If you put Shingo vs Ishii on top of a card, I will come. I’m pretty sure that’s written in scripture somewhere. What religion? I don’t know, one of the good ones? Are there any good ones? Christ, that’s a conversation for a different day. Onto the wrestling!
After a beef-fest the night before, New Japan was dishing up a very different meal on night two of The New Beginning in Sapporo. We’ve got a bit of British in there followed by Taichi’s latest attempt to climb the ladder and reach the top of the New Japan rankings. Can he do it? Well, I guess it’s time to find out.
After a wee break from New Japan (unless you kept up with FantasticaMania) it’s time for The New Beginning, a tour which NJPW has gone all out on this year. They’ve upgraded the final date to Osaka Jo-Hall and are delivering potentially fantastic matches at every destination. Up first was Goto vs Shingo and EVIL vs Ishii, which kind of makes it look like Gedo let me do some booking. He didn’t, but I’m certainly going to enjoy it.
It’s the day after Wrestle Kingdom, and all through the house, everyone is stirring because New Japan had another fucking show. I didn’t go to this one because I nipped over to Osaka instead, but New Year Dash always throws a few curveballs our way and had a certain Jushin Thunder Liger’s retirement ceremony, so I was going to watch it one way or another.
My final wrestling show of the trip was once again in the Tokyo Dome where, on a stacked card, there was only really one match I cared about. It was time for Tetsuya Naito to fulfil his Destino, and if he didn’t, well, I’d be writing someone a very strongly worded letter.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Credit: NJPW
With Tokyo Joshi finished, it was time to go to the second most important show of the day. January 4th at the Tokyo Dome is a New Japan tradition, and even if they were running two dates there this year, there was something extra special about the first. Watching Wrestle Kingdom a few years ago got me into Japanese wrestling and, well, have a look around this site if you want to know how important that was to me. So, let’s find out what New Japan gave me on my first trip to their biggest show of the year.
For the first time since announcing New Japan of America, NJPW has made the trip over the pond, rocking up in San Jose for some fun. It was a show packed with star power that featured a lot of tags backed-up by a couple of interesting title shots. How would it go? Well, now is the time to find out.
It feels only right to start this review with a shout out to those in Japan who were affected by the typhoon over the weekend, and I hope everyone looks after themselves. It feels a bit cheap to go from that to talk of card changes, as in the grand scheme of things it’s not that big a deal, but it did leave Jon Moxley and Zack Sabre Jr unable to travel. Mox was the bigger loss of the two as his absence forced New Japan to strip the US Title from him and give the match to Lance Archer instead. Amazingly, that’s caused some conspiracy chat, which seems oblivious to the actual typhoon which makes cancelled flights seem perfectly reasonable. Anyway, that silliness aside, this was a hella stacked card, so let’s see what went down.
For once, my round-up of the last month’s best matches isn’t actually that late. I mean, it’s a little bit late, but by my standards, that’s pretty good. Sadly, my wrestling watching from September was restricted to the promotions I never miss, so it’s a pretty predictable list. However, they’re all gems, and you may well have missed something! Plus, it means that if anyone knows of some great matches, you can tell me in the comments. I’m always happy to check out something new.
New Japan’s trip to the Hammerstein Ballroom led to an interesting old night for the Japanese company. Apparently, someone had called earlier in the day, cancelling the ambulance that is required to be on hand for wrestling shows. That led to a delay that stretched over an hour and whispers online about sabotage. Whether that was the case or not, New Japan needed to deliver a show worthy of the time the fans spent sitting around waiting for it to start.