It's a new year and a new era, and that means it's time for a New Beginning in Osaka, courtesy of New Japan Pro Wrestling!
The first PPV of the Yota Tsuji era is just a couple days away, and there are some fresh matchups on tap, plus a sendoff for one of the company's biggest-ever Jr. Heavyweight stars. There's also a really odd choice of main event that seems to be a real sink-or-swim test for the company's new Ace. Undercard-wise this show looks much stronger than WrestleKingdom. Main event-wise not so much.
Hiromu Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori vs. United Empire
We're starting things off with Hiromu's final match as a member of the NJPW roster. Where he's headed we don't know yet, but like his former LIJ stablemates Naito, Sanada, Evil and Bushi, the Time Bomb is moving on. Wild times. Anyway I imagine Takahashi will be doing the honors on his way out. Makes the most sense to me. Give Francesco Akira and Jakob Austin Young the win.
Pick: United Empire
Shingo Takagi & Drilla Moloney vs. Great-O-Khan & Henare
This is a match of meat warfare. Shingo works great with both UE guys, Drilla is becoming one of the better slugfest wrestlers on the roster. Should be a lot of fun if it gets adequate time. I'll go with Shingo and Drilla.
Pick: War Dragons
NEVER Openweight Six-Man Championship: Bishamon & Boltin Oleg vs. TMDK
Soooo, Zack and friends won these belts at the Dome, in the stupid Ranbo match, then lost them the next night to the current champs. They gotta lose this set of titles. Utterly pointless. Match should be good though.
Pick: I'll stick with the champs to retain
Gabe Kidd vs. Andrade El Idolo
Now we're talkin'. Andrade has been one of the year's best early surprises, turning in some of the best work I've ever seen from him. This dude is born again hard, and fans in AEW at least are really taking notice. Kidd is still looking for his big singles push in New Japan and I'm honestly surprised the company hasn't gotten behind him more. This should be a goddamn helluva match and could steal the show.
Pick: Andrade's on a hot streak so I'll pick him
David Finlay vs. Callum Newman
Another really promising singles match, it's the War Dogs leader vs. the United Empire heir-apparent. I think NJPW is grooming Callum for a big match against Will Ospreay later this year, which should rock everyone's socks off. There's speculation that Finlay may be leaving NJPW soon. If both those things are true, obviously Callum needs to win here.
Pick: Newman!
NEVER Openweight Championship: Aaron Wolf vs. Ren Narita
Ugh, I was hoping with the exit of Evil that we'd finally, after six long years of neverending bullshit, be done with the House of Torture. But alas, Ren Narita has taken over the group and we're still stuck with it. This match will no doubt be similar to Wolf vs. Evil, and Wolf will be put over strongly again. But can he wrestle a real match without all the stupid interference?
Pick: Wolf retains
IWGP Tag Team Championship: Knock Out Brothers vs. Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura
This should be excellent. I love the pairing of Umino and Uemura; both guys have big singles pushes ahead of them, but in the meantime let 'em dominate the tag ranks for a while and help bring prestige back to this set of belts. KOB have had the belts since the end of September so a title change here would be just fine. It would hit the spot in fact.
Pick: RoughStorm
IWGP Championship: Yota Tsuji vs. Jake Lee
Yup, they really went with Jake Lee as the first challenger for Yota's inaugural run with the big belt. Fuckin' baffling. The good news though is that if Yota can make Lee look good we'll know he's absolutely the right guy to lead this new era. And maybe that's ultimately the point. This match could be garbage or it could be surprisingly good. Either way, Tsuji's keeping the title.
Pick: Tsuji retains
So yeah, a very solid lineup overall. Could be a pretty great show if the main event overachieves. It really does feel like the start of a new era.
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