Roppongi Vice

Roppongi Vice (sometimes billed as RPG Vice) was a professional wrestling tag team consisting of Beretta and Rocky Romero. They are best known for their work in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where they are former four-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. The two wrestlers were put together as a team by NJPW,[4] but wrestled their first match as a team in their American affiliate Ring of Honor (ROH).

Roppongi Vice
Roppongi Vice in February 2016
Tag team
MembersBeretta
Rocky Romero
Name(s)Roppongi Vice
RPG Vice
Billed heightsBaretta:
6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)[1]
Romero:
5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)[2]
Combined
billed weight		366 lb (166 kg)[1][2]
DebutMarch 13, 2015[3]
DisbandedSeptember 16, 2017

History

Ring of Honor (2015–2017)

Following the dissolution of Rocky Romero's previous tag team Forever Hooligans due to the retirement of his partner Alex Koslov, Romero announced during Ring of Honor's 13th Anniversary Show that he would be forming a new tag team known as Roppongi Vice alongside former WWE wrestler Trent Baretta, with the stated goal of challenging the then-current ROH World Tag Team Champions reDRagon for the title.[5] In their debut on the ROH Conquest Tour, Roppongi Vice defeated The Decade on March 13, and the following day won an Instant Reward Proving Ground match against reDRagon, only to lose a subsequent match for the championship.[3] At Global Wars '15, Roppongi Vice competed in a three-way match against The Addiction and The Decade on May 15, and in a six-man tag team match alongside Kazuchika Okada against Bullet Club representatives A.J. Styles and The Young Bucks on May 16, losing both matches.[3] On July 24, Roppongi Vice were defeated by The Briscoes at Death Before Dishonor XIII.[3] On March 14 of ROH TV tapings, they won a seven tag team gauntlet match to determine #1 contender for ROH World Tag Team Championship by defeating The Young Bucks after entering the match as the seventh team.[6]

On March 10 at the 15th Anniversary Show Roppongi Vice was unsuccessful against The Hardys in a Las Vegas Street Fight for the ROH World Tag Team Championship, The Young Bucks were involved in the match also.

New Japan Pro Wrestling (2015–2017)

Roppongi Vice, representing the Chaos stable, made their New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) debut in late March on the Road to Invasion Attack 2015 tour, facing the Bullet Club in multiple-man tag matches.[3] At Invasion Attack 2015 on April 5, Roppongi Vice defeated The Young Bucks for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, but lost the title in a rematch the following month at Wrestling Dontaku 2015.[3] On July 5, 2015 at Dominion 7.5 in Osaka-jo Hall Roppongi Vice received another shot at the championship in a three-way match that also included reDRagon, but failed to recapture the title.[3] At Destruction in Kobe immediately after reDRagon defended their titles, Roppongi would viciously assault them in order to attain a championship match at King of Pro-Wrestling where they would go on to lose by a questionable three-count. During the 2015 Super Jr. Tag Tournament, Vice achieved big wins over the likes of Jyushin Thunder Liger and Tiger Mask as well as the reigning champions; reDRagon. They were defeated in the finals of the tournament on November 7 at Power Struggle by Matt Sydal and Ricochet, but along with The Young Bucks, still challenged for the title after the match.

On April 10, 2016, at Invasion Attack 2016, Roppongi Vice defeated Sydal and Ricochet to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship for the second time.[7] They lost the title back to Sydal and Ricochet on May 3 at Wrestling Dontaku 2016.[8]

On October 21, 2016, Roppongi Vice entered the 2016 Super Jr. Tag Tournament that began on Road to Power Struggle event. They defeated the representatives of CMLL, Ángel de Oro and Titán, in the first round.[9] After defeating Fuego and Ryusuke Taguchi in the semifinals on October 30,[10] they won the tournament by defeating ACH and Taiji Ishimori in the finals on November 5 at Power Struggle.[10] On January 4, 2017, at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, Roppongi Vice defeated The Young Bucks to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship for the third time.[11] They lost the title to Suzuki-gun (Taichi and Yoshinobu Kanemaru) at NJPW's 45th anniversary show on March 6,[12] before regaining it at Road to Wrestling Dontaku day 3 on April 27.[13] They lost the title to The Young Bucks on June 11 at Dominion 6.11 in Osaka-jo Hall.[14]

On July 2 at G1 Special in USA, Roppongi Vice unsuccessfully challenged The Young Bucks for the title in a rematch. Afterwards, Romero brought up a five-year plan he and Beretta had made three years earlier, which included them winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship and the Super Jr. Tag Tournament, both of which they had already done, as well as Beretta's eventual transition into the heavyweight division. Having failed to regain the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, Romero gave Beretta his blessing to move to the heavyweight division, effectively disbanding Roppongi Vice.[15] On August 21, NJPW announced that Roppongi Vice's final match together would take place on September 16 at Destruction in Hiroshima,[16] where they defeated Bullet Club's Chase Owens and Yujiro Takahashi.[17] Both Romero and Beretta remained members of Chaos, with each transitioning into a new role. Beretta moved into the heavyweight division, wrestling in singles competition and as a part of his long-standing tag team Best Friends with Chuckie T, while Romero became a manager for the new junior tag team Roppongi 3K.

Championships and accomplishments
Roppongi Vice after winning the 2016 Super Jr. Tag Tournament
gollark: I don't like carrying multiple things so I prefer more integrated things when they exist.
gollark: (This is about 100GB)
gollark: I don't need that much storage, but it saddens me that I cannot at least in theory conveniently load a complete copy of Wikipedia up to carry around.
gollark: Internal antennas or something, I assume.
gollark: Signals are strong enough you can receive them on basically anything, apparently.

See also

References
  1. "Beretta Roster DataBase New Japan Pro-Wrestling". New Japan Pro-Wrestling Official Website. New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
  2. "Rocky Romero Roster DataBase New Japan Pro-Wrestling". New Japan Pro-Wrestling Official Website. New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
  3. "Matches<Roppongi Vice<Tag Teams Database<Cagematch - The Internet Wrestling Database". Cagematch: The Internet Wrestling Database. Cagematch. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
  4. Oster, Aaron (2015-08-13). "Where's Trent Baretta? A Wrestler's Journey From WWE to Roppongi Vice | Rolling Stone". rollingstone.com. Retrieved 15 August 2015. I think New Japan had an eye on me for a bit. When Koslov decided to go, they were the ones who picked me.
  5. "ROH live coverage from Las Vegas - four way for ROH title, Alberto vs. Lethal, Bucks vs. Fish & O'Reilly". Wrestling Observer Figure Four Online. Wrestling Observer. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
  6. Sapp, Sean Ross. "ROH TV Recap (3/14): Tag Team Gauntlet: Young Bucks, Roppongi Vice, ReDRagon, Addiction, More". Wrestlinginc. Retrieved March 18, 2016.
  7. Meltzer, Dave (April 9, 2016). "NJPW Invasion Attack live results: Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP Championship". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved April 10, 2016.
  8. レスリングどんたく 2016. New Japan Pro Wrestling (in Japanese). Retrieved May 3, 2016.
  9. Macklin, Matthew (October 21, 2016). "10/21 NJPW Road to Power Struggle report". Pro Wrestling Insider. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  10. Rose, Bryan (November 4, 2016). "NJPW Power Struggle live results: Tetsuya Naito vs. Jay Lethal". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  11. Rose, Bryan; Currier, Joseph (January 3, 2017). "NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 11 live results: Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved January 4, 2017.
  12. Rose, Bryan (March 6, 2017). "NJPW 45th Anniversary show live results: Okada vs. Tiger Mask W". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved March 6, 2017.
  13. Road to レスリングどんたく 2017 ～安芸の国 戦国絵巻～. New Japan Pro Wrestling (in Japanese). Retrieved April 27, 2017.
  14. Rose, Bryan (June 10, 2017). "NJPW Dominion live results: Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  15. Trionfo, Richard (July 3, 2017). "Complete G1 Special in the USA night two report: a United States Champion is crowned, Young Bucks versus Roppongi Vice, Los Ingobernables de Japon, The Bullet Club, and more". Pro Wrestling Insider. Retrieved July 3, 2017.
  16. Rose, Bryan (August 21, 2017). "NJPW announces Destruction cards, King of Pro wrestling matches". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved August 21, 2017.
  17. "Destruction in Hiroshima". New Japan Pro-Wrestling (in Japanese). Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  18. "Heavy weight class List Throne transition DataBase New Japan Pro-Wrestling". New Japan Pro-Wrestling Official Website. New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
  19. "Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) 500 for 2017". The Internet Wrestling Database. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  20. "07/22/2017 - Show Results: Squared Ring Circus". WrestleCircus. Retrieved September 10, 2017.
Achievements
Preceded by
Matt Sydal and Ricochet		 Super Junior Tag Tournament winners
2016		 Succeeded by
Sho and Yoh
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