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.