WWE Tokyo 2024, Night 2 Reactions

High-fliers, slugfests, and a special tag treat

Night 1 of WWE’s long-awaited Tokyo stop was a raucous night. Night 2, however, topped it. The building was sold out long ago and was packed full of people all the way up to the rafters hung with the banners of sumo legends. The vibe at the Sumo Hall is always fun, a mix of intimate and crowded in the old square building, people sitting in the upper box-seat decks with their legs dangling over the edge, aching for a glimpse of their favorites. My impressions of night 2 are more fragmented than night 1, for reasons which will become clear, but damoisdamo came through with the pictures once again!

The first night Xavier Woods was tasked with picking up the crowd after intermission. Night 2 he and Kofi got to feeeeeel the power of the first blast of joy as they opened the show against the Judgment Day once again. 

Kofi twerked JD and Finn to the ring (the Judgment Day entrance music: surprisingly good to twerk to). Dom accompanied them to the ring, to a chorus of furious boos. The crowd was quite into McDonagh—maybe being next to the reviled Dom gave him a bit of shine? It didn’t hurt that he’s blindingly fast and agile, either.

Eventually Dom couldn’t resist jumping in and interfering in the match, at which point Rey Mysterio ran out to confront him, to the joy of the crowd. The match was restarted as a six-man match (after Rey wowed the audience by counting to six in Japanese) and after handing out a three-man 619 Rey eventually got to pin his wayward son for the win.

The second match was Kairi Sane versus Liv Morgan, and the guy next to me at the barricade with his “WE WANT MAMI” sign was waving it angrily at Liv as she posed and grinned widely at everyone. When she caught sight of the sign, her grin stretched into something shark-like, and she jumped out of the ring and ran up to him to grab his sign away and rip it up. As she manic pixied her way back to the ring, staff picked up the fragments and solemnly gave them back to the crestfallen guy.

It was frankly a treat to get to see Kairi do what she does best once more. Kairi is a fun heel, but is one of the very best babyfaces-in-peril in the business, and in Tokyo against Liv Morgan she got to be the latter again for a while.

In her golden pirate gear she fought like a glittering dervish, but Liv worked her elbow until she screamed in anguish, reaching out in vain to fans with her good arm in piteous appeal. Eventually she delivered a stunning Insane Elbow from the turnbuckle, but the damage to her arm was too much to make the pin, and Liv hit her own finisher and got the win soon after. As she left in smirking triumph, the guy next to me waved the pieces of his “WE WANT MAMI” sign at her. It was a victory of a sort.

Next up was Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair against Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai. Fairly soon into the match—and I stress all of this happened without the action in the ring ever flagging—the referee looked toward the back and made a couple of quick hand signals, drawing a finger along his forehead. A trainer immediately appeared at the entrance at my right hand, waiting until Jade tagged out to go to Jade and Bianca’s corner. The ref then—again, without ever breaking the flow of the match—basically directed the flow of the match using gestures and quick comments to help the trainer get a moment to clean and bandage up a small but bloody scratch on Jade’s forehead. The trainer disappeared and the match went on, the brief medical adjustment nearly invisible. It was a really fascinating glimpse into the well-oiled machinery of the pro wrestling support staff, and the referee’s vital role in things like that. 

In the end, Iyo Sky pinned Bianca, to the delight of her hometown crowd. Jade pulled a stunned Bianca out of the ring and helped her to the back as Dakota and Iyo celebrated.

Damian Priest and Jey Uso have been crossing paths at house shows a lot in the leadup to SummerSlam, and last night they had a title match that showed off the chemistry they’ve built, just so much fun. 

The decibel warning on my husband’s watch went off during the YEETs at the beginning, so that’s a clue how into it the audience was. Damian played along—unlike Gunther on Night 1, he actually did join in, too! The crowd decided maybe they liked him after all. 

Hilariously, at one point the bout became basically an Undertaker-Rock homage match, with Priest pulling out an Old School rope walk, Jey doing the People’s Elbow of his cousin, and Priest responding by sitting up deadman-style to glare at him. 

The match got the first “this is awesome” chant of the night, and after Priest got the win he helped Jey to his feet and the audience showed its appreciation to them both. Before leaving, Jey took a moment to play with the crowd, waving his arms to elicit YEETs like a conductor with a huge orchestra, enjoying the collaborative symphony.

At intermission, I started doing some quick mental calculations. I knew the main event would be Nakamura-Styles-Rhodes, and before that would be Bayley-Satomura. That left probably two matches, and I hadn’t seen the Bloodline, Gunther, Knight, or Sami and Kevin. Which was weird because all of those are Smackdown stars and Sami is on Raw… so were we going to get a Gunther-Sami WrestleMania rematch while Knight teamed up with Kevin? Where was Sami going to fit into all of this? Through intermission I began to worry: was Sami ill? Worse—could he have gotten injured last night? It didn’t bear contemplating.

The first match after the intermission was… Gunther versus LA Knight. The crowd loved Knight, though there were some full-throated cries of GUNTHER from devoted fans as well. However, this is where my notes for the night start to get sporadic. Beyond “killer clothesline by Gunther” and “YEAuh is very fun to yell” my notes were sparse, because it was starting to occur to me that there was really no match left for Sami to be in except… except…

After Gunther won with an opportunistic rollup and a smug Ring General and frustrated Knight left the ring, the Bloodline swaggered out. The crowd jumped up with delight again when Kevin’s music growled through the Sumo Hall, and Kevin came alone to the ring. He picked up the mic and explained that his friend Randy Orton should be here to fight the Tongan contingent of the Bloodline, but they had taken him out. “But,” he added, as the crowd made a speculative “ooooooh” noise (and I grabbed my husband’s arm hard enough to leave marks) “…I have more than one friend!”

And Sami’s music hit.

The crowd came unglued—well, I assume so, I was too busy coming unglued to actually notice. I screamed so loud I could feel my teeth vibrate (teeth aren’t supposed to vibrate, right? Am I going to have to see a dentist?) Believe it or not, I’ve never actually seen Kevin and Sami in a match together—near-misses and unlucky timing always kept it from happening, until last night. I have no notes of the match, as there was no way I was going to look away long enough to take notes, but I do know it featured some very dramatic hot tag attempts (one of my favorite things!) in both directions.

I actually have been really fond of Tonga and Loa since they were the Guerillas of Destiny in NJPW and I had the opportunity to boo them in many an isolated mountain town arena. So it was a thrill to get to boo them once more, this time as they cheated and connived against my favorites. Kevin suffered agonies of outrage as he pointed out “THIS IS CLEARLY ILLEGAL” to the oblivious referee as the Solo cheap-shotted Sami or they refused to do a rope break. In the end, Solo went too far and the referee finally noticed it and threw him out of the match, to the glee of the crowd. That turned the tide in Kevin and Sami’s favor, and after a Helluva Kick to rattle Tama Tonga’s fillings, Kevin and Sami officially got their first tag team win since December of last year. 

After a celebratory hug, Kevin gave Sami his Intercontinental title and carefully placed it on his friend’s shoulder… and despite knowing such a thing would never happen at a house show and even believing Kevin is probably past that kind of betrayal, I confess I held my breath a bit. But it was fine! All was well, they lifted each other’s hands in acknowledgement and the crowd showed their love and appreciation and gratitude for getting a rare and precious gift.

Sadly, I failed to take any notes in the last two matches either, as my mind was still whirling uncontrollably. I did try to focus and pay attention to Satomura and Bayley’s match, because I suspect it’s the last time I’ll ever see Satomura wrestle and she means so much to me. 

Despite my lack of details, it was a really good match, they didn’t pull any punches and went right at it as if it were a broadcast bout. Bayley struggled to put the legend away, but eventually she managed to do it, and a visibly emotional Satomura bowed to the crowd in acknowledgement of their cheers.

Fortunately for Rhodes, Nakamura, and Styles, most of the rest of the audience was not completely overwhelmed to the point of not being able to concentrate on their match. I’m sure it will shock no one when I say it was really good, and there was a crackling mix of enmity and respect between the three men, two of them former Bullet Club leaders and one of them a pillar of the CHAOS faction that stood against them both for so long. Styles is—look, I find this hard to believe, but seeing him in person I can assert he is as good or perhaps even better than he was nine years ago. Diamond-sharp, crisp and powerful, it’s astonishing to watch him. 

The long, long history between Styles and Nakamura definitely played a big role, as they briefly worked together to try and beat up Cody and I kept waiting for one to low-blow the other, as surely old habits die hard. They did not, although Nakamura was the one who broke the alliance and went for a quick rollup on an annoyed Styles. In the end Nakamura took the pin, but Cody called them both into the ring to thank them for inspiring him. He bowed deeply to Shinsuke, then offered a too-sweet, the Bullet Club salute, to Styles, who returned it solemnly. Shinsuke watched the exchange with a sort of wary tolerance which turned to an eye-roll when Style refused to acknowledge him and stalked out of the ring.

Nakamura then pulled a bit of a Mark Henry and teased retiring before laughing and informing us that he had no intention of leaving and would keep giving it his all, to the crowd’s relief. He bid us all farewell and we stumbled out into the night, dazed with cheering and happiness, after-images of the matches playing on our retinas like we’d stared at the sun too long and too raptly.