New Japan and Ring of Honor ran the second out of two Honor Rising shows tonight, featuring ROH, ROH tag team and IWGP tag team title matches.

Toa Henare and Jonathan Gresham defeated Zack Sabre Jr. and Taka Michinoku

Good opener. Gresham looked great, he and Sabre had some cool exchanges. He should really be back here soon, he would fit right in and he got over both nights.

Sabre seemed to have tweaked his knee while running to the corner. He worked most of this match, but tagged out to Taka. He and Gresham went at it as they had some nice exchanges, including a shooting star press from Gresham that looked really good. Taka eventually submitted to Gresham’s Octopus stretch.

They mentioned that the participants for the New Japan Cup will be revealed this Monday on the company’s website.

Marty Scurll defeated Robbie Eagles

This was fine. Pretty athletic, people were into Marty and the match overall but it was short. It also felt like a there was just a bunch of moves with no real story.

A lot of this match featured some back and forth that got over with the crowd. Scurll dodged a 450 splash by Eagles at one point. Eagles met him on the top rope and hit a super frankensteiner off the top rope for a good nearfall.

Scurll went for the fingers spot, but Eagles escaped. As Eagles hit the ropes, Scurll grabbed him and sunk in the chickenwing. Eagles immediately tapped out.

Colt Cabana and Toru Yano defeated Delirious and Cheeseburger

This was fun, and the crowd had fun with everyone’s antics. Colt Cabana and Cheeseburger wrestled and due to the size discrepancy, there was a lot of comedy. Most of this match was, really. Delirious and Yano were in and Colt Cabana introduced not one, but two turnbuckle posts. Yano smashed Cheeseburger with one, but he rallied back and struck Cabana with the shotei palm strike.

Cabana took down Delirious but was repulsed when grabbing his feet. Delirious low blowed Cabana and rolled him up, but he kicked out. Cabana cut off Delirious, hit the Chicago skyline (a snake eyes across the turnbuckle) then used his feet to roll up Delirious for the win.

Will Ospreay and Hirooki Goto defeated Jeff Cobb and Dalton Castle

A good match. They kept Cobb isolated, knocking out Dalton multiple times during the the match. He may still be injured as Cobb worked most of the match, though Dalton did get involved here and there. Ospreay in this match looked excellent. Ospreay hit the elbow to the back of the head then hit the stormbreaker for the pinfall victory.

Tetsuya Naito and Shingo Takagi defeated Matt Taven and Vinny Marseglia

This was alright, a standard tag team match. Everyone worked hard and for the most part, the crowd was into it. Kingdom got the heat on Shingo until he finally tagged in Naito who cleared house. Shingo came in and hit the pumping bomber on Marseglia, with Naito capping it off with the Destino for the victory.

Jay Lethal defeated TK O’Ryan to retain the ROH World title

This was very average, at best. O’Ryan just isn’t there as a singles yet and they had a competent, okay match that was nothing special.  

Lethal entered the ring and immediately hit a suicide dive, taking out O’Ryan and suplexing him on the mat. Once back in the ring, they had a decent back and forth match. Lethal hit the Lethal Combination but O’Ryan cut him off on the top rope, but Lethal countered with and inverted suplex.

Lethal applied the figure four, then went for the Lethal Injection. O’Ryan escaped and tried for a pin with an O’Connor roll. Lethal escaped the roll, springboarded off the ropes and hit the Lethal Injection for the win.

Matt Taven jumped Jay Lethal after the match, grabbing the ROH title and said that he’ll see Lethal in Vegas for the Anniversary show.

Guerillas of Destiny defeated SANADA and EVIL for the IWGP tag team titles

Real good, action-packed match. These two teams have great chemistry with one another and had another hot match tonight. GoD are the most pushed and consistent team on the roster right now, so putting the titles back on them makes sense, especially after what happened following the next match.

Some good back and forth to start things off. Eventually, the challengers took the champions to the outside and started to brawl with them around the arena. Heels worked on SANADA until he cut them off and made the hot tag to EVIL, who went at it with Tanga Loa.

After SANADA was tagged back in, he and EVIL hone in on Tama Tonga. He escaped the magic killer and hits a gun stun on EVIL. SANADA grabs him and puts him in the skull end and looked to finish with the moonsault. Tonga rolls out of the way, sending SANADA crashing to the mat.

Loa entered the match, but EVIL followed with a lariat to the corner. They take Tonga for the magic killer but he shoves SANADA into the ref. GoD take control, grab SANADA and hit the super powerbomb for the win, making them five time IWGP tag team champions.

The Briscoes defeated Juice Robinson and David Finlay to retain the ROH tag team titles

This was a pretty hot match until David Finlay injured his shoulder, landing badly doing an uppercut off the top rope. It was serious enough that the match grinded to a halt and went right to the finish. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious but it didn’t look good here.

More hot back and forth action to start things off. Mark launched off with a giant tope con hilo to the floor, wiping out Lifeblood. Good back and forth throughout the match. Lifeblood are also starting to gel well as a team, taking out the Briscoes with stereo rolling sentons to the outside.

Lifeblood tried to go for the Doomsday Device but Jay cut them off, hit a superplex on Finlay as Mark landed the froggy bow for a nearfall. Finlay countered with a roll-up and cleared the ring, tagging to Juice. Finlay went for a uppercut but landed badly on his shoulder on impact. He told referee Todd Sinclair that his shoulder went out. They immediately went to the finish, with Mark posting Juice then landing the froggy bow on Finlay, with Jay covering to retain the titles.

Jay started the post-match promo saying they’re still the tag team champions. They brought up the Guerillas of Destiny, who are the new IWGP Heavyweight tag team champions. They officially challenged the Guerillas of Destiny for a title vs. title match for the G1 Supercard event on April 6.

Guerillas of Destiny came out. Tanga Loa accepted the challenge on their behalf as the two tag team champions held up their titles. They did a fake out on the Briscoes, left the ring as Jay said they’ll meet them at MSG as the show closed.

A pretty hot show overall. The tag team titles matches were good and work overall was pretty strong. We also have our first official match for the G1 Supercard, which sounds really cool and intriguing on paper. If the first match is indicative of anything, these two promotions are going to have some hot matches during WrestleMania weekend.