As they have done a few times in recent years, in particular with the comeback story of Hiromu Takahashi from his life-threatening neck injury and around other major events, New Japan has just released a new documentary video FOR FREE on YouTube, and it is also available on New Japan World for subscribers. This 42 minute video offers a behind the scenes look at the 1/4/24 Tokyo Dome event. The video is in Japanese but includes English subtitles. Check out the video below:
Video courtesy of the New Japan English YouTube channel.
In keeping with tradition with the title, New Japan World has made today’s NJPW WORLD TV Championship match available FOR FREE on the service and the socials. You can watch below for free, no signup or account required:
The biggest annual event in Japan, and the biggest wrestling spectacular in the world after WWE WrestleMania, WRESTLE KINGDOM 18 in TOKYO DOME, is now in the books as New Japan held their annual year-opening January 4 extravaganza today.
Due to time differences and event length, for those waiting until later to watch on demand and trying to avoid SPOILERS, I am posting a warning here so you can stop scrolling and come back later. If you do want to know what happened, click below and read on.
The countdown is on now…just 12 days to New Japan’s annual 1/4 year-opening spectacular at the Tokyo Dome, and the promotion has just announced the full card for the biggest Japanese pro wrestling event of the year. The full lineup is as follows (in order): New Japan Ranbo. Battle Royal with an undetermined number of entrants. The last 4 left win and advance to a 4-way on 1/5/24 to determine the first KOPW 2024 Champion IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney vs. Francesco Akira & TJP for the titles NJPW WORLD TV Champion Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the title Yota Tsuji vs. Yuya Uemura Kaito Kiyomiya (Pro Wrestling NOAH) & Shota Umino vs. Ren Narita & EVIL (*) NEVER Openweight Champion Shingo Takagi vs. Tama Tonga for the title IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto vs. STRONG Tag Team Champions Hikuleo & El Phantasmo for the titles (both titles) IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Taakahashi vs. El Desperado for the title Will Ospreay vs. Jon Moxley & David Finlay in a 3-way for the IWGP Global Championship Kazuchika Okada vs. Bryan Danielson (All Elite Wrestling) IWGP World Heavyweight Champion SANADA vs. Tetsuya Naito for the title
(*)-New Japan’s English website says it’s Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa vs. Narita & EVIL but the match graphic and preview description says it’s Umino. I’m 100% certain it’s Kiyomiya & Umino and not Oiwa.
New Japan announced the field for the 2023 World Tag League today. The annual year-end Heavyweight tag team tournament will have 16 teams split into 2 blocks for the round-robin format event with the top 2 teams in each block advancing to the Semifinals.
The full field: Block A: Shota Umino & Ren Narita, Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano, Great-O-Khan & HENARE, Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls, Alex Coughlin & Gabriel Kidd, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL, Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa, Bishop Kaun & Toa Liona
Block B: YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto (2-time defending winners), Hikuleo & El Phantasmo, Yuji Nagata & Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & Yuya Uemura, Yota Tsuji & TBA, Soberano Jr. & Atlantis Jr., Lance Archer & Alex Zayne, Bad Luck Fale & Jack Bonza
TBA for Tsuji’s partner, “a friend he met on excursion who isn’t an X but a Z”, will be revealed at Sunday’s non-televised event. The tournament begins on 11/20 and will end on 12/8.
In other news, 2 more title matches have been added to Tokyo Dome on 1/4: NEVER Openweight Champion Shingo Takagi vs. Tama Tonga for the title is now official following Lonestar Shootout, as is NJPW WORLD TV Champion Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the title.
The World Tag League will also see the debuts of 2 new Young Lions (rookies making their in-ring debuts in NJPW): Shoka Kato & Katsuya Murashima. Kato, 20, from Osaka is 5’8″, about 180 pounds, He has backgrounds in basketball, MMA and grappling and gained attention through “The Spirit”, a reality show produced by Kazuchika Okada that followed trainees in the New Japan Dojo. He will face Oskar Leube in his debut match on 11/20. Murashima, 23, is from Ibaraki and has been an amateur wrestler for 9 years with 2 regional college championships at 86 kg & 92 kg. He will face Yuto Nakashima in his debut match on 11/21.
(Pictured on right: Shoka Kato)
(Pictures on right: Katsuya Murashima)
UPDATE: In a sometimes-rumored move, lead New Japan World English commentator Kevin Kelly has left the promotion. Kelly hinted at such a move earlier this year but still planned to do some events, the plan was to do Tokyo Dome on 1/4 but now can’t make it due to personal reasons. Kelly joined All Elite Wrestling this year as the lead commentator on AEW Collision when the NJPW schedule was announced. Walker Stephens, who debuted recently on live events in the US, is the likely replacement.
