New Japan wrapped up the first part of the Road to THE NEW BEGINNING Tour today amidst fallout from the departure of Kota Ibushi from the promotion (contract expired) and potential concerns about Yoh, who missed a second straight event today due to a fever. He should be fine for the weekend.
Today’s event was held at Aomori Budokan in Aomori. There was no live broadcast and no on demand video will be available.
The announced paid attendance was 1216.
Match 1: Aaron Henare beat Ryohei Oiwa.
Match 2: Toru Yano & Togi Makabe beat Oskar Leube & Hiroyoshi Tenzan. Yano pinned Leube.
Match 3: Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo beat Master Wato & Tiger Mask. Phantasmo pinned TM 4 after Sudden Death.
Match 4: Jado & Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Gedo & KENTA. Tanahashi beat Gedo with a Texas Cloverleaf.
Match 5: Yuto Nakashima, YOSHI-HASHI, Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto beat Kosei Fujita, Shane Haste, Mikey Nicholls & Zack Sabre Jr. YOSHI-HASHI beat Fujita with Butterfly Lock.
Match 6: Francesco Akira, TJP, Great-O-Khan & Will Ospreay beat TAKA Michinoku, DOUKI, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taichi. Ospreay pinned TAKA after Hidden Blade.
Main Event: Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat Ryusuke Taguchi, Shota Umino, Tomoaki Honma & Kazuchika Okada. Takagi pinned Honma after Pumping Bomber. During the match, BUSHI interfered against Umino and Naito attacked Umino’s father, referee Red Shoes Unno, potentially setting up the next big rivalry for Naito…after his match against Keiji Muto in The Living Legend’a retirement match, presumably.
The next events are as follows:
TAMASHII returns for its second installment with 2 events this weekend. The first one is Friday in Sydney, Australia and the second one is Saturday in Melbourne, Australia. There will be no live broadcast for both.
On the Japan side. Next up is THE NEW BEGINNING in SAPPORO, a doubleheader Saturday US time at Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center Hokkai Kitayell in Hokkaido. Live streaming on New Japan World in Japanese and English will begin Saturday at midnight PT/3 AM ET for the first event and Saturday at 9 PM PT/midnight ET for the second event. Live results are scheduled for the second event.
Also, announced after the event were a Hirooki Goto 20th Anniversary event on 4/22 in Mie and WRESTLING DONTAKU 2023, the annual Golden Week blowout event in Fukuoka, on 5/3 back at its regular home, Fukuoka International Center. Last year’s event was held at the much larger Fukuoka PayPay Dome for the 50th Anniversary celebration.
