All star tag headlines in Osaka

As NJPW rounds the corner into the last week of the New Year’s Golden Seriers, action hits Osaka on February 13, hitting EDION Arena for the first time in 2022 with an appropriately big main event. 

Watch new Year’s Golden Series LIVE in English on NJPW World!

Main event: Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuchika Okada vs Los Ingobernables De Japon (Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito)

In our main event, a preview of two championship matches in Sapporo next weekend, as Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi face Tetsuya Naito and SANADA. Following weeks of six man action, this is the first direct tag on the tour between champions and challengers for the IWGP United States and World Heavyweight Championships in Sapporo one week later. 

The tag bout also comes in an important venue for all four of these men. Hiroshi Tanahashi knows what it’s like to lose big money matches in the month of February in EDION Arena, having lost the IWGP Heavyweight title to Jay White here in 2019, and famously to Okada in 2012. Consequently, SANADA scored one of the biggest wins of his career in this building in the 2019 G1 Climax when he beat Okada one on one for the first time in the EDION, while the partisan Osaka crowd has always had an interesting relationship with the ups and downs of Naito’s career. With so much connecting all four men to one another and to this town, this will be a heated match with a lot of personal pride at stake before Sapporo’s championship action.

7th Match: NEVER Openweight Championship Lumberjack Match: EVIL vs Tomohiro Ishii

Singles record: 9-2 Ishii of which championship matches: 1-1

The first Lumberjack Match in almost five years in NJPW sees Tomohiro Ishii get a rematch against EVIL from Wrestle Kingdom. That rematch came as a result of the manner in which EVIL secured his second NEVER title reign, coming as it did only after a near farcical level of HOUSE OF TORTURE interference that ensured Ishii could not retain his title even as YOH provided some level of assistance in the Tokyo Dome. 

Indeed Ishii’s two career defeats at the hands of the King of Darkness have only arisen due to copious interference and underhandedness, but Ishii will not use that as an excuse, nor should he. Instead he will enlist members of CHAOS to act as lumberjacks and neutralise the threat that HOUSE OF TORTURE presents. With both sides theoretically even, EVIL will be forced to fight on his own merits- or since it was the champion himself that suggested the stipulation, does EVIL have something extra up his sleeve?

6th Match: Robbie Eagles vs Taiji Ishimori

Singles record: 2-0 Ishimori

With Flying Tiger set to defend the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag team Championships against BULLET CLUB’s Cutest tag team in Sapporo next weekend, Robbie Eagles returns to action to face Taiji Ishimori in a singles preview tonight. This match also marks Taiji Ishimori’s return to action after being away from the ring due to COVID protocols, and he’ll be looking to hit the ground running against a man he has a very good record against in Eagles. 

Once upon a time, these two were partners in BULLET CLUB before El Phantasmo stepped in the middle, and Eagles found his true calling in CHAOS. Ever since, the Sniper of the Skies has been keen to get a definitive win over Ishimori, but the Bone Soldier’s own blend of speed and precision technical wrestling has always had the edge over Eagles to date. Does that change in Osaka?

5th Match: Tiger Mask vs El Phantasmo

As Robbie Eagles battles Taiji Ishimori, so Tiger Mask will take on El Phantasmo in Osaka. Despite having locked horns in tag action, as well as in a UK three way some years ago, this is the first singles meeting for ELP and Tiger Mask; it should come as no surprise that Phantasmo has zero to negative respect for the living legend. 

At the Wrestle Kingdom press conference this past December, Phantasmo had the gall to attend wearing a Tiger Mask of his own, and daring to suggest that he would take the mantle of the ‘cutest Tiger Mask’ after defeating him to win the junior tag titles in the Tokyo Dome. That did not happen, and instead ELP was humiliated as the ‘secret weapon’ behind Sudden Death was revealed as a steel insole to his right boot. Tonight, Phantasmo must use his own considerable skill and wherewithal to try and defeat the junior heavyweight master; can he get it done?

4th Match: Ryusuke Taguchi, Master Wato & Toru Yano vs Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku)

With voting by now underway in the KOPW 2022 poll, a preview of Sapporo action will see Toru Yano and Minoru Suzuki do battle with handcuffs and dog cages most likely in tow. Meanwhile Master Wato and El Desperado lock horns for the first time since Friday’s IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match in Sendai. With Ryusuke Taguchi intent on convincing his young partner to join him in a tag championship challenge come what may, will Team Six or Nine show their combined prowess, or will singles rivalry continue to consume Wato, with or without the gold?

3rd Match: Los Ingobernables De Japon (Shingo Takagi, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi) vs Suzuki-Gun (Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi & DOUKI)

LIJ and Suzuki-Gun’s issues go back a long way, and the two factions have little need of a reason to battle one another. Shingo Takagi and Taichi have a good deal of previous, as do the junior heavyweight members of this match, but with all six looking to carve their own narrative out of the New year’s Golden Series and into Anniversary on March 1 and then the New Japan Cup, could this tag bout be the source of new issues brewing?

2nd Match: Togi Makabe vs Great-O-Khan

Originally scheduled as a tag team match, Jeff Cobb’s injuries have led to a singles contest between Togi Makabe and Great-O-Khan. After the disappointment of defeat at the hands of SANADA in the Tokyo Dome, United Empire’s Dominator seeks new drive and direction before the New Japan Cup gets underway March 2. Tonight he wants to make a declarative statement that he belongs in the field, and that he could well go the distance.

1st Match: CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & YOH) vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (Dick Togo, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi)

Kicking off the main card, CHAOS and HOUSE OF TORTURE will do battle in six man action. It’s likely all six will be seen later on as lumberjacks in Tomohiro ishii and EVIL’s battle for the NEVER gold, but this six man could see one team or the other help their charge in the semi main event get an edge by thinning the herd of lumberjacks later.

Kickoff Match: Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Ryohei Oiwa vs Yuji Nagata, Tomoaki Honma & Kosei Fujita

Veterans and Young Lions team in the kickoff match tonight. Fujita and Oiwa have gone to countless draws in singles action, but it’s likely that one of them will be on at least a winning team tonight. Just who will it be?