New Japan ran the penultimate day of the World Tag League today, finishing up a shaken-up Block B.
Today’s event was held at Sun Arena Sendai in Kagoshima and can be watched on demand on New Japan World.
The announced paid attendance was 1128.
There were last-minute changes to the event due to HENARE & Callum Newman being off the event. Knee injuries suffered yesterday. The former had a direct effect on the World Tag League.
Match 1: Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito beat Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato. Takahashi pinned Kato.
Match 2: Chase Owens, KENTA, SANADA & Gabriel Kidd beat Ryusuke Taguchi, Alex Zayne, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto. KENTA pinned Taguchi. Afterwards, Kenoh (Pro Wrestling NOAH) appeared. He is to face TBA, which he calls “his beloved” and an “anchor of NOAH” on the 1/1 NOAH event at Nippon Budokan. That TBA he called out here is KENTA. Accepted. It’s now official per NOAH. Kenoh vs. KENTA on 1/1.
Match 3: BUSHI, Yota Tsuji & Shingo Takagi beat Jacob Austin Young, Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb. Takagi pinned Young after MADE IN JAPAN.
Match 4: Kosei Fujita, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr. beat Tiger Mask, Tomoaki Honma & Shota Umino. Oiwa pinned TM 4 after The Grip.
David Finlay scene where he’s having a phone chat with Gedo. He accepts Brody King’s challenge for a match on 1/5 at the Tokyo Dome.
World Tag League Block B:
Match 5: Tome & Stevie Filip beat TAKA Michinoku & Taichi. Stevie Filip pinned TAKA after Mother Of All Bombs.
Match 6: Boltin Oleg & Toru Yano beat Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls. Oleg pinned Haste after Kamikaze.
Match 7: Ren Narita & EVIL beat Jado & Hiroshi Tanahashi. EVIL beat Tanahashi with a scorpion deathlock.
Main Event: Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito beat HENARE & Great-O-Khan by forfeit. HENARE injury.
That meant a 4-way tie for the top spot, but with HENARE/Khan out that left a 3-way tie with no tiebreakers. Which led to…
Impromptu Match: Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito beat Boltin Oleg & Toru Yano and Ren Narita & EVIL in a 3-way when Naito pinned Oleg. As a result, Takahashi/Naito win Block B and advance to the Finals to face SANADA & Kidd.
The Final is Sunday at Grand Messe Kumamoto in Kumamoto. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin Saturday at 10 PM PT/1 AM ET. This will also be a live ABEMA broadcast in Japan. A pre-event presser & Tanahashi talk show event, which is open to the public, will be held tomorrow.
UPDATE: It’s now official…Finlay-King has been added to 1/5 and, assuming Finlay is still IWGP Global Champion after 1/4, at this time it would presumably be a NON-TITLE match.
