Tag: New Japan Pro Wrestling

Ouch…New Japan announced today that FOUR wrestlers are out of the rest of the New Japan Road Tour that wraps up over the next week: Alex Coughlin, Yoh, DOUKI and Yuto Nakashima. Here’s why:
Coughlin-left calf injury.
Yoh-coronavirus.
DOUKI-coronavirus close contact (precautionary isolation).
Nakashima-left elbow injury.
Yoh can return on 7/5 so the NEVER 6-Man Tag Team Championship match he is part of that day is on as planned. The rest are out indefinitely, but with the G1 CLIMAX next they may not see much action anyway. The one I really feel bad for is Nakashima, as a similar injury in his debut match last year kept him out for a long time.
As far as replacements in their scheduled matches go, Yuji Nagata will replace Coughlin, TBA will replace Nakashima, TAKA Michinoku will replace DOUKI, while planned 8-man tag matches with Yoh involved will see both Yoh & Sho removed to make them 6-man tags.

New Japan continued the New Japan Road Tour today with the final event before Forbidden Door and a roughly 2-week break, headlined by Hiromu Takahashi attempting to follow up his 3rd straight Best Of The Super Junior victory with reclaiming yhe IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship.

Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on New Japan World in Japanese. This was a Samurai! TV broadcast in Japan.

The announced paid attendance was 1380, a legit sellout. This is about 2/3 notmal capacity for the venue.

Match 1: DOUKI beat Yuto Nakashima by submission.

Match 2: Taichi beat Ryohei Oiwa.

Match 3: Dick Togo, Sho, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL beat Yoh, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto. Sho pinned Yoh. They might have teased yet another NEVER 6-Man Tag Team Championship match between them afterwards.

Match 4: Aaron Henare, Francesco Akira & TJP beat Jado, Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi. Henare beat Jado with Ultima.

Match 5: BUSHI, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat Kosei Fujita, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Togi Makabe & Kazuchika Okada. BUSHI pinned Fujita.

All G1 CLIMAX matches were announced. The first 9 events will have one match from each block, then it will be 5 matches per event until Day 18 at Nippon Budokan, which will have the last 2 matches in each block and will set the Semifinals with the winner of each block.

Match 6: AEW All-Atlantic Championship Tournament: Tomohiro Ishii beat Clark Connors. As a result, Ishii advances to the 4-way for the title on Sunday at Forbidden Door against Pac, Miro and either Malakai Black or Penta Oscuro. That last match is tomorrow on AEW Dynamite.

Main Event: IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Taiji Ishimori beat Hiromu Takahashi to retain the title. V1 for Ishimori. A 36+ minute instant classic. Next up: Time Splitter…KUSHIDA is back! Having been released by WWE earlier this year, KUSHIDA returned and announced he has re-signed with New Japan for what should be the rest of his career and made the challenge. Ishimori said he’d have to earn it. They last met in January 2019 at Tokyo Dome when Ishimori beat KUSHIDA to retain the title.

The next event is 7/3.

New Japan continued the New Japan Road Tour today with the start of the fully-televised stretch of events for the rest of the series, starting with the first half of a doubleheader representing their final build to the joint Forbidden Door PPV with All Elite Wrestling next weekend. Today they also unveiled the 4 blocks for the 2022 G1 CLIMAX Tournament, with matches scheduled to be announced tomorrow.

Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on New Japan World in Japanese FOR FREE! No account or login required! The event also was streamed live on ABEMA in Japan. Click below to watch the full replay FOR FREE:
https://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00617_3_1

The announced paid attendance was 542. It was reduced capacity again and they used the smaller layout on the hard camera-facing side with two monitors instead of one. Taichi is today’s guest on commentary.

Match 1: Aaron Henare beat Kosei Fujita by submission.

Match 2: Dick Togo, Sho, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL beat Yoh, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto. EVIL pinned Yoh after EVIL.

Match 3: SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat Ryohei Oiwa, Yuto Nakashima & Kazuchika Okada. Takagi pinned Oiwa after Pumping Bomber.

Match 4: BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi beat Gedo & Taiji Ishimori. Takahashi pinned Gedo after D.

Match 5: AEW All-Atlantic Championship Tournament: Clark Connors beat Tomoaki Honma.

Match 6: AEW All-Atlantic Championship Tournament: Tomohiro Ishii beat Yoshinobu Kanemaru. As a result, Ishii will face Connors tomorrow with the winner advancing to a 4-way for the title at Forbidden Door.

Main Event: Francesco Akira & TJP beat IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato to win the titles. Akira & TJP become the 70th IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Akira pinned Wato after The Leaning Tower. Well, I guess that’s it for Team 6 or 9. Unless they hang around long enough to become the 96th champions!

Here are the 4 blocks for the G1 CLIMAX Tournament this yer, as announced today:
Block A: Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano, Tom Lawlor, Jeff Cobb, Jonah, Bad Luck Fale, Lance Archer
Block B: Jay White, Tomohiro Ishii, SANADA, Tama Tonga, Great-O-Khan, Chase Owens, Taichi
Block C: Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hirooki Goto, Tetsuya Naito, Zack Sabre Jr., Aaron Henare, KENTA, EVIL
Block D: Will Ospreay, Shingo Takagi, YOSHI-HASHI, David Finlay, Juice Robinson, El Phantasmo, Yujiro Takahashi
Okada is the defending champion. Block A probably is going to be Okada-Cobb again like last year to determine who wins. Block B seemingly has White, the current IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, all over it. Block C is the “Block Of Death”…any of them can win. Block D, despite a heavy Bullet Club presence, looks poised for another Ospreay-Takagi epic to settle it.

The next event is tomorrow, headlined by Hiromu Takahashi-Ishimori for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET. It also is the final event before Forbidden Door-after tomorrow they will be off for the event with the current tour resuming on 7/3.

New Japan ran the first televised event of the New Japan Road tour today, a homecoming event for Hiromu Takahashi who hoped to put on a good show for a sellout crowd ahead of his IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship match next week, a reward for winning Best Of The Super Junior.

Today’s event was held at Esforta Arena Hachioji in Tokyo and can be watched on demand on New Japan World in Japanese.

The announced paid attendance was 1955. Based on event photos from New Japan’s Japanese website, not quite the legit sellout Takahashi hoped for. No guest on Japanese commentary. Your host is Haruo Murata alongside Milano Collection A.T.

Match 1: TAKA Michinoku beat Kosei Fujita by submission.

Match 2: Tiger Mask & Tomoaki Honma beat Yuto Nakashima & Clark Connors. Honma pinned Nakashima after Kokeshi. After the match, TM 4 with microphone. He is competing in All-Japan Pro Wrestling tomorrow and vowed to win the All-Japan Jr. Heavyweight Championship.

Match 3: Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru beat Ryohei Oiwa & Tomohiro Ishii. Suzuki beat Oiwa.

Match 4: Yoh, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto beat Gedo, Dick Togo, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL. Yoh pinned Gedo after Traas Kick.

Match 5: Aaron Henare, Francesco Akira & TJP beat Jado, Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato. Henare pinned Jado after ultima.

Match 6: SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Togi Makabe & Kazuchika Okada. Takagi pinned Makabe after Last of the Dragon.

ATSUSHI, who probably is some kind of comedian dressed and face painted like a clown, joined comemntary for the main event.
Main Event: Hiromu Takahashi Homecoming Match: BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi beat Sho & Taiji Ishimori. Takahashi pinned Sho after Time Bomb. After the match, Takahashi’s LIJ factionmates joined him for the show-ending promo.

The next event is Monday at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and features an IWGP Jr. heavyweight Tag Team Title match. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET. And best of all, it’s the monthly event that everyone can watch FOR FREE! In other upcoming event news, New Japan World will have a live PPV broadcast of the GLEAT Ver. 3-1st Anniversary Event on 7/1 at Tokyo Dome City Hall. It will cost 3000 yen or just over $22 US in addition to the monthly subscription fees and will be available on demand until October 1. If you can wait, odds are sometime down the road it’ll be on YouTube.

Correction:The next event actually is tomorrow at Kira Messe Numazu in Shizuoka, but it is a non-televised event so no live or on demand video will be available.