New Japan has announced a KOPW 2023 Title match for 11/17 at Yamagata Big Wing in Yamagata (the first event of the 2 event New Japan Road tour). Current champion Sho will defend against Taichi, who Sho beat to win the title, with proposed rules TBA. They should be made available soon for the prerequisite 3 days of online fan voting to determine the rules.
It will be the main event of a 7-match card, which has been announced in full by New Japan’s Japanese website:
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Boltin Oleg & Oskar Leube
Toru Yano & Master Wato vs. Gedo & Taiji Ishimori
Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Yoh vs. Callum Newman, HENARE & Great-O-Khan
Yuji Nagata, Minoru Suzuki, Shota Umino & Tiger Mask vs. BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Yota Tsuji & Shingo Takagi
TAKA Michinoku, DOUKI, Yuya Uemura & SANADA vs. Dick Togo, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL
Tomoaki Honma Produced Match-Tonoaki Honma, Ren Narita & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Tomohiro Ishii, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuchika Okada
KOPW 2023 Champion Sho vs. Taichi for the title
The event will be a live broadcast on New Japan World on 11/17 at 1:30 AM PT/4:30 AM ET. The other tour event on 11/19 will not be televised (this may be the last non-televised event of the year).
In other news, Takahashi recently fended off attempts by Kazuki Hirata to reclaim the DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship ahead of their Sunday match in DDT for the title (but apparently not for Hirata’s DDT Extreme Championship). There will be some kind of undetermined comedy rules for the match per Hirata. That event can be seen live in the US on WRESTLE UNIVERSE beginning Saturday at 9 PM PT/midnight ET and the match may be added to New Japan World at a later date.
Speaking of New Japan World, the updated version of the service will be launched Thursday at 1 AM PT/4 AM ET. You can still access the service as normal, but you can’t subscribe, cancel subscriptions, change your email or purchase PPV content until then. After the launch you’ll have to reset your password via the email used to sign up and new pricing takes effect. If you preciously signed up via the website, it will be 1299 Japanese yen per month or equivalent in your area (right now that will be around $8.75/month in the US). If you sign up via the website going forward or cancel and resubscribe, it will be $9.99/month. You can also sign up via the new mobile/smart TV apps when they launch via the App Store & Google Play (and Amazon for Fire TVs), but you may pay more (could be up to $12.99/month).
