KOPW Trophy: New Japan RANBO
I love me a good New Japan RANBO. The participants weren’t known other than Toru Yano, the KOPW trophy holder, and Chase Owens who tweeted about it. Hilariously, eliminations can come via over the top, pinfall, submission, or getting handcuffed to the corner. Owens drew #1 and The Great-O-Khan was #2. Nothing of note happened with the first few entrants before Makabe was the first person eliminated. I chuckled at DOUKI doing the DOUKI Chokey for obvious reasons. Honma was eliminated via handcuffing. He stayed there outside of the ring and could mess with dudes while there. Not much happened until Nagata showed up and fought with Suzuki on the apron before Roppongi 3K superkicked Nagata off to eliminate him. Suzuki might murder them soon. Of note, Dick Togo came out to EVIL’s music, apparently replacing him. O-Khan dominated, even eliminating DOUKI and Master Wato at the same time. KENTA entered at #21 and Yano was #22 to round things out. As soon as Yano arrived, he handcuffed O-Khan to the railing to eliminate him. That left it down to Bullet Club vs. CHAOS (stop me if you’ve heard that one before) and KENTA got cuffed. The final four were Owens, Yano, Yujiro, and YOSHI-HASHI. Yano was able to low bridge Yujiro out after YOSHI got cuffed but a cuffed KENTA was able to interfere and hit Yano a bunch. That combined with Yujiro’s walking stick and powder in the eyes helped lead to Owens winning with the Package Piledriver in 35:36. Goofy stuff and not as entertaining as the more fun RANBOS.