ROH/NJPW G1 Supercard fallout: Okada reigns at MSG

WINNER-TAKE-ALL

The card proper kicked off with a real banger, seeing NEVER Openweight Champion Will Ospreay take on ROH World Television Champion Jeff Cobb in a winner-take-all title match. This match fed nicely into, and tested the limits of, Ospreay’s “I’m strong and tough and can also beat up large guys now” character. The limit of it, apparently, is Cobb. No matter how jacked Ospreay may think he is, he is not jacked enough to defeat Cobb, who gets the win after a top rope Tour of the Islands, followed by a straps-pulled-down-denoting-extra-intensity Tour of the Islands.

Sorry, but Ospreay’s whole schtick of being a legit tough guy now is hard to buy when he’s stopping to wink at the camera, getting suplexed halfway across the ring and selling chops like he’s a sketch comedy character. Don’t get it twisted, Ospreay is an insanely good athlete, the moves he’s able to pull off are ridiculous, none of us could ever hope to do them. His over-acting however, is just so distracting. Imagine cheering for Ospreay over Cobb, a 263-pound former Olympian doing delayed vertical superplexes and standing moonsaults. The guy is an incredible blend of power, speed and agility that will hopefully get to stick around in NJPW for a little while now that he’s NEVER Openweight Champ. All hail Jeffy Two Belts.

Our other winner-take-all match pitted The Guerillas of Destiny, Villain Enterprises (Brody King and PCO), Evil and Sanada and The Briscoes against each other in a fatal-four-way for both company’s tag titles. This was a pretty fun one with everyone getting in their moves, ending with G.O.D. taking both titles after pinning Brody King with a Super Powerbomb. All hail Guerillas Four Belts?

The star of the match though, without a doubt, was PCO. First of all, he got an entrance worthy of WrestleMania that saw him being shocked to life like Frankenstein. Amazing. Throughout the match he then proceeded to hit a senton through the ropes, a senton to the apron and a wonderful moonsault. All this before being unceremoniously thrown over the top rope by G.O.D., sent crashing to the floor, seemingly dead, only to come back to life for a few glorious seconds before collapsing again. This man is 51 years old and he is my idol.

It’s impossible to mention this match though, without talking about the *sighhhhhhhh* run-in that occurred after it, so let’s address it.