6/17 NEW JAPAN CUP 2020 – NIGHT 2 REPORT: Nagata vs. Suzuki, Okada vs. Gedo main event

RADICAN’S NJPW CUP 2020 NIGHT 2 RESULTS
JUNE 17, 2020
AIRED LIVE ON NJPW WORLD
REPORT BY SEAN RADICAN, PWTORCH COLUMNIST

(1) Taiji Ishimori beat Gabriel Kidd in a First Round NJPW Cup 2020 match in 9:00. Kidd is a Young Lion out of the LA Dojo looked good here and put up a heck of a fight against Ishimori. Kidd blocked a springboard hurricanrana late and turned it into a high angle Boston crab. Ishimori got the win with a STF variation. This was a good opener. (**½)

(2) Yoshinobu Kanemaru beat Yuya Uemura in a First Round NJPW Cup 2020 match in 9:30. This was a very good showing from Uemura. He went right after Kanemaru as soon as he got into the ring. He got some great nearfalls late including a great rolling cradle spot for a near fall. Kanemaru got the win with a jumping DDT off the top for the win. (***1/4)

(3) LIJ (Evil & Sanada & Bushi & Shingo Takagi) vs. CHAOS (Sho & Yoh & Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi) in an Eight-Man Tag match in 12:15. This was a fun tag match. The main focus was on the upcoming first round match between Shingo Takagi and SHO. They had some great exchanges here and also had words after the match. Goto got the pin on BUSHI after a GTR. (***)

(4) Yuji Nagata beat Minoru Suzuki in a First Round NJPW Cup 2020 match in 20:30. They went at it right away. They had a long slap battle with both man slapping each other across the face. Suzuki got the choke and appeared to be on the verge of getting the Gotch, but Nagata hit a backdrop. They had another long slap battle and Suzuki hit a headbutt and both men went down. Suzuki was shown smiling on the mat. Nagata hit an exploded out of nowhere down the stretch followed by a back suplex for the win. (****)

(5) Kazuchika Okada beat Gedo in a First Round NJPW Cup 2020 match in 15:00. Gedo tried all sorts of tricks. He came out with his arm in a sling. He took the sling off and tried to mace Okada, but he fought it off. This really dragged at times as Gedo kept cheating and using weapons like a wrench and a pair of brass knuckles to work over Okada. Okada finally managed to overcome interference from Jado and he got a cobra sleeper for the win. (*)

Contact Sean at radicansean@pwtorch.com. Follow him on Twitter @SR_Torch.