NJPW-Windy City Riot
The Second City Get’s Another Amazing Show to See Live
It must be rough to live in Chicago. I am not speaking to the largest city’s continued inability to handle the insane disparity of wealth plaguing the population, unchecked and deregulated police enforcement that has plagued the city for near ten years, a real estate market that is forcing the most vulnerable out of their neighborhoods so that “middle class” renters can owe money to multi-national landlords, a figurehead mayor that is as pointless as really any large city mayor, or even the well known culture of crime that plagues the metropolitan “inner city” that conservative pundits will grind into our collective conscious until we are all well and dead. No, why would I speak to that. That’s not why you’re reading this. This is a professional wrestling blog, and for christ sakes we need to keep it to wrestling. So that is what I’ll do. No you see, it must be rough to live in Chicago because they have so many great professional wrestling cards to choose from all the time!
Easily the best card to hit the Second City in recent months has to be New Japan’s Windy City Riot. Doug and I have expressed on past podcasts how little we have been paying attention to New Japan’s homeland content. I know the final to the New Japan Cup between Naito and Zack Sabre Jr. as well as the semi-final matches were supposed to be great, but has anyone really paid that much attention to what has been happening across the Pacific? However, NJPW of America and NJPW Strong has been doing some great stuff stateside and kept a lot of attention to the promotion. Between the LA Dojo trainees, the inclusion of traditional New Japan talent, use of associated independent talent, and of established AEW and Impact talent, New Japan of America really is an exciting show. They provided an amazing card over Wrestlemania Weekend in Dallas, with Lonestar Shootout (watch here) which had some great matches with Minoru Suzuki/Killer Cross, Jay White/Mike Bailey, and Tomohiro Ishii/Chris Dickinson, and this card should be even better! You can order it on FITE.
NJPW- Windy City Riot
Saturday, April 16th 2022 8/7PM Central
Odeum Expo Center Villa Park IL
- 20 Minute Time Limit Dark Tag Team Match
- Chaos (Wheeler Yuta/Rocky Romero) vs. LA Dojo (The DKC/Kevin Knight)
- 30 Minute Time Limit 6 Man Tag
- LA Dojo (Karl Fredericks/Yuya Uemura/Clark Connors) vs. The Factory (Nick Comoroto/QT Marshall/Aaron Solow)
- 30 Minute Time Limit 10 Man Tag
- Fred Rosser/Josh Alexander/Alex Coughlin/ Ren Narita/Chris Dickinson vs. Team Filthy (Royce Isaacs/Jorel Nelson/KR Kratos/Black Tiger/Danny Limelight)
- 30 Minute Time Limit
- Tom Lawlor vs. Yuji Nagata
- 20 Minute Time Limit Special 12 Man Tag
- United Kingdom (Aaron Henare/Jeff Cobb/Great-O-Khan/TJP/Kyle Fletcher/Mark Davis) vs. Bullet Club (El Phantasmo/Hikuleo/Chris Bey/Karl Anderson/Doc Gallows/Scott Norton)
- No Time Limit Chicago Street Fight
- FinJuice (David Finlay/Juice Robinson) & Brody King vs. TMDK (JONAH/Shane Haste) & Bad Dude Tito
- 30 Minute Time Limit U-S-OF-Jay Open Challenge Match
- (Mystery Opponent) vs. Jay White
- 30 Minute Time Limit
- Tomohiro Ishii vs. Minoru Suzuki
- 60 Minute Time Limit
- Jon Moxley vs. Will Ospreay
Now the matches I personally am looking forward to include the Dark Match with Rocky and Yuta, the Ten Man Tag featuring Team Filthy, Lawlor/Nagata, the return of Scott Norton joining Bullet Club, and of course that main event between Mox and Ospreay. This includes the fact that Ishii, Jay White, Suzuki, and Brody King are on this card. As for White’s mystery opponent, I have not real idea who it will be. But I have a dream, and that dream is one Kenny Omega. It would be fantastic to have Omega show up get over on White, and then we’re off to the races for AEW’s Double or Nothing over Memorial Day Weekend. Top to bottom this is a great card for those who have been keeping up with NJPW America, and NJPW Strong, or to introduce yourself to Rocky Romero’s vision of what New Japan could be. In a month of incredible cards this is certainly one of the best.
Chicago being who Chicago is, has already sold out the venue. Again it must be rough to live there as a wrestling fan, so may as well as order it on FITE and pretend that you live in one of the best wrestling towns in the United States if not the world.
-Bill
