NEVER Openweight Championship match and all-star tag highlight night honouring Tiger Hattori!
Fighting Spirit Unleashed New York is SOLD OUT!
New York event set to air LIVE on NJPW World (Japanese commentary)
New York’s famous Hammerstein Ballroom has a new page in its illustrious history written on Saturday September 28 when Fighting Spirit Unleashed sees its first NJPW event.
In the main event, Kota Ibushi and Kazuchika Okada form a golden team in more ways than one, as the Golden Star and IWGP Heavyweight Champion team up to take on EVIL and SANADA in tag team action. The IWGP champion and the Tokyo Dome Right to Challenge contract holder certainly make up a formidable duo, but they’re up against former two time IWGP Tag Team Champions in EVIL and SANADA, not to mention the two men who will challenge for their respective accolades on October 14 in Ryogoku. This should be a wild main event with a major taste of what to expect at King of Pro Wrestling.
In the semi-main event, NEVER Openweight Champion KENTA defends his title against YOSHI-HASHI. KENTA won the NEVER title in London back in August thanks to interference from GoD; that would lead to Ishii and YOSHI-HASHI joining forces to take on the tag champions in Beppu. In that bout, KENTA returned the London favour, leading to a distraction that gave Tonga and Loa the win against the run of the match. YOSHI-HASHI vowed not to forgive KENTA, and the two would brawl in Kobe, before KENTA accepted the challenge for New York. Can the heart of YOSHI-HASHI win through to see him finally grab his first championship in New Japan?
Amazing Red joins a CHAOS pair of Tomohiro Ishii and Hirooki Goto to take on Gedo, Chase Owens and Jay White on the sixth match of the card. What will Goto have in store for White as he continues to seek a championship opportunity against the new Intercontinental Champion?
Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson and Hiroshi Tanahashi will make a certifiably legendary trio in New York, as they face BUSHI, Shingo Takagi and Tetsuya Naito of Los Ingobernables De Japon. Tanahashi celebrates his 20 year career anniversary in October, but that’s not a patch on the tag team experience of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express. How will they match up against the well oiled machine of LIJ?
SHO, YOH and Rocky Romero will face a BULLET CLUB trio of Jado, Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa. In Lowell on Friday night, RPG3K will be challenging for GoD’s IWGP Tag Team Championships. Whether the champions retain, or new champions are born, there’ll be one team looking to continue their upward momentum, and another hungry for vengeance.
Mikey Nicholls and Juice Robinson will reunite as they take on Alex Coughlin and Clark Connors in the third match of the night. Nicholls and Robinson formed an effective team back in June, one which challenged for tag team gold in Melbourne at Southern Showdown. Yet Coughlin and Connors aren’t to be looked past as they go into the East Coast events with confidence hard earned during the Young Lion Cup.
In the second match of the night, Karl Fredericks takes on Lance Archer. Fredericks won the Young Lion Cup in Kobe, traditionally a path for a wrestler to take the next step in their careers. With a match against Archer however, Fredericks isn’t so much as being cast into the deep end as he is thrown into a shark infested ocean. Can he survive?
In the opening match of the night, Ren Narita takes on the returning TJP. After the Young Lion Cup ended in Kobe, Narita requested to join the LA Dojo, a request that Katsuyori Shibata accepted. He now faces a graduate of the original LA Dojo in TJP to kick off proceedings in Hammerstein.
All this adds up to an amazing card on its own, plus you can expect to see the night made even more special, as legendary referee Tiger Hattori officiates in New York for the final time!
