NJPW
Royal Quest 2 “Night One”
London, England
Oct. 16th, 2022
Good opening match and the crowd was super behind it. Nice pacing and some hard hits here. Love the finish too with the pile driver being such a simple but devastating move that is rarely used now.
3.25 / 5
Comedy spots here fell short but match itself was solid. Crowd was into it and it had some good close fall moments.
3 / 5
A short match and the crowd didn’t seem much into it. Not bad by any means but just short and uneventful.
2 / 5
Crowd was really behind all 6 guys here. A lot of fun spots throughout. Good submission moments and close falls. Nonstop action here so it felt like it was much shorter than it was.
4 / 5
This was a good match but nothing beyond great here. Ishii and Knight were good here. Okada got a huge pop coming out but was clearly saving himself and big moves for Night 2.
3.5 / 5
A decent match but not as good as you’d hope. They never went super above and beyond here. Tanahasi is super over as is Tonga. Jay White felt mixed though and no one cares about Anderson and Gallows. The match moved along nicely but just felt lackluster throughout like it never reached its full peak.
3 / 5
A much slower match than Ospreay usually does. Built up a nice pace for it though before the somewhat abrupt and anticlimactic finish. Uminos dad being the ref and calling for an emergency stoppage was interesting though. Curious to know what happened here though.
3.5 / 5
A phenomenal main event. Going over 30 minutes and keeping a steady pace throughout this was a great back and forth match. They used blood perfectly for this and never to a large excess as well. The final stretch of the match too had a lot of big spots and close falls. This will end up on many peoples match of the year lists for sure.
4.5 / 5