New Japan Pro Wrestling 12/2/2012 World Tag League 2012 Finals

New Japan Pro Wrestling 12/2/2012 World Tag League 2012 Finals

Yuji Nagata, Masaaki Mochizuki , Ryusuke Taguchi & BUSHI vs. Minoru Suzuki, TAKA Michinoku , Taichi & Kengo Mashimo
This is your usual "Let's get everyone on the card" match, even though  3 of the people aren't even regular NJ guys.

The finish

Taichi beat BUSHI with the Taichi Clutch. This was the PPV opener and by now you probably know how I feel about NJPW "Let's get everyone on the card opener's". It was heatless except for when Nagata was in there and it was like a Dragon Gate tag on tranquilizers. They did a better job than I thought they would but the crowd just did not care at all. I'm really not sure why this was on the show. Rating:*1/2

After the match there was a brawl where Suzuki and Nagata went at it:

Nagata actually had a match for Dragon Gate later that day after this match.

Rush & Diamante Azul vs. YOSHI-HASHI & Jado
Rush and Azul are from CMLL. Rush is kind of an overpushed pretty boy and Daimante Azul is a Blue Demon ripoff.

YOSHI-HASHI beat Diamante Azul with a swanton bomb. This wasn't very good. The luchadores showed absolutely nothing and might as well have not even been lucha guys in this one. I never liked Jado and he didn't look very good here. YOSHI was fine but overall with a dead crowd this just didn't work. It was pretty akward and more like an american match than a japanese one or a mexican one. Rating:1/2*

World Tag League – Semi Final: Togi Makabe & Wataru Inoue vs. Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr.

Davey Boy Smith Jr pinned Wataru Inoue after a double team powerbomb. Not bad but we all knew who was going over here. There was a really funny spot where Lance Archer ducked a clothesline. If you can't hit a guy 6'10 with a clothesline, something is wrong. Aside from that, it was all about the gaijin's taking care of buisness and moving on. Rating:**

World Tag League – Semi Final: Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Hirooki Goto & Karl Anderson

The finish

Hirooki Goto beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan with the Goto Shiki for the win. Decent match, but it didn't really pick up until the end. Obviously they weren't going to go all out here since one of these teams would have another match. You know what you are getting in a TenKoji match and this was about the usual with alot less heat. Everyone mostly just traded moves until they went into their finish sequence. Rating:**3/4

Manabu Nakanishi & Strong Man vs. Toru Yano & Takashi Iizuka
I'm just going to mention right now that I'm probably going to hate this. I don't really care for either of the 4 guys(though Nakanishi has been quality at times) and putting them together seems like a bad idea.

Nakanishi and Strong Man got the win by DQ when Masato Tanaka and Yujiro Takahashi attacked. Well, this was a giant waste of time. The finish sucked but it wasn't that bad getting to that point. Then they had an 8-man after Shelton Benjamin and MVP made the save. Somewhere during this melee, one of the announcers got beaten up and got his shirt ripped off.

Strong Man, Manabu Nakanishi, MVP and Shelton Benjami vs Masato Tanaka, Takayuki Iizuka, Toru Yano and Yujiro Takahashi

The faces got the win after Iizuka got DQ'd for using his iron fist. Another bogus waste of time match. Blah! This was slow, heatless and totally boring. Iizuka makes great faces but it ain't enough to make this interesting.

Shinsuke Nakamura & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kazushi Sakuraba & Katsuyori Shibata
The story here is that Nakamura is a part of CHAOS along with Kazuchika Okada. However, they said it would be too easy for them to win if they teamed, so they both got different partners.

There's actually a nice bit of history here as Nakamura and Shibata were both members of the New 3 Musketeer's along with Tanahashi in NJPW but Shibata left. Also, Nakamura and Sakuraba are going to meet at the Dome show on 1/4, so this is a preview for that.

The finish

Kazushi Sakuraba beat Tomohiro Ishii with the armlock. Not that good unfortunately. Sakuraba looks really awful as he just can't shift between shoot and work. He's too loose anytime he does anything and it just looks laughable. He also has no idea how to sell or move things along. He's fine tapping out someone but that's it. Ishii was the star here. He looked great and was so fiery. The crowd got into him. There was barely any Shibata or Nakamura unfortunately and I'm not sure if Nakamura was even in there for a full minute. Rating:*1/2

Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA vs. Kazuchika Okada & Gedo
Okada and Tanahashi have a match at the Dome on 1/4 so this is a set-up for that.

Kazuchika Okada beat KUSHIDA with the rainmaker lariat for the win. This was decent and all of the guys put in a decent effort, but it wasn't meant to be much more than that. The crowd wasn't into it at all. KUSHIDA looked good but he also looked like he ripped off Tajiri down to his movements.  This was alright, but nothing special or noteworthy. Rating:**1/2

World Tag League Final - Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr vs Hirooki Goto and Karl Anderson

Karl Anderson got the win for his team with a cutter. This was just alright. None of these guys are going to produce a classic and they didn't here. It was alright and they did get a false finish or two but that's really about it. They tried but Goto's really the only one who can take things to the next level. This was somewhat disappointing. Rating:**1/2

Overall thoughts: This was just so-so all around. Nothing stood out, nothing was that great and it was the worst of the 3 NJPW worldwide iPPV's. I don't think anything really was what it should have been and I don't really think anyone produced as well as they could. Skip this one.