New Japan held their traditional post-major event press conference today for Tokyo Dome, a lot of news coming out of it:
NEW IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Tetsuya Naito appeared and was asked if his views on the title have changed now that he won it. So far, to put it simply, not really. He hasn’t work it yet and it hasn’t settled in. His first defense is set too: SANADA rematch. That will happen on 2/24 at Hikkaido Prefectural Sports Center Hokkai Kitayell in Hokkaido as part of THE NEW BEGINNING IN SAPPORO.
On 2/23 at the first half in Hokkaido, inaugural IWGP Global Champion David Finlay will make his first defense against Nic Nemeth, the former Dolph Ziggler in WWE. Nic & his younger brother Ryan (currently in All Elite Wrestling) watched the title match at Tokyo Dome from commentary and had a confrontation with Finlay after the match. That same day, NJPW WORLD TV Champion Biroshi Tanahashi will defend against fellow ex-WWE wrestler Matt Riddle.
On 2/11 at THE NEW BEGINNING IN OSAKA, AEW’s Bryan Danielson will face Zack Sabre Jr. and the main event will be Will Ospreay’s final New Japan match: United Empire vs. Bullet Club in a 10-man Steel Cage match. 2 title matches are also set for Osaka: Hikuleo & El Phantasmo vs. Chase Owens & KENTA for the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (but apparently not the STRONG Tag Team Championship), and NEVER 6-Man Tag Team Champions Tomohiro Ishii, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuchika Okada vs. Kosei Fujita, Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls for the titles.
In addition to faction warfare, Korakuen Hall events later this month also have title matches: 1/23 will see NEW IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion El Desperado vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru for the title.
Finally, on 1/20 at THE NEW BEGINNING IN NAGOYA it will be NEVER Openweight Champion Tama Tonga vs. EVIL for the title and KOPW 2024 Champion Taiji Ishimori vs. Great-O-Khan for the title.
All events will stream live in Japanese and English on New Japan World.
UPDATE: On the socials after the presser concluded, STRONG Tag Team Champions El Phantasmo & Hikuleo vs. Clark Connors & Alex Coughlin for the titles was announced for Saturday’s Battle In The Valley event. Like the above match, it’s not for both titles they hold.
Also, it appears Young Lions Oskar Leube & Yuto Nakashima may have chosen England for their training excursion. A social media post from Revolution Pro Wrestling (RevPro) has announced their debut in the promotion at their 2/4 event in London. They are being billed as “Young Blood” in a promo graphic for the match. RevPro has their own subscription streaming service so the match should be available there on demand soon after the event.
