The undercard of the September 11th New Japan Road event set the stage for the two championship matches later during the event.
The third match of the even saw Los Ingobernables de Japon (LIJ) members IWGP Heavyweight and IWGP Intercontinental ‘Double Champion’ Tetsuya Naito, Sanada, and Shingo Takagi face Bullet Club members Evil, Yujiro Takahashi, and Dick Togo.
With Bullet Club jumping to a quick advantage aided by their underhanded tactics, LIJ had to use their resolve to get back to equal footing during the match.
Sanada would keep his momentum going, as he was able to capture a submission fall over Dick Togo at the 9 minute and 50-second mark with his Skull End technique.
Evil and Sanada have mostly kept apart, as the G1 Climax 30 match between them will likely perform good business (under the circumstances when considering the pandemic) for New Japan Pro Wrestling. There wasn’t a lot of interaction between the two during the match.
The second match saw Hontai members Golden Ace (Hiroshi Tanahashi/Kota Ibushi), Ryusuke Taguchi, and Master Wato team together to face the Suzuki-Gun outfit of NEVER Openweight Champion Minoru Suzuki, IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Dangerous Tekkers (Zack Sabre Jr/Taichi) and Douki.
As GoldenAce again looked for retribution against Dangerous Tekkers, their team wasn’t able to hold off the Suzuki-Gun contingent, which had much more experience teaming together than their opponents.
Taichi was able to submit Taguchi with his Seitei Juiro technique, which resembles his senpai’s (Toshiaki Kawada) Stretch Plum submission hold at the 11 minute and 9-second mark.
The opening match of the event saw another Hontai team go to battle. Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima, and Tomoaki Honma face the Young Lion contingent of Yota Tsuji (Noge Dogo), Yuya Uemura (Noge Dojo), and Gabriel Kidd (Los Angeles Dojo).
Despite a spirited effort, the Young Lion trio wasn’t able to hold up against their vastly experienced opposition. Kojima would gain the fall over Gabriel Kidd at the 8 minute and 44-second mark after using his Lariat technique.