New Japan announced the field for the World Tag League today, the annual year-end Heavyweight tag team tournament. This year there will be 16 teams divided into 2 blocks of 8, with the winner of each block advancing to the Finals and the winners getting an IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship shot, unless current champs HENARE & Great-O-Khan win. It will be a standard round-robin format event. Here is the field:
Block A:
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI (3-time defending champions)
Chase Owens & KENTA
Shota Umino & Tomoaki Honma
Jeff Cobb & Callum Newman
Alex Zayne & TBA
Shingo Takagi & Yota Tsuji
Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa
Gabriel Kidd & SANADA
Block B:
HEANRE & Great-O-Khan (IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions)
TAKA Michinoku & Taichi
Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls
Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jado*
Tome & Stevie Phillip (TAMASHII)
Toru Yano & Boltin Oleg
Ren Narita & EVIL
*-This was to have been Tanahashi & El Phantasmo but Phantasmo is out indefinitely due to being diagnosed with cancer recently
The tournament starts on 11:19 and ends on 13/8. There is no guarantee the winners get their title shot at Tokyo Dome on 1/4.
