New Japan Pro Wrestling 1/4/1995 Battle 7 Tokyo Dome

New Japan Pro Wrestling 1/4/1995 Battle 7 Tokyo Dome

UWA World Junior Heavyweight Title - Shinjiro Ohtani vs El Samurai

The finish

Shinjiro Ohtani beat El Samurai with a dragon suplex. This was a little slow at first but picked up at the end. Samurai really seemed determined to break Ohtani's neck. Ohtani really took a beating here. Good match. Rating:***1/4

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title: Norio Honaga vs. The Great Sasuke

Norio Honaga beat The Great Sasauke with a La Magistral. What the heck? Honaga was okay here but obviously not on the level of well any of the A and B level juniors in Japan. Who booked this crap and why? Sasuke was the only interesting thing going on here. Rating:**

We got some video of Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Koji Kanemoto training on the beach.

Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs Manabu Nakanishi

Hiroyoshi Tenzan beat Manabu Nakanishi with the Mountain Bomb. Good match here surprisingly. Almost no heat, but these guys really put forth an effort into killing each other. This is probably about as good of a young lions match in NJPW that you are ever going to get. Rating:***

Koji Kanemoto vs Yuji Nagata

Koji Kanemoto beat Yuji Nagata with a botched shooting star press to get the win. Decent match. Koji did a good job in working over Nagata's arm and both men were really stiff with each other. I was really surprised to see these two booked so evenly since Koji is treated as a junior and that's usually a no-no. Rating:**1/2

Shiro Koshinaka and Michiyoshi Ohara vs Tiger Jeet Singh and Tiger Jeet Singh Jr.

Tiger Jeet Singh got the pin with an illegal choke. No idea how that works. This sucked.

FINAL COUNTDOWN BVD Tournament 1st Round: Sting vs. Tony Palmore

Never heard of Tony Palmore? Lucky you. He was an american kickboxer iin the 70's. This was a terrible match. Tony threw terrible strikes at a slow speed and Sting had to sell for it. Tony gassed and even fell down while trying a strike. Bad. Sting won with the Scorpion. I know we'd all like to think Inoki learned from this, but he didn't and is still producing crap like this in 2012.

Akira Hokuto did an interview but I don't know what it was about.

FINAL COUNTDOWN BVD Tournament 1st Round: Antonio Inoki vs. Gerard Gordeau
Gerard Gordeau is a savate champion and is mostly known for knocking three teeth out of Teila Tui's mouth with a kick at the 1st UFC. The doctor's wouldn't allow him to fight with an open wound so he continued the tournament with the three teeth in his foot.

Antonio Inoki beat Gerard Gordeau with a choke sleeper. Guess what was bad and had no believeability? If you guess this, you were correct! Terrible.

Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Kengo Kimura & Tatsutoshi Goto
Riki Choshu beat Kengo Kimura with the lariat. The average age in this had to be about 42 at minimum. Not good here and I think each guy repeated atleast two moves. This show is starting to take a turn for the worst.

Masahiro Chono and Sabu vs Tatsumi Fujinami and The Machine Junji Harata
The subtitle name for this one was "SUPERHARD SYNDROME".

Sabu misses a legdrop badly

Masahiro Chono beat Junji Hirata with a yakuza kick. Not a great match but it was fun and different. Gotta love Sabu in AJPW. Probably about as weird as it gets. Loved him fighting with Fujinami. I could just imagine how that match would work out! Rating:**

Hawk vs Scott Norton

"Come on Animal, come on M'Fer" - Scott Norton

Scott Norton hits Animal

The finish

Hawk beat Scott Norton with a lariat off the top to the back of the head. Not that bad but not that good either. Kind of slow paced and the focus seemed to be on Animal vs Norton. Rating:*

FINAL COUNTDOWN BVD Tournament Final: Sting vs. Antonio Inoki

Inoki was working a limp from getting kicked in the leg from Gordeau.

Antonio Inoko beat Sting with choke sleeper. Man this was a crappy match. Inoki sold for most of it and by selling, he really just made faces while laying there. Then, he out of nowhere gets the choke sleeper for the win after getting no offense in at all. Bogus match. I'd have rather seen Gerard Gordeau vs Sting. Rating: DUD

IWGP Tag Titles: Keiji Muto & Hiroshi Hase vs. Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner

Hiroshi Hase beat Rick Steiner with a Northern Lights Suplex. This was not really good. I know alot of people love Steiner Brothers matches but this was all random suplexes with litle storytelling or emotion. Like a suplex spotfest basically. Mutoh was really inspired for this and really had energy but the Steiners always control most of their matches, so they did little. Disappointing match. Rating:*1/2

IWGP Heavyweight Title: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Kensuke Sasaki

Shinya Hashimoto beat Kensuke Sasaki with a fisherman's buster in 19:36. I was a little scared about this one going into it but it was a decent match. The first ten minutes were slow and well most of this match was but the selling was decent and Hashimoto was good. Pretty decent match overall but not mind blowing. Rating:***

Overall thoughts: Some alright stuff here but way too much crap on this show. There were at minimum 4 pretty bad matches and not enough to make up for them. Skip this one.