52 years of NJPW celebrated in Ota
March 6 will see the celebration of 52 years on the throne for NJPW as the King of Sports. This year, the New Japan Cup gets underway in the place it all began back in 1972 and much more besides.
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Main event: Champion vs Champion Anniversary Match: Tetsuya Naito vs SHO
The main event sees the return of an Anniversary tradition, as for the first time since 2021, the IWGP top champions in the heavyweight and junior heavyweight ranks will battle one another in a first time ever singles matchup.
SHO’s countout victory over El Desperado to secure the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship certainly seems like a slap in the face to the legacy of Jyushin Thunder Liger, whose famed 1994 clash with Shinya Hashimoto inspired the semi-regular tradition in the first place. Will that weight heavily on the mind of Tetsuya Naito? Most likely not. Naito has always had a pragmatic approach to HOUSE OF TORTURE’s tactics, ever since the group began in the fallout from EVIUL’s defection from Los Ingobernables De Japon in 2020. Always one to give as good as he gets, and not afraid to bend the rules himself, Ota will be hoping that SHO is put in his place tonight; the prospect of SHO cheating to become the first junior heavyweight to ever win an Anniversary Match may be too much to bear.
8th Match: New Japan Cup 1st Round- Shota Umino vs Jack Perry
Winner faces Toru Yano or Yujiro Takahashi March 11 in Ehime
At Battle in the Valley in San Jose, mere days after a high profile Tokyo Dome loss for Shota Umino to Ren Narita, Jack Perry assaulted the Roughneck before tearing up his AEW contract and donning an armband with the slogan ‘SCAPEGOAT’. Fast forward another month, and 24 hours after a crushing NEVER Openweight Championship defeat to EVIL and HOUSE OF TORTURE, Perry delivered a video message to further prey on Umino while he was at his most vulnerable mental state. Implying that people had been let down by Umino, Perry seeks to add to that disappointment with a win in his NJPW debut at Anniversary.
7th Match: New Japan Cup 1st Round- YOSHI-HASHI vs KENTA
Singles record: 4-0 KENTA
Winner faces SANADA March 11 in Ehime
The long standing rivalry between YOSHI-HASHI and KENTA has often centered itself around YOSHI-HASHI’s Bo-staff and KENTA’s strange… affinity to it. This year the headhunter will likely be interested in KENTA’s hardware though, and the recently acquired (thanks to Taiji Ishimori) IWGP Tag Team Championship he possesses could be added motivation, if nay were needed in the first round of the New Japan Cup.
6th Match: New Japan Cup 1st Round- Yujiro Takahashi vs Toru Yano
Singles record: 6-1 Yano
Winner faces Shota Umino or Jack Perry March 11 in Ehime
While both of these athletes may be in the record books as being the elder statesmen of the tournament, and indeed Toru Yano is the ultimate New Japan Cup ironman having been in every running of the tournament bar its inaugural year in 2005, that’s where the positive stories end. Someone’s streak of losing in the first round will end this year, and with Yujiro having the unenviable record of being bounced in the first every single year from 2015 on, it’s a good bet that the Tokyo Pimp will be knocked out in his home prowling ground. Can Takahashi instead turn around a 1-6 record against Yano?
5th Match: Just Five Guys (SANADA, Taichi, Yuya Uemura & DOUKI) vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL, Ren Narita, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Dick Togo)
Two up and two down in Sapporo, a lot of focus will be on Just Five Guys in this eight man tag match. SANADA and EVIL will both get second round byes in the Cup, but with SANADA having fallen to Tetsuya Naito at New Beginning and EVIL retaining his NEVER Openweight Championship, the momentum is with the King of Darkness. Momentum is also on the side of DOUKI after a phenomenal win against Hiromu Takahashi this past weekend, but the biggest question marks will be around Yuya Uemura. After his head was shaved as a result of losing his Hair versus Hair bid with Yota Tsuji, what new version of Uemura will fans see in Ota?
4th Match: United Empire (Callum Newman, Francesco Akira & TJP) vs War Dogs (Gedo, David Finlay & Gabe Kidd)
A six man preview of their respective first round clashes in the New Japan Cup, David Finlay and TJP will tangle while Callum Newman meets Gabe Kidd. Victory in the Dog Pound Steel Cage in Osaka saw War Dogs standing over United Empire, but will that win be further underlined in Ota, or can the Empire strike back?
3rd Match: El Desperado, Tomohiuro Ishii, Hirooki Goto & Boltin Oleg vs Los Ingobernables De Japon (BUSHI, Shingo Takagi, Yota Tsuji & Hiromu Takahashi)
A blended CHAOS and Hontai side faces LIJ in eight man action tonight. Shingo Takagi, Yota Tsuji, Hirooki Goto and Tomohiro Ishii are all New Japan Cup entrants looking to make an impression before their first matchups tonight. Meanwhile, as Hiroshi Tanahashi continues to rehab an ankle injury, Boltin Oleg steps in and shows what he can do ahead of his Cup debut with Hikuleo Friday in Yamanashi.
2nd Match: Guerrillas of Destiny (Hikuleo & El Phantasmo) vs TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Zack Sabre Jr.)
Tag team action will see the NJPW STRONG Openweight Champions face TMDK’s Zack Sabre Jr. and Mikey Nicholls. After a bitter sweet weekend in Sapporo, Hikuleo and El Phantasmo had the GoD torch officially passed to them; can they keep pre- New Japan Cup entry momentum going by asserting tag superiority tonight?
1st match: Tomoaki Honma & Tanga Loa vs United Empire (Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb)
That bitter sweet Sapporo weekend also saw NJPW bid farewell to Kazuchika Okada, and while Tanga Loa said goodbye to his brother in the cerulean blue with teary eyed nostalgia, it was with a frustrated rage that saw Great-O-Khan wrestle the Rainmaker’s last NJPW matchup. The KOPW 2024 holder wants to use that anger to his advantage int he Cup, but for now, can he and Jeff Cobb prove victorious in tag action to start in Ota?
