen tomorrow at the Soka Sports Gymnasium.  The tag team match was a rematch from the second night of the tour, with Hybrid Pro's Kyle O'Reilly, the NWA NOLA Heavyweight Champaion, and Ohio Valley's Mike Mondo challenging Hirooki Goto and Hiroshi Tanahashi.  Goto used the Shouten Kai on O'Reilly to win the bout on Tuesday and tonight, O'Reilly returned the favour, pinning Goto following a Brainbuster.  Tomorrow night, Goto will face Mondo while Tanahashi challenges O'Reilly on Sunday.

Finally, it was time for the main event of the evening.  NWA UK's Magnus squared off with Go Shiozaki in the first round of the tournament.  Magnus scored two indirect victories over Shiozaki in special tag team matches leading up to tonight's contest.  Both matches saw Shiozaki fall victim to Kazuchika Okada's first round opponent, Samoa Joe.  Both of Shiozaki's losses were a direct result of poor sportsmanship shown by Okada during the contests.  Shiozaki was a step behind in the match tonight, perhaps due to the difficulty he faced in the aforementioned tag team matches, and fell victim to the King's Lynn Cloverleaf.  Magnus has advanced to the second round, while Shiozaki is going home!

Following the match, Shiozaki says he blames his loss squarely on the shoulders of Kazuchika Okada, and regardless of the outcome of Okada's match with Samoa Joe, Shiozaki promises there will be payback for his actions!

Block A	Points	Block B	Points
Katsuhiko Nakajima (3-0)	6	BUSHI (2-0)	4
Shuji Kondo (2-0)	4	Naomichi Marufuji (2-0)	4
KENTA (1-1)	2	El Desperado (2-1)	4
Kotaro Suzuki (0-2)	0	Minoru Tanaka (0-2)	0
Atsushi Kotoge (0-3)	0	Atsushi Aoki (0-3)	0

2014.02.22
Soka Sports Gymansium

Kota Ibushi Challenge - Kota Ibushi vs Rocky Romero
Jr. Grand Prix Block A - Atsushi Kotoge vs Kotaro Suzuki
Jr. Grand Prix Block A - KENTA vs Shuji Kondo
Jr. Grand Prix Block B - Atsushi Aoki vs Minoru Tanaka
Jr. Grand Prix Block B - BUSHI vs Naomichi Marufuji
NWA World Heavyweight Championship Tournament Round Two - Hirooki Goto vs Mike Mondo

2014.02.23
Korakuen Hall

Jr. Grand Prix Block A - KENTA vs Kotaro Suzuki
Jr. Grand Prix Block A - Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Shuji Kondo
Jr. Grand Prix Block B - BUSHI vs Minoru Tanaka
Jr. Grand Prix Block B - El Desperado vs Naomichi Marufuji
Kota Ibushi Challenge - Kota Ibushi vs La Sombra
NWA World Heavyweight Championship Tournament Round One - Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kyle O'Reilly
NWA Pacific Jr. Heavyweight Championship - Block A Winner vs Block B Winner

[jp1985]

Good use of the foreign talent on these shows the last week and going forward. You got dealt these tournament matches and instead of making them 1 shot deals, you really expanded on it to make them feel like a part of the territory so that the matches mean more than just the tournament. The grand prix makes for a nice undercard touch to make the whole show feel important, and that Korakuen Hall show with the final looks to really be something.

[Deleted]

The Junior tournament continues to heat up, I will admit that today's matches didn't intrigue me as much but they still sounded solid on paper, with Kondo/Suzuki probably the match I'd most want to see out of the four. Inushi/PAC on paper sound phenomenal, two of the best juniors on the planet right there and it sounded like a solid bout. The tag match again was an intriguing one, I'm all for O'Reilly getting a big win of course, it makes his match with Tanahashi in a few days all that more intriguing. Magnus/Shiozaki for me was one of the more difficult to predict matches of the 1st round, but I'm glad that my namesake went over, I'd like to see him have a good run in the tournament.