New Japan reached the halfway point of the Road To TOKYO DOME Tour today with an event in Tochigi, the last event for a while outside of Tokyo.
Today’s event was held at Light Cube Utsunomiya in Tochigi. There is/was no live or on demand broadcast.
The announced paid attendance was 1056.
Match 1: Shoma Kato & Tomoaki Honma beat Daiki Nagai & Katsuya Murashima. Kato pinned Nagai.
Match 2; SANADA, Drilla Moloney & Clark Connors beat Jacob Austin Young, Francesco Akira & TJP by DQ. Young DQ’d.
Match 3: Ryohei Oiwa, Kosei Fujita & Robbie Eagles beat Ryusuke Taguchi, Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA. Oiwa pinned Taguchi after The Grip.
Match 4: Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb beat Sho & Ren Narita. Cobb pinned Sho after Tour of the Islands.
Match 5: Master Wato, Boltin Oleg, Toru Yano & Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Dick Togo, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL. Wato beat Togo with Vendeval.
Match 6: TAKA Michinoku & DOUKI beat Tiger Mask & El Desperado. DOUKI beat TM 4 with Italian Stretch 32.
Match 7: BUSHI & Yota Tsuji beat Gedo & David Finlay. BUSHI pinned Gedo after Fable.
Main Event: Tomohiro Ishii & Shota Umino beat Hartley Jackson (Independent/Freelancer) & Zack Sabre Jr. Umino pinned Jackson after Death Rider.
The next event is tomorrow at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at 1:30 AM PT/4:30 AM ET. This will also be a live ABEMA broadcast in Japan.
In other news, the promotion will host a retirement match for longtime wrestler Sumie Sakai, who has been competing since the mid-1990s, at Battle In The Valley on 1/11 in San Jose, CA. It will be a 6-person tag match with Sakai and 2 partners of her choice vs. Hiromu Takahashi and 2 partners of his choice. Today we learned Takahashi’s second partner will be Yuka Sakazaki, formerly of Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling and now competing internationally, including with All Elite Wrestling. Takahashi’s first partner was previously revealed to be current IWGP Women’s Champion Mayu Iwatani. Sakai hasn’t revealed her partners yet. As I will be there in person on 1/11 I’m excited to be able to see Sakazaki compete both in person and in New Japan.
UPDATE: Hiroyoshi Tenzan is now off tomorrow’s event. Fever. He was to have teamed with Satoshi Kojima to face Boltin Oleg & Toru Yano. Yano is now off and it will be Kojima vs. Oleg.
