A certain type of stink follows House of Torture at all times. There’s no doubt that the group has produced a lot of poor angles and matches throughout the years, but even when things feel tolerable, the group’s past docks them some points in the eyes of many.
When reading the thoughts of people online, it looked like Monday’s New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) Destruction In Ryogoku main event was a total flunk.
Over on Cagematch.net, a wrestling database that allows users to grade matches on a 10-point scale, the main event between SANADA and EVIL for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship has a nasty 5.38 rating. I went into the main event having known this rating, and was ready to be groaning and frustratingly scribbling in my notebook about the match — something I have done many times before during House of Torture performances. But I didn’t.
In my personal opinion, the match was fine. Sure, it had the House of Torture trope of having way too many interference spots. It was able to include a payoff of referee Red Shoes Unno (Hiroyuki Umino) at one point completely stopping EVIL from winning due to interference, flipping him off instead of counting a pin attempt. And it had a fun finishing sequence by SANADA, scoring his own Everything Is EVIL, landing a Shining Wizard while Keiji Mutoh watched from ringside, and then hitting his finisher, Deadfall, to end it.
This match was certainly overbooked. It was not good in comparison to previous major title matches, but I would certainly say that “ok” was around where I would grade it. The fact that it took place inside Ryogoku Kokugikan, which had a lively 5,000 fans in attendance, certainly elevated things. The match went 28 minutes, which felt too long for a bout between these two. However, since it was a match for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, there was also certainly the expectation that the match would go that deep.
But I personally saw no reason for the match to get as low of a rating as it did. The singles match between Tama Tonga and David Finlay, which I would argue was around the same level of quality, received a 6.62.
Now, that sort of makes it sound like I’m arguing that people are too negatively biased toward House of Torture matches. That’s not the case at all. Instead, I’m arguing that no matter how House of Torture does, the disinterest in the group hurts their ability to be liked. The hatred of them from people is so strong that they can not be salvaged. It’s time to break them up.
The context of a match cannot be ignored and is a justifiable thing to factor into how something is received. In the case of Monday’s main event, I believe that the pure in-ring quality of the match was higher than a five out of 10. However, I also think that the public is sick of seeing House of Torture and their interference shenanigans. No matter how good the quality of the wrestling is in a House of Torture match, the gimmick that they carry gives viewers a certain amount of disinterest.
I personally thought the build-up to Monday’s match was fun. House of Torture were frustrating for Just 5 Guys, they stole their belts and one of their members, and won the mind games leading up to this bout. But even if this was fine, many had no interest in seeing it.
Destruction In Ryogoku was meant to bring the main title storyline to January, where G1 Climax winner Tetsuya Naito will challenge for it. On paper, the pairing of EVIL and SANADA was actually a perfect way to transition to the upcoming match against Naito. The match was an example of two possible outcomes that would both be relevant to Naito’s history in the company. He could either face EVIL, an ally-turned-rival who had an IWGP title program with him in 2020, with them both coming back to a major title opportunity at the same time. Or he could face SANADA, who departed his faction earlier this year and now enjoying his first-ever IWGP title run. In either case, it would be Naito going up against someone he has a fair amount of history with.
It was the right choice to keep the belt on SANADA. He will go into Wrestle Kingdom 18 on a long and dominant run with his belt and will face Naito, the last person he met before he made his massive faction change in March. Judging by how Monday’s main event was received, it would be a disaster to have EVIL remain in the title picture any longer.
From the outset, fans have not enjoyed House of Torture. And this is unfortunate because wrestlers EVIL and SHO are not considered bad wrestlers by themselves. But as long as that House of Torture stench follows them, there will be this negative perception around how they wrestle.
NJPW viewers are clearly burnt out of seeing House of Torture. The faction launched in 2021 and has had a few title reigns. The experiment has gone on for long enough. They did fine in their recent feud that took the promotion to Destruction In Ryogoku, but I have one request: can we maneuver our way towards the final chapter for this faction?
NJPW Destruction in Ryogoku 2023 Results
Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI, Oskar Leube, Ryusuke Taguchi & Tiger Mask def. Jun Masaoka, Kazuma Sumi, Kengo, Takahiro Katori & Takeshi Masada (8:14)
DOUKI, Taichi & Yuya Uemura def. SHO, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yujiro Takahashi (7:57)
Tanga Loa def. Chase Owens (8:05)
BUSHI, Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito & Yota Tsuji def. Callum Newman, Great-O-Khan, HENARE & Jeff Cobb (7:44)
Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney def. Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA (IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships) (13:28)
Master Wato, Shota Umino & Yuji Nagata def. El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki & Ren Narita (Best of Seven Series Match #7) (Series Ends In Draw, 3-3-1) (13:28)
El Phantasmo & Hikuleo def. Alex Coughlin & Gabe Kidd (NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championships) (13:12)
Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin & Josh Alexander (NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championships) (15:40)
Tama Tonga def. David Finlay (NEVER Openweight Championship) (19:39)
Hiromu Takahashi def. Mike Bailey & YOH (IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship) (Three-Way Match) (17:53)
SANADA def. EVIL (IWGP World Heavyweight Championship) (Lumberjack Match) (28:01)
Thursday Notebook
Hiromu Takahashi retained his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship in an exciting three-way match against Mike Bailey and YOH. YOH was put in this match as a replacement for Lio Rush, who was out with an illness. Bailey got a lot of shine in this match, hitting his stellar kick and knee-based moves. YOH, an ally of Rush, hit the Final Hour frogsplash at one point, which felt like a really nice touch to the storyline.
This match didn’t really have a build. Bailey only arrived in Japan the weekend of the event. This match was likely just a big build-up to the reveal afterward, where Bullet Club’s Taiji Ishimori jumped Takahashi and announced his return. Ishimori suffered an injury during the Best of the Super Juniors tournament and was out of action for months.
Tama Tonga regained the NEVER Openweight Championship, beating David Finlay in a brawl in and around the ring. Finlay put a real beating on Tonga in this match, allowing Tonga to have a comeback victory to regain the belt. I enjoyed this match and thing the result is a fun change.
Really, between this and the STRONG tag title change earlier in the card, you could argue that NJPW is showing Bullet Club maneuvering through their first adversity in the Finlay era, feuding with Guerillas of Destiny and their allies. I like it.
Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii and Hiroshi Tanahashi retained their NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championships over the IMPACT Wrestling trio of Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, and Josh Alexander. This was a really fun match and I definitely recommend giving it a watch.
El Phantasmo and Hikuleo won the NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championships, overcoming the Bullet Club duo of Alex Coughlin and Gabe Kidd. I think that Phantasmo and Hikuleo are a solid duo, and I’m glad that they’re getting a small push here (and I say small because these belts don’t really mean anything).
Destruction in Ryogoku opened with the reveal of the newest Just 5 Guys member. It ended up being Yuya Uemura! I wrote last week that it would either be him, or Taiji Ishimori. They both ended up appearing at this show, but it was Uemura who was in the Just 5 Guys position.
Overall, this was a middling show. A couple of matches were great, but there was a lot of stuff that felt just decent and not really interesting storyline-wise. This does not feel like the quality of a show that you would want to see inside Ryogoku. It’s unfortunate because this is the last year big show from NJPW until 2024. It’s also unfortunate because NJPW has had a pretty great streak of having quality major shows this year. This was a road bump in that pattern.
NJPW announced the lineups for the 2023 Super Jr. Tag League recently. The teams are:
SHO & Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney, TJP & Francesco Akira, Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita, BUSHI & Titan, DOUKI & TAKA Michinobu, El Desperado & Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi & The DKC, KUSHIDA & Kevin Knight, YOH & a teammate to be determined (likely Lio Rush or someone else).
I was really hoping to see more non-NJPW wrestlers in the lineup. Last year, we had GLEAT’s El Lindaman in a team. The DKC getting his first full Japan tour here is neat. TAKA Michinoku regularly appearing in the ring is a rarity. Great to see Robbie Eagles back as well.
NJPW and STARDOM had a joint press conference on Tuesday. Here are the major takeaways.
STARDOM will do an event the afternoon of Wrestle Kingdom on January 4th. This will be a problematic move for big joshi fans, as they will be going head-to-head with TJPW’s annual January 4th afternoon show.
In 2024, NJPW plans to head to Hokkaido for the first time in 11 years.
NJPW plans to also head to Taipei, Taiwan next year.
Speaking of expansion in Asia, NJPW has formed alliances all around the continent that they announced at this presser. They will be working with PUZZLE (Taiwan), DFW (China), SETUP (Thailand), GrappleMAX (Singapore), and others.
The second-ever “Historic X-Over” event between NJPW and STARDOM is in the works. The promotion held one of these cards in Fall 2022, and it was one of the highlights of the year for me.
These are all interesting details. Curious what expanding into Asia means. Just a few house shows around the year that don’t mean much? Or actual stops during big tours, or more major events outside of Japan? We’ll see…
The full card for this weekend’s NJPW Royal Quest card was revealed. Here are the new matches that are now part of the show:
SANADA & DOUKI vs. BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito
Ren Narita & Shota Umino vs. Francesco Akira & Great-O-Khan
El Phantasmo, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Alex Coughlin, David Finlay & Gabe Kidd
Leon Slater & Cameron Khai vs. Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships
Robbie X vs. Taiji Ishimori
I’ll have a column after this event on the blog. The main event (Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Will Ospreay) will probably be great.
The MLB playoffs moved AEW Dynamite up a day for just this week, causing the show to go head-to-head on Tuesday with WWE’s NXT program. Because of this, the two shows got into an arms race, trying to stack their shows as much as possible to win over the viewers of the night. It’s a puzzling situation and certainly an indictment that WWE considers AEW competition, even if the numbers show that the gap between first and second in the wrestling world is massive.
Anyway, all that context to say: NJPW STRONG Openweight Champion Eddie Kingston beat Minoru Suzuki on the free pre-show for that card.
Kairi had her farewell match in STARDOM on Monday — here’s a report on that card. Off-topic, but I’m going to spend the next week catching up on Japanese events just from Monday. A national holiday means that it’s all hands on deck from the wrestling scene in Japan.
I wrote about the soon-to-be-released documentary “OUT IN THE RING” for POST Wrestling.