Tag: New Japan

New Japan Press Conference 7/7/22

Earlier today (late last night US time) New Japan held a special press conference that was open to the public, or at least select members of New Japan’s fan club. Some items of note from New Japan’s English recap will follow but you can also watch the event FOR FREE on New Japan World (no login or signup required):
https://njpwworld.com/p/o_original_0274_1O

(Note: The service will be unavailable on 7/12 from 7 PM PT-1 AM PT due to maintenance)

Notes from the event:
This was a Business Strategy Presentation with Bushiroad Director Takaaki Kidani (Kitani), Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hiromu Takahashi & Great-O-Khan also attending.
They started discussing finances and future plans for the US, which will include women’s matches mainly from Stardom, which is also owned by NJPW owner Bushiroad Corporation.
New Japan will return to the UK in October for the first time since 2019.
An outdoor event will be held at a to be determined location in Japan on 8/20.
The New Japan-Stardom joint event in November will have “around two” mixed tag matches, but not true intergender matches because the women will wrestle only the women, and same for the men. This was something Tanahashi previously hointed at and was pushing for.
Fans will be allowed to cheer vocally at two Korakuen Hall events in September, with masks required and capacity limited to 50%.
New goods and product collaborations were announced, likely Japan-only for now, including protein supplements featuring Tanahashi, a Khan t-shirt and Takahashi featured in trading cards. The t-shirt is designed by famed anime artist Masami Ohbari, the brother of NJPW President Takami Ohbari.
In closing, Kidani described what he calls the “2.1 era”, his vision the future of both New Japan and Stardom.

More on everything as it becomes available.

New Japan 7/5/22 Results

New Japan wrapped up the New Japan Road Tour today with the last of a Tokyo tripleheader, headlined today by a NEVER 6-Man Tag Team Title match and a Toru Yano oddball match because, well, Toru Yano gotta do something like that…

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

The announced paid attendance was 579.

Match 1: Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi beat Kosei Fujita & Ryohei Oiwa. Wato beat Fujita.

Match 2: Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan beat Tomoaki Honma & Togi Makabe. Kojima pinned Honma after a lariat.

Match 3: Alex Zayne, Tomohiro Ishii & Kazuchika Okada beat The DKC, Clark Connors & Yuji Nagata. Ishii pinned DKC after a vertical drop brainbuster.

Match 4: Jado, KUSHIDA & Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Gedo, Taiji Ishimori & KENTA. Tanahashi beat Gedo with a Texas Cloverleaf.

Match 5: BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat TAKA Michinoku, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki & Taichi. Takahashi pinned TAKA after D.

Match 6: In a Dog Cage Deathmatch, where the only way to win was to lock your opponent in a large dog cage, Toru Yano beat Dick Togo.

Main Event: Yoh, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto beat NEVER 6-Man Tag Team Champions Sho, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL to win the titles. Yoh, YOSHI-HASHI & Goto become the 23rd NEVER 6-Man Tag Team Champions. Yoh pinned Sho after Direct Drive. And sent the crowd home very happy…Fo Sho, Yoh.

Next up is the G1 CLIMAX 32, the promotion’s biggest tournament of the year and the unofficial start of the Road To Tokyo Dome in January. Day 1 is 7/16 at Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center Kita Yell in Hokkaido. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin that day at 1 AM PT/4 AM ET, and remember the first 2 days will be available to watch FOR FREE!
Also, a live press conference will be broadcast FOR FREE on New Japan World beginning Wednesday at 11 PM PT/Thursday at 2 AM ET.

New Japan 7/4/22 Results

New Japan continued the New Japan Road tour with the middle event of the final 3-event stretch before the G1 CLIMAX.

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

The announced paid attendance was 536. Smaller setup used today on the opposite hard camera side. No guest on commentary. (Togi Makabe joined after the break)

Match 1: Minoru Suzuki beat Kosei Fujita by submission.

Match 2: Satoshi Kojima beat TAKA Michinoku. Kojima came out wearing a Pro Wrestling NOAH shift and with the GHC Heavyweight Championship that he next defends on 7/16. Kojima with microphone afterwards to promote that match.

Match 3: Tomoaki Honma & Togi Makabe beat Ryohei Oiwa & Hiroyoshi Tenzan. Makabe beat Oiwa with a Boston Crab.

Match 4: Yoshinobu Kanemaru, El Desperado & Taichi beat The DKC, Clark Connors & Yuji Nagata. Taichi pinned DKC after Dangerous Backdrop.

Match 5: Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto beat Dick Togo, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL. YOSHI-HASHI pinned Takahashi after Shoto.

Match 6: BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi, Alex Zayne, Tomohiro Ishii & Kazuchika Okada. Takagi pinned Wato after MADE IN JAPAN.

Main Event: Taiji Ishimori & KENTA beat KUSHIDA & Hiroshi Tanahashi. Ishimori beat KUSHIDA with Bone Lock.

The tour-ender is tomorrow with Yano vs. Togo in a Dog Cage Deathmatch and NEVER 6-Man Tag Team Champions Sho, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL vs. Yoh, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto for the titles. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET. After that, it’s on to the G1 CLIMAX-EVERY event will stream LIVE and on demand in Japanese and English on New Japan World, and everyone will be able to watch the first 2 events FOR FREE!

New Japan 7/3/22 Results

New Japan resumed the New Japan Road Tour today after a roughly 2-week break for the Forbidden Door joint PPV with All Elite Wrestling last week in the US, beginning a quick 3-day sprint to the finish before the G1 CLIMAX begins.

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

The announced paid attendance was 1200. Maybe a full house/near-sellout based on the setup for today. No guest on commentary. (Hiroyoshi Tenzan joined commentary after intermission)

Match 1: Tomoaki Honma & Togi Makabe beat Ryohei Oiwa & TBA, which at the start of the event was revealed to be Tiger Mask 4. Honma beat Oiwa with a Boston Crab. Afterwards, TM 4 with microphone discussing his successful winning the All-Japan Jr. Heavyweight Championship, which he will defend in the promotion later this month. This was to have been Yuto Nakashima & Oiwa vs. Honma & Makabe, but Nakashima is out of the remaining events due to injury.

Match 2: Yoshinobu Kanemaru, El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki beat Kosei Fujita, Master Wato & Hiroyoshi Tenzan. Suzuki pinned Fujita after a Gotch-style piledriver.

Match 3: Aaron Henare & Great-O-Khan beat BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi. Henare beat BUSHI with Ultima. This was to have been Jado & Ryusuke Tatughi vs. BUSHI & Takahashi, but Jado was a last-minute removal from the event due to a fever (he tested negative for coronavirus). Taguchi was also pulled.

Match 4: SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat The DKC, Clark Connors & Yuji Nagata. Sanada pinned DKC after Skull End. This was to have been Alex Coughlin, Connors & DKC vs. LIJ, but Coughlin is out due to injury.

Match 5: Dick Togo, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL beat Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto. Takahashi pinned YOSHI-HASHI after Big Juice. This was to have been an 8-man tag but Yoh is out due to coronavirus. Sho was also removed as a result.

Match 6: Tomohiro Ishii & Kazuchika Okada beat TAKA Michinoku & Taichi. Okada beat TAKA with Money Clip. This was to have been DOUKI & Taichi vs. Ishii & Okada, but DOUKI is out as a precaution due to being a coronavirus close contact.

Main Event: KENTA & KUSHIDA Return Match: Alex Zayne, KUSHIDA & Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Gedo, Taiji Ishimori & KENTA. KUSHIDA beat Gedo with a hammerlock suplex hold. This was KENTA’s first match since suffering injuries at Tokyo Dome in January in a bloody No DQ IWGP US Heavyweight Title match against Tanahashi, and KUSHIDA’s first match in New Japan since 2019, when he left for WWE.

The next event is tomorrow. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET.

DEVELOPING: Another New Japan Card Change

New Japan has just announced another last-minute change for today’s event in a couple hours-Jado is now off the event. Fever. Tested negative for coronavirus but will be kept out as a precaution. He was to have teamed with Ryusuke Taguchi to face Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI. Aaron Henare & Great-O-Khan are the replacements and Taguchi is now off. Probably just took LIJ from win to near-squash loss.

New Japan News: Bumpy End of New Japan Road

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.

All Elite Wrestling/New Japan Pro Wrestling Forbidden Door PPV Results (6/26/22)

AEW & New Japan host their first joint PPV, an event several months in the making, tonight in Forbidden Door. All but one match features wrestlers from each promotion competing against each other, with a number of title matches set as well. New Japan lost a couple of participants the last few days as Tomohiro Ishii was removed due to injury while Hiromu Takahashi was unable to travel due to illness (fever) while Bryan Danielson was not cleared to compete, denying him a match against Zack Sabre Jr. This resulted in Clark Connors being added to the AEW All-Atlantic Title 4-way as a replacement and a planned 8-man tag match becoming a 6-man instead. The main event will be Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the Interim AEW World Championship.
Today’s event will be held at United Center in Chicago and can be watched LIVE on PPV via participating cable/satellite providers and Bleacher Report in the US, ppv.com in Canada ONLY, New Japan World in Japan ONLY and FITE elsewhere for $49.99 except in Japan, where it is 4980 yen. If you go the Bleacher Report route, you get the live stream and then on demand replays for 72 hours after a 24 hour wait. A FREE pre-show will stream on YouTube 1 hour before the main show. A post-event media scrum on YouTube is currently scheduled for 12:30 AM ET/9:30 PM PT indicating the PPV’s likely runtime will be in the neighborhood of 5 hours total.
Tonight’s current lineup:
Pre-show:
Gunn Club & Max Caster vs. The DKC, Kevin Knight, Alex Coughlin & Yuya Uemura
Swerve Strickland & Keith Lee vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. QT Marshall & Aaron Solo

PPV:
The Young Bucks & El Phantasmo vs. Darby Allin, Sting & Shingo Takagi
Chris Jericho, Minoru Suzuki & Sammy Guevara vs. Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta & Shota Umino
AEW Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa vs. Toni Storm for the title
IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan vs. ROH World Tag Team Champions FTR and Trent Beretta & Rocky Romero in a 3-way for BOTH titles
IWGP US Heavyweight Champion Will Ospreay vs. Orange Cassidy for the title
Malakai Black vs. Miro, Pac & Clark Connors in a 4-way for the inaugural AEW All-Atlantic Championship
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. TBA
IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada, Adam Cole & Adam Page in a 4-way for the title
Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the Interim AEW World Championship
Updates below will begin at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT. Click below to watch the pre-show FOR FREE on YouTube at that time:

Pre-show:
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI beat QT Marshall & Aaron Solo. Goto pinned Solo after GTW.
Lance Archer beat Nick Comoroto..
Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland beat Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado. Lee pinned Kanemaru after a fireman’s carry powerbomb.
Gunn Club & Max Caster vs. The DKC, Kevin Knight, Alex Coughlin & Yuya Uemura. Caster pinned DKC after Mic Drop. Austin & Colten Gunn were immediately taken away from the match at the start by Danhausen.

PPV:
Chris Jericho, Minoru SUzuki & Sammy Guevara beat Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta & Shota Unimo. Jericho pinned Umino after Judas Effect.
ROH World Tag Team Champions FTR beat IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan and Trent Beretta & Rocky Romero in a 3-way, when Dax Harwood pinned Romero, to retain the ROH titles and win the IWGP titles. FTR become the 96th IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions.
Pac beat Miro, Malakai Black & Clark Connors in a 4-way by beating Connors to become the inaugural AEW All-Atlantic Champion.
Sting, Darby Allin & Shingo Takagi beat The Young Bucks & El Phantasmo. Takagi pinned Phantasmo after Last of the Dragon.
AEW Women’s World Champion Thunder Rosa beat Toni Storm to retain the title.
IWGP US Heavyweight Champion Will Ospreay beat Orange Cassidy to retain the title. V1 for Ospreay.
TBA beat Zack Sabre Jr. TBA was a replacement for Bryan Danielson, and it was Claudio Castagnoli (formerly Cesaro in WWE).
IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Jay White beat Kazuchika Okada, Adam Cole & Adam Page in a 4-way by pinning Cole to retain the title. V1 for White.
Main Event: Jon Moxley beat Hiroshi Tanahashi to become the Interim AEW World Champion.

End Show.

Post-event media scrum has been tentatively moved up to 12:15 AM ET/9:15 PM PT. Click below to watch on YouTube after the PPV:

FREE VIDEO: All NJPW STRONG Title Matches

On this weekend’s new episode of NJPW STRONG, STRONG Openweight Champion Tom Lawlor will attempt to make his 9th successful title defense as the first and only champion, facing Fred Rosser for the second time with the stip that Rosser must leave STRONG if he loses. But before then, you have the change to watch EVERY title match so far, including the tournament final where Lawlor beat Brody King to become champion, FOR FREE! That’s almoat 4 hours of action!
Click below to watch via New Japan’s YouTube channel:

New Japan 6/21/22 Results

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 6/20/22 Results

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.

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