After two stellar semi-final matches in the 2018 New Japan Cup, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Zack Sabre, Jr have moved on and will square off in the Final on March 21. Moving on first was Tanahashi after a hard fought win over his former student, Juice Robinson. Now, the winner of the tournament is going to be the talk of the town but, for me, this has been Juice’s tournament.
He continues to show growth as a performer and is beginning to get character nuances across with the audience. Just look at the fact he was baby to a very subtle heel in Tanahashi who may be one of the most beloved NJPW performers ever. In the end Juice looked for Pulp Friction before taking a dragon suplex and two high fly flows. Big time shout out to Juice but in the battle of student vs. teacher the teacher came out with the win once again.
In matchup two, Zach Sabre, Jr continued his vicious run to the final by submitting SANADA. After a little bit of a feeling out process, it went pretty much as expected with ZSJ showing his mat superiority. In the end, ZSJ had just about every one of SANADA’s limbs tied up while throwing head butts. Poor SANADA had to give up.
Like, who ties up both of your arms and one of your legs just to throw headbutts?
After another dominant finish, it feels like something big is brewing for Zack and I’m 100% all for that. This man can be downright evil in the ring and still gets the crowd behind him. Here’s hoping 2018 is huge for ZSJ.
So here we are staring down a MOTY candidate with so much story to talk about. Tanahashi’s injury history over the last year, which includes shoulder and knee problems vs. the ravenous, submission ability of ZSJ. Not to mention, the bad blood between Tanahashi and ZSJ’s mentor Minoru Suzuki.
No matter who comes out on top (probably gonna be Tanahashi) this has been a really fun tourney with a couple of matches we’ll be talking about at the end of the year.
John Mosley is the independent wrestling and TV aficionado of the SoBros Network. He graduated from ETSU with a degree in Radio, TV and Film along with a minor in Film Studies. Since graduating he’s done pretty much nothing but watch, film, edit or commentate for local wrestling promotions and is the current color commentator for Resolute Wrestling. #Preds #Titans #DefendOrVacateConor – Follow on Twitter: @CoupleOfJobbers
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