New Japan kicked off the Road To SAKURA GENESIS Tour today, a quick sprint to next weekend’s annual April blowout event.
Today’s event was held at Lily Arena Mito in Ibaraki and can be watched on demand on New Japan World. This was also a live Samurai! TV broadcast in Japan. You can also watch the first 2 matches FOR FREE on YouTube.
The announced paid attendance was 795.
There were some last-minute changes to the card due to Tiger Mask 4 being pulled off the event. The always-vague poor health.
Match 1: Masatora Yasuda beat Tatsuya Matsumoto.
Match 2: KUSHIDA beat Taisei Nakahara.
Match 3: El Desperado, Taichi & Yuya Uemura beat Ryusuke Taguchi, Tomoaki Honma & Togi Makabe. Uemura pinned Honma after Lions Shiner.
Match 4: Master Wato, Toru Yano, Yoh & Aaron Wolf beat Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Sho, DOUKI & Don Fale. Yano pinned Kanemaru.
Match 5: Shota Umino, YOSHI-HASHI, Hirooki Goto & Boltin Oleg beat Dick Togo, Chase Owens, Yujiro Takahashi & Ren Narita. Umino beat Togo with STF.
Match 6: Hartley Jackson, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr. beat Gedo, OSKAR (The Grouch) & Yuto Ice (Ice Baby). Oiwa pinned Gedo with TM Clutch.
Main Event: Daiki Nagai, Robbie X, Taiji Ishimori, Shingo Takagi & Yota Tsuji beat Zane Jay, Jacob Austin Young, Francesco Akira, Jake LEe & Callum Newman. Tsuji pinned Jay after Gene Blaster.
The next event is tomorrow at Act City Hamamatsu in Shizuoka. THere will be no live or on demand broadcast. Nothing for the next 3 events, the next broadcast event will be the tour-ender.
In other news, Will Ospreay was added to SAKURA GENESIS to finalize the card, his first appearance in New Japan as a wrestler since he left a couple years ago for All Elite Wrestling. He has been sidelined most of the last year due to a serious neck injury.