Tsuji and Naito’s last face to face takes center stage

April 5 saw the last comments from champions and challengers ahead of Sakura Genesis, with a public contract signing for the IWGP Junior, NEVER Openweight and IWGP World Heavyweight Championships. 

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Headlining the contract signings were Yota Tsuji and Tetsuya Naito ahead of their meeting over the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. In his comments, Tsuji chose to address his intentions to split the World title and restore the IWGP Heavyweight belt. Admitting that ‘adapt and perish is an absolute rule in this world,’ Tsuji went on to explain that ‘what’s universal remains, while other things may change. Even as telephones become mobile phones, become smart phones, communication is absolute. To NJPW, the IWGP is absolute’. Saying that after the ‘uncalled for’ change to the IWGP World Heavyweight belt, ‘changing back is the change we need to survive and thrive’. With one last backhanded jab, Tsuji surmised that ‘Naito’s appeal is in the ungovernable spirit I saw on TV eight years ago’. 

Naito would respond that he respected Tsuji’s ambition, and his ability to express himself, but that he would be defending ‘the very belt I opposed to the very end tomorrow’. Acknowledging Tsuji was ‘one, two, three steps ahead of his generation,’ and having won the New Japan Cup ‘clearly the best of everyone in NJPW except for myself,’ Naito stated that it ‘wasn’t too soon’ for his challenger to win his first top title, but ‘one or two more obstacles, walls and mountains to climb will make him even bigger’. Naito pledged to be just such a wall, and hoped ‘he pushes me to my limit,’ while Tsuji retorted ‘I feel I have to push him to his limits- and win’.

The NEVER Openweight Championship signing saw EVIL bring his spray paint blackened NEVER title belt to the table in the face of a stoic Shingo Takagi. Shingo would touch on the events of the past four months in NJPW, stating that with Tanahashi as President, and Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada leaving ‘there is uncertainty in the air. And in all that, to have EVIL walk around as champion? That means trouble for NJPW, and all of professional wrestling’. 

Indignant as ever, EVIL insisted that he ‘only ever fights fair,’ and that in contrast Takagi ‘lost to me in the Cup, ruined my semifinal match and then dared to put his hands on my belt in Ryogoku.’ Claiming that Takagi was ‘an embarrassment to (trainer) Animal Hamaguchi’, EVIL said that the only right course of action was to have ‘official, impartial referee’ Yoshinobu Kanemaru in charge of the title bout. 

Takagi fired back that ‘this isn’t KOPW, and we have a special referee? In that case, why not referee Hiromu?’ Stating that while Animal Hamaguchi would not be in attendance at Ryogoku, his daughter, famed amateur wrestler Kyoko, would be, along with the fans in his corner for the night’s title fight. 

The IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship press conference was first on the agenda. Continuing to taunt the champion, challenger YOH came in a Roppongi 3K jacket and a horse head mask while waving maracas. Not giving a verbal comment, YOH instead wrote that SHO had said the RPG3K gear was not fit for humans to wear so he arrived in his horse costume; an incensed SHO declared the whole affair ‘a joke’ and promised to add to his defence count ‘inside of ten seconds’ Saturday. YOH continued to tease SHO in the official photo session, all a distraction to steal the IWGP Junior title belt back once again.