Tag: njpw

Earlier this year New Japan hosted the first Academy Showcase event for a live crowd at the LA Dojo in Los Angeles, CA. While there was no broadcast before, New Japan has now made the event available FOR FREE on YouTube. You can watch the full event below (it runs just over 2 hours and has English commentary), video courtesy of the New Japan Official English YouTube Channel:

New Japan ran the second half of STRONG Independence Day today, following a day full of surprises with the chance for even more.

Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand as a PPV only on New Japan World. (The PPV is only a combo pack that includes yesterday’s Day 1, in the US it’s about $30 and is available until roughly mid-September) You can also watch the pre-show match FOR FREE on YouTube.

The announced paid attendance was 1401, a super full house/very near sellout. They could have called it a sellout as attendance was down only 32 from yesterday.

There was a last-minute change to the card for today as JR Kratos was not cleared to compete today. Cut (head) suffered during yesterday’s match. He was to have faced Oskar Leube in the first PPV match.

Pre-show Match: Boltin Oleg, Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi beat Rekka, Takahiro Katori & Dragon Libre. Wato pinned Rekka with a Tsutenkaku German suplex hold.

Match 1: TBA, revealed at match time to (perhaps not surprisingly) be Satoshi Kojima, beat Oskar Leube.

Match 2: Francesco Akira & TJP beat Ryohei Oiwa & Homicide. Akira pinned Oiwa after 2/2.

Rocky Romero demanded an IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title match. Which led to…
Match 3: IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney beat Rocky Romero & Yoh to retain the titles. Connors pinned Romero after Full Clip. V1 for the champs.

Match 4: Alex Zayne & Lance Archer beat Kosei Fujita & Bad Dude Tito. Arxher pinned Fujita after a lariat.

Match 5: The DKC, Tomohiro Ishii & Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Jorel Nelson, Royce Isaacs & Tom Lawlor. Tanahashi pinned Isaacs.

Match 6: Giulia (Stardom) beat STRONG Women’s Champion Willow Nightingale to win the title. Giulia becomes the second STRONG Women’s Champion.

Match 7: IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto bear Gabriel Kidd & Alex Coughlin to retain the titles. YOSHI-HASHI pinned Kidd after Shoto. V1 for the champs.

Match 8: Eddie Kingston beat STRONG Openweight Champion KENTA to win the title. Kingston becomes the 6th STRONG Openweight Champion.

Main Event: In a Final Death match, Jon Moxley beat El Desperado.

Next up is the G1 CLIMAX 33 Tournament, the promotion’s biggest tournament of the year and the start of the road to Tokyo Dome, beginning on 7/15 at Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center Hokkai Kitayell in Hokkaido. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at 1 AM PT/4 AM ET. All tournament events will be available live and on demand on New Japan World.

Also announced is the Road to DESTRUCTION Tour, which will be the September and early October tour including DESTRUCTION in KOBE on 9/24 at Kobe World Hall in Kobe and DESTRUCTION in RYOGOKU on 10/9 at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo.

UPDATE: And it’s now official…WRESTLE KINGDOM 18 in TOKYO DOME on 1/4/24 at the Tokyo Dome. That’s a Thursday morning so make plans now.

New Japan brought the STRONG sub-label to Japan for the first time for STRONG Independence Day, starting a 2-day doubleheader in Tokyo today.

Today’s event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched on demand as a PPV only on New Japan World. The only purchase option is a combo pack that also includes tomorrow’s event live and on demand (the PPV on demand window is expected to be about 2 months). You can also watch the pre-show match FOR FREE on YouTube.

The announced paid attendance was 1433, a legit advance sellout.

Pre-show Match: Oskar Leube, Yoh & Ryusuke Taguchi beat Takahiro Ketori, Dragon Libre & Kengo.Yoh pinned Libre after Direct Drive.

Match 1: Bad Dude Tito beat The DKC.

Match 2: Jorel Nelson, Royce Isaacs & JR Kratos beat Ryohei Oiwa, Alex Zayne & Lance Archer. Nelson pinned Oiwa after West Coast Classic.

Match 3: Tom Lawlor beat Kosei Fujita.

Match 4: Rocky Romero & Eddie Kingston beat Gedo & KENTA. Kingston pinned KENTA after Backfist To The Future.

Match 5: Momo Kohga (Stardom) & Willow Nightingale beat Thekla & Giulia (Stardom). Nightingale pinned Thekla after Babe With The Powerbomb.

Match 6: Gabriel Kidd & Alex Coughlin beat STRONG Tag Team Champions Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI to win the titles. Kidd & Coughlin become the 5th STRONG Tag Team Champions. Kidd pinned YOSHI-HASHI after a hijack piledriber.

Match 7: Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney beat IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Francesco Akira & TJP to win the titles. Connors & Moloney become the 73rd IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. Moloney pinned TJP after Full Clip. Interesting backstory here because Moloney came into New Japan as part of United Empire before defecting to Bullet Club, who had themselves a night with 2 title wins.

Main Event: In a Doomsday No DQ match, Jun Kasai (Freedoms) & El Desperado beat Homicide & Jon Moxley. Desperado pinned Homicide after Pinche Loco form a reverse tiger driver.

The next event is tomorrow. Live streaming on New Japan World as a PPV only will begin at 2:30 AM PT/5:30 AM ET. There will be a FREE pre-show match on YouTube about 20 minutes before the event begins. There are 3 title matches scheduled for tomorrow-STRONG Women’s Champion Willow Nightingale vs. Giulia for the title, YOSHI-HASHI/Goto-Kidd/Coughlin again but this time for the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship and STRONG Openweight Champion KENTA vs. Eddie Kingston for the title. The main event is scheduled to be a Final Death match between El Desperado & Jon Moxley.

Ahead of the STRONG Independence Day events in Japan Tuesday & Wednesday, New Japan has announced Fred Rosser is now off both events. Circumstances beyond his control according to Rosser. in a brief statement on New Japan’s English website, Rosser said he will be in Japan “sooner rather than later” so this sounds like it could be due to something travel-related like flight cancellations or visa/passport issues.

The statement can be viewed at the below page:
https://www.njpw1972.com/154373

Longtime New Japan fans will no doubt have heard lots about The 3 Musketeers-the moniker given to the trio of Keiji Muto, Masa Chono and Shinya Hashimoto when they came up through the New Japan Dojo in the late 1980s. That bane has sort of come back, as the promotion just announced the Reiwa 3 Musketeers group-Shota Umino, Ren Narita & Yota Tsuji. This comes in recognition of their rapid ascents through the ranks in New Japan, in particular Tsuji recently who just came back from a shorter-than-normal international training excursion to Mexico and almost immediately earned an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship shot (he lost to SANADA).

However, they won’t be seen together as a unit in the ring anytime soon because they are not on next week’s Korakuen Hall events and the G1 CLIMAX is right after that. Maybe near the end of the tournament. This is an interesting development nonetheless, let’s see if they can all live up to this lofty moniker.

New Japan wrapped up the New Japan Road Tour today with Blue Justice 12, the annual Yuji Nagata produced event in his hometown of Sakura City in Chiba. Despite coming off an All-Japan Triple Crown defense yesterday and having little time to prepare, Nagata is the oldest 55 years old and would do his best today for his hometown fans, in his own words on Twitter.

Today’s event was held at Sakura Civic Gym in Chiba and can be watched on demand on New Japan World. On a side note, for those wondering about English commentary, Kevin Kelly mentioned on Twitter that even though he is now on commentary for All Elite Wrestling with their new Collision show on Saturdays, he will continue to do NJPW events, both live and on demand. That includes his next live duties which will be the G1 CLIMAX Tournament in August.

The announced paid attendance was 1716.

There were some last-minute changes to the original lineup due to DOUKI being pulled from the card (fever). He also missed yesterday’s event. Precautionary although DOUKI has tested negative for coronavirus. But at this point he’s got at least 2 weeks off barring other plans so should be no worries. Match 7 was changed from a 10-man match to 8-man as BUSHI was also pulled again as a result.

Before the matches began, Yuji Nagata appeared to greet the fans and held a mini-wrestling class for children in the ring, and also announced his intent to continue holding this event annually in his hometown.

Match 1: Ryohei Oiwa vs. Kosei Fujita went to a 10 minute time limit draw.

Match 2: Boltin Oleg & Ryusuke Taguchi beat Oskar Leube & Tiger Mask. Taguchi pinned TM 4.

Match 3: Yoh, Toru Yano, Togi Makabe & YOSHI-HASHI beat Dick Togo, Sho, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL. Yoh pinned Togo after Direct Drive.

Match 4: Francesco Akira, TJP & Great-O-Khan beat Gedo, Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney. TJP beat Gedo with Pinoy Stretch.

Match 5: Gabriel Kidd & Alex Coughlin beat Yuto Nakashima & Hirooki Goto. Kidd pinned Nakashima after a hijack piledriver.

Match 6: El Desperado, Ren Narita & Shota Umino beat Tomoaki Honma, Tomohiro Ishii & Kazuchika Okada. Umino pinned Honma after Death Rider.

Match 7: Hiromu Takahashi, Yota Tsuji, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat TAKA Michinoku, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi & SANADA. Tsuji pinned TAKA after a spear.

Main Event: Master Wato, Satoshi Kojima, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Yuji Nagata beat Yuma Anzai, Atsuki Aoyagi, Yuma Aoyagi & Kento Miyahara (All-Japan). Nagata beat Yuma Aoyagi with Nagata Lock 54. Afterwards, Nagata accepted a challenge from Yuma Aoyagi for the All-Japan Triple Crown then finished by announcing his intent to continue holding this event annually in his hometown to send the crowd home happy. We’ll see what All-Japan says about the Triple Crown match but the next defense had already been announced for 7/2, so now we’ll just wait for confirmation it’ll be against Aoyagi.

The next event is Forbidden Door 2, the second joint PPV between New Japan and All Elite Wrestling, on 6/25 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It will be available only on Bleacher Report in the US, FITE elsewhere and as a PPV on New Japan World in Japan only. Not counting that due to limited participation, the next event is LEC Presents NJPW STRONG Independence Day on 7/4 & 7/5 at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. At this time it appears there will be no live broadcasts.

So in reality, special events aside, next up is the G1 CLIMAX 33, the promotion’s biggest annual tournament, which is for Heavyweights and will grant the winner the coveted main event spot at Tokyo Dome on 1/4 with an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship opportunity. Every event will be broadcast live and on demand on New Japan World in Japanese and English. It begins on 7/15 at Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center Hokkai Kitayell in Hokkaido (if you’re in the western US time zones, you’ll get 2 events that day because this is a 1 AM PT start and event 2 starts at 10 PM PT). An early heads-up, I am probably going to miss most of the final week’s events, possibly including the Finals, due to a planned trip/vacation so results posts may be delayed up to 2 weeks.

New Japan continued the New Japan Road Tour today with a return to Tokyo after a week on the road.

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

The announced paid attendance was 1565.

There were some last-minute changes to the card due to DOUKI being pulled from the event. Fever. Tested negative for coronavirus but held out as a precaution.He was to have teamed with SANADA to face Hiromu Takahashi & Yota Tsuji in the main event. Yoshinobu Kanemaru, who was in a 6-man tag in match 7, was removed from that match as a replacement and match 7 was changed to a tag match with BUSHI being removed from the match.

Match 1: Master Wato beat Kosei Fujita.

Match 2: Boltin Oleg & Tomoaki Honma beat Yuto Nakashima & Ryusuke Taguchi. Honma beat Nakashima with a Boston Crab.

Match 3: Dick Togo, Sho, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Toru Yano, Togi Makabe & Hirooki Goto. EVIL pinned Tenzan after EVIL.

Match 4: Francesco Akira, TJP & Great-O-Khan beat Gedo, Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney. Akira pinned Gedo after Speedfire.

Match 5: Gabriel Kidd & Alex Coughlin beat Oskar Leube & YOSHI-HASHI. Kidd pinned Leube after a hijack piledriver.

Match 6: Yoh, Tomohiro Ishii, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuchika Okada beat Tiger Mask, El Desperado, Ren Narita & Shota Umino. Yoh pinned TM 4 after a superkick.

Match 7: Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat Taichi & TAKA Michinoku. Takagi pinned TAKA after Pumping Bomber.

Main Event: Hiromu Takahashi & Yota Tsuji beat SANADA & Yoshinobu Kanemaru. Takahashi pinned Kanemaru after Time Bomb.

The tour-ender is Blue Justice 12, the annual Yuji Nagata Produced hometown event, tomorrow at Sakura Civic Gym in Chiba. All-Japan participation will be featured in the main event. Live streaming on New Japan World will begin at midnight PT/3 AM ET.

UPDATE: DOUKI is now off tomorrow’s event as well (fever). The card will be changed accordingly.