Perhaps my favorite tournament of the year got underway today as New Japan kicked off the 2026 Best Of The Super Junior, the 33rd annual installment of the prestigious Junior Heavyweight showcase event.
Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on New Japan World.
The announced paid attendance was 1445, a legit sellout.
All matches were Best Of The Super Junior matches.
Match 1: Block B: Taiji Ishinori beat Jacob Austin Young.
Match 2: Block B: Sho beat Yoshinobu Kanemaru.
Match 3: Block A: Ryusuke Taguchi beat Daiki Nagai.
Match 4: Block B: Hyo (Dragon Gate) beat Yoh. This only went about 2 1/2 minutes.
Match 5: Block A: Nick Wayne (All Elite Wrestling) beat Robbie X.
Match 6: Block B: KUSHIDA beat Robbie Eagles.
Match 7: Block A: Titan (CMLL) beat Master Wato.
Match 8: Block B: Daisuke Sasaki (DDT) beat El Desperado.
Main Event: Block A: Kosei Fujita beat Robbie Eagles.
In Block A, two wrestlers- Valiente Jr. & Jun Kasai-apparently were not scheduled for matches today. They begin their tournaments Saturday. It looks like, for now, the plans are for 9 tournament matches each day and not the full 10.
Day 2 is Saturday at Esforta Arena Hachioji. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at 2 AM PT/5 AM ET.