The marquee match of the September 11th New Japan Road event saw Los Ingobernables de Japon (LIJ) members Hiromu Takahashi and former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion Bushi face Suzuki-Gun members and former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Yoshinobu Kanemaru and El Desperado for the vacant title.
Roppongi 3K (Sho/Yoh) vacated the title after Yoh recently underwent knee surgery, making it impossible for the champions to defend the titles within the required time period.
Despite the two teams facing one another on 29 separate occasions coming into the match, only one of those matches had been a true two versus two tag team match (a match held two days earlier and won by Kanemaru/Desperado).
The match itself had portions where it took on the character of a traditional match and that of the postmodern high paced style. Both teams had moments where it looked as if they were going to become IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, but it was Kanemaru/Desperado at the 17 minute and 12-second mark who would take the fall after Desperado pinned Hiromu after his Pinche Loco technique.
The first title reign for Kanemaru/Desperado lasted 304 days and is the second-longest consecutive days’ streak as champions in the championship’s history. Only the July 1999 – June 2000 348 day reign of Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa was longer.
The headline match of the event saw two CHAOS teams battle in a rematch of the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship tournament final.
Champions Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, and Yosh-Hashi made their V1 defense of the title against Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano, and Sho. In what was another competitive match, the CHAOS teams did not hold back.
The champions would retain at the 18 minute and 55-second mark when Ishii used his Sheer Drop Brainbuster technique to gain the fall on Sho. The quality of the match further helped elevate the title after Yoshi-Hashi’s emotional first career title victory on August 9th during the Summer Struggle tour.
