New Japan has added an interesting match to Saturday’s Taichi hometown school event-not that there’s anything interesting about Yoh vs. Satoshi Kojima. But here’s the interesting part-if Kojima wins AND can get his weight down to 100 kg/220 lbs or less in time (which will be before the event), Kojima will get an IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship shot in the future. If Kojima is at the weight listed in bis profile on New Japan’s website, which is 108 kg/237.6 pounds, that’s less than 2 days now to cut 17.6 pounds. Yes, MMA fighters do these ridiculous (and dangerous) weight cuts all the time and sometimes boxers do too, but we also must keep in mind Kojima is 56. The Bread Club must rally and send him lots of high-fiber bread! The kicker here seems to be that Taichi was a Junior Heavyweight before moving up to Heavyweight in 2018 and it really moved his career forward, so can Kojima do it in reverse? Not that he needs to as he still is doing well for himself, especially in the US Independent (and now New Japan partner) Major League Wrestling (MLW).
We’ll see what happens at event time. The event will be a PPV on New Japan World.