Invasion Attack 2014: WrestleFile Historical Verdict

The Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson, retained the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against Kota Ibushi and El Desperado, billed Shinsei Tag, in 11:47 at Invasion Attack 2014. The titleholders opened the nine-match Ryogoku show with a successful defense. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.9 evaluates that opener below the later NEVER, IWGP heavyweight tag and Intercontinental matches, but it must be counted as a retention rather than a Young Bucks title loss. The show would produce a different championship outcome in its third match when Tencozy took the NWA World Tag Team belts from The IronGodz, and another change in the closing Intercontinental main event.

Togi Makabe, Kazushi Sakuraba and Yuji Nagata defeated Suzuki-gun's Minoru Suzuki, TAKA Michinoku and Taichi in 9:39. It is an ordinary six-person result positioned between the junior tag title defense and the NWA tag championship match on April 6, 2014. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.5 places it firmly in the supporting tier. Recording the exact three-member winning side is important because Makabe, Sakuraba and Nagata have other singles or tag championship histories; none of their titles changed in this bout. Ryogoku's later championship outcomes belonged to Tencozy, Tomohiro Ishii, Gallows/Anderson and Shinsuke Nakamura in separate contests.

Tencozy's Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima defeated reigning NWA World Tag Team Champions Rob Conway and Jax Dane, The IronGodz, in 10:36 to win the belts. This was an actual championship transfer in match three of Invasion Attack 2014, separate from the event's closing IWGP Intercontinental title change. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.9 reflects a relatively modest match evaluation despite the concrete historical result. Tencozy did not win the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship here; that division's champions Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson defended successfully in the penultimate match. Stating the correct governing title is more important than treating all tag championships as the same lineage.

Daniel and Rolles Gracie, billed Gracie Ichizoku, defeated CHAOS's Toru Yano and Takashi Iizuka in a 6:56 special-rules match listed as Ishu Kakutogi Sen. The unique stipulation and participating brothers identify this contest, rather than any title change or unreported knockout. WrestleFile gives it C / 6.3, the lowest score among Invasion Attack 2014's nine documented bouts. The result provides a useful 2014 crossover appearance for readers tracking the Gracies or CHAOS, but it wasn't an IWGP heavyweight championship contest. The show's singles title transfer occurred only in the later Nakamura-Tanahashi Intercontinental main event.

Ryusuke Taguchi defeated Prince Devitt in 12:03 in the fifth bout of Invasion Attack 2014. The result is a named singles victory for Taguchi, not the result of the Young Bucks' earlier junior heavyweight team title defense. WrestleFile rates it C+ / 6.8, higher than the Gracie-CHAOS special-rules match immediately before it but below the event's closing championship contests. For viewers tracing the Devitt-Taguchi rivalry, the winner and exact date are the primary historical evidence. Taguchi did not become IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion through this particular bout in the saved source record; the listed result contains no championship prize.

Kazuchika Okada and YOSHI-HASHI beat Bullet Club's Tama Tonga and Bad Luck Fale in 8:43. Invasion Attack 2014 therefore included Okada on a CHAOS tag team rather than challenging for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in the main event. WrestleFile grades this supporting result C+ / 6.5. It also is not the match in which Fale captured an Intercontinental belt; that happened at a different 2014 event, Dominion in June. The Ryogoku finale was Shinsuke Nakamura taking the IWGP Intercontinental Championship from Hiroshi Tanahashi. Keeping those dates and match types apart protects the link between the 2014 editions of New Japan's major shows.

Tomohiro Ishii defeated Tetsuya Naito in 17:45 to retain the NEVER Openweight Championship in the seventh bout of Invasion Attack 2014. The result was a successful defense by Ishii, not Naito's title victory. WrestleFile assigns B- / 7.4, one of the stronger individual grades below the Gallows-Anderson tag defense and Nakamura-Tanahashi main event. This is the first of three consecutive late-card championship matches, and it illustrates why those three cannot all be called title transfers: Ishii kept the NEVER belt, Bullet Club's heavyweight tag champions also retained, and Nakamura then won the Intercontinental title from Tanahashi. The same event additionally had an earlier NWA tag-title switch to Tencozy.

Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson defeated Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata, billed Meiyu Tag, in 18:31 to retain the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. WrestleFile's B / 7.8 puts this penultimate bout among Invasion Attack 2014's leading matches, but there was no new team champion. Gallows and Anderson represented Bullet Club and defended the separate IWGP heavyweight tag belts, which should not be confused with the NWA World Tag Team Championship Tencozy won earlier in the same show. The next match involved the IWGP Intercontinental title, where Nakamura defeated defending champion Tanahashi. Identifying three different title lineages keeps the late-card results coherent.

Shinsuke Nakamura defeated reigning IWGP Intercontinental Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi in 26:49 to take the championship at Invasion Attack 2014. The B+ / 8.4 main-event grade is WrestleFile's strongest individual score for this Tokyo show, and the title transfer provides the late-card conclusion. The previous two championship matches were retentions: Tomohiro Ishii kept the NEVER Openweight belt against Tetsuya Naito and Doc Gallows with Karl Anderson held the IWGP Tag Team belts against Goto and Shibata. An earlier, separate NWA World Tag Team Championship had also changed to Tencozy. This result therefore marks one of two title transfers across the entire card, not the only belt change or an IWGP Heavyweight title contest.