New Japan Cup 2019

Day 1

Friday, March 8th 2019

Kouraken Hall

Manabu Nakanishi vs. YOSHI-HASHI

Tomoaki Honma vs. Taichi

Juice Robinson vs. Chase Owens

Yuji Nagata vs. Tomohiro Ishii

Day 2

Saturday, March 9th 2019

Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium

Mikey Nicholls vs. HIKULEO

Kazuchika Okada vs. Michael Elgin

Will Ospreay vs. Bad Luck Fale

Toa Henare vs. Luke Archer

Day 3

Sunday, March 10th 2019

Amagasaki Memorial Park Gymnasium

Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito

EVIL vs. Zack Sabre Jr

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shota Umino

Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. David Finlay

Day 4

Monday, March 11th 2019

Takamatsu City General Gymnasium #1

Togi Makabe vs. Colt Cabana

Hirooki Goto vs. SANADA

Satoshi Kojima vs. Minoru Suzuki

Toru Yano vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr.

Day 5

Wednesday, March 13th 2019

ZIP Arena Okayama

Nagata/Ishii vs. Honma/Taichi

Nakanishi/YOSHI vs. Juice/Chase

Day 6

Thursday, March 14th 2019

Nara Centennial Hall

Okada/Elgin vs. Nicholls/HIKULEO

Ospreay/Fale vs. Henare/Archer

Day 7

Saturday, March 16th 2019

Korakuen Hall

Tanahashi/Umino vs. Tenzan/Finlay

Ibushi/Naito vs. Evil/Sabre Jr

Day 8

Sunday, March 17th 2019

Korakuen Hall

Makabe/Cabana vs. Yano/Smith Jr

Kojima/Suzuki vs. Goto/SANADA

Day 9

Wednesday, March 20th 2019

Twin Messe Shizuoka

Quater Final #1

Quarter Final #2

Day 10

Thursday, March 21st 2019

Act City Hamamatsu

Quarter Final #3

Quarter Final #4

Day 11

Saturday, March 23rd 2019

Ao-re Nagaoka

Semi Final #1

Semi Final #2

Day 12

Sunday, March 24th 2019

Ao-re Nagoaka

Final

G1 Supercard

Saturday, April 6th 2019

Madison Square Garden

IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match

New Japan Cup 2019 Winner vs. "Switchblade" Jay White (c) (w/Gedo)

Quarter Finals I suspect will be:

Taichi/Juice
Okada/Fale
Tanahashi/Naito
Yano/Suzuki

Which becomes

Taichi/Okada
Tanahashi/Suzuki

and then

Okada/Tanahashi final, with Okada going over wrapping up their angle and leading to the MSG show-down with White.

Speaking of Jay, he has a date with Will Ospreay at the Anniversary Show on March 6th. White considered Ospreay his best opponent, so they should have a ripper of a match given all of White's improvement as a worker.

Wow, they expanded a cup a lot. 32 man tournament. Brought in some ROH guys. Colt Cabana?!

Ibushi vs Naito is a huge first round match. Could see either guy going over, but I'm going to say Ibushi advances and meets last year's winner ZSJ in the second round. Not sure Suzuki will make the finals. I see SANADA beating him, avenging his loss from New Beginning, and going on to have a showcase against Tanahashi. Okada vs Ishii is a far more compelling SF than Taichi vs Okada.

I think the winner of Ibushi vs. Naito makes the finals. I think either one "upsets" Tanahashi and ends up facing Okada in the finals. I think Tanahashi vs. Okada is too obvious and they hold off on that until a later date, or they have Ibushi/Naito win the whole thing to face Jay White, do Tanahashi vs. Okada at MSG, THEN that winner moves on to face Jay White so they can drag this story out as long as possible.

With Ibushi sticking around for at least a couple more years and no signs of Naito ever leaving, their time will come when the White/Tanahashi/Okada story gets wrapped up at the next Wrestle Kingdom.

The reason I'm thinking this is because the G1 Supercard takes place Wrestlemania weekend at MSG. They want the biggest match they can possibly get, while also giving Jay White someone that will make him look like a million bucks. To me, that says Okada vs. Tanahashi happens as an Ace vs. Ace marquee match, and by having either Ibusi or Naito in the main event against White, they're giving someone who can play a crowd favourite to their bastard heel, that will also make him look great in the ring.

Usually NJPW loads the opening night of a tournament with the biggest matches. Not this time. The first two nights were given to the less experienced guys, and for the most part they did an excellent job in kicking off the New Japan Cup.

Spoilers ahead.

You have been warned.

Spoilers.

Now.

YOSHI-HASHI vs Manabu Nakanishi - Decent match, about as good as you'd expect from these two. YOSHI-HASHI gets a relatively easy ride to the second round, submitting the bulky veteran with the Butterfly Lock.

Tomoaki Honma vs Taichi - On paper this is a foregone conclusion, but Honma demonstrated why he is such a beloved underdog, convincing everyone in attendance that a huge upset was possible in a compelling fight. However, it was not to be. Taichi weathered the storm and submitted Honma with the submission hold taken from his teacher Kawada: the Stretch Plum.

Juice Robinson vs Chase Owens - Owens is normally the guy who gets pinned in Bullet Club tags, but in a rare singles outing he showed what he's made of. He not only hung with Juice Robinson, but was able to pull off a momentous upset when he hit the Package Piledriver, knocking Juice out for the count. Very good match.

Yugi Nagata vs Tomohiro Ishii - No surprises here. This was a full throttle smash mouth affair that had the fans on the edge of their seats. Nagata was able to drill Ishii with his own finisher - the vertical drop brainbuster - but it wasn't enough. It would be some ten or fiftenn minutes more of crazy back and forth action before Ishii could hit the move, but when he did, it was lights out for Nagata.

Toa Henare vs Lance Archer - Basically a squash match. Archer gave his opponent very little but made himself look like a god. Not the most selfless way to wrestle, when compared to what Ishii, Taichi, and YOSHI-HASHI did the previous night, but at least it was entertaining. Archer has some of the best offense in the company and I think he would be great as an upper midcard singles guy.

Mikey Nicholls vs HIKULEO - Mikey Nicholls is better known as Nick Miller from the former NXT tag team TM61/The Mighty. He looked good in this match as he carried the green Bullet Club Tongan newbie HIKULEO to a pretty good match. Nicholls advances.

Will Ospreay vs Bad Luck Fale - Fale has obvious limitations, but they managed to work a nice David vs Goliath match with some sports entertainment thrown in the mix. It was helped by Ospreay's huge crowd love. The man could do no wrong. There was a wonderful moment where he acquired Jado's kendo stick and beat the crap out of Jado and Fale while the ref was down. Got a monster reaction. The finish was a bit of a bummer. Ospreay rolls Fale up and gets the three while the camera clearly shows Fale's right shoulder being about a foot off the mat. Let's go with the argument that Red Shoes wilfully ignored it because Bullet Club are a bunch of cheating bastards.

Kazuchika Okada vs Michael Elgin
Very good match, but not necessarily better than any of their previous encounters. This could very well have been one of Okada's lesser title defenses in his monster reign. Takes a lot of punishment, avoids the deathblow finisher, eventually hits the Rainmaker and wins. This time it only took one Rainmaker to win, which is noteworthy. One Rainmaker hasn't finished an Okada's singles match for a long time.

Day 3 is the big 'un, with Naito vs Ibushi and EVIL vs ZSJ. That aired today, but I'll watch it later.

Ryusuke Taguchi vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan
Fun match, with a mildly surprising upset from the only Junior Heavyweight in the tournament.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Shota Umino
Shota Umino is the most promising young boy in the current crop. Out of all the top guys, Tanahashi is the best opponent for him, because of his basic "old school" wrestling style. A fantastic match from both guys. Tanahashi skillfully gave Umino a lot of offense while not making himself look bad, and Umino took all his opportunities with great passion, even trying to beat Tanahashi with his own hold, the Texas Cloverleaf. Tanahashi would survive and make the cheeky young boy pay by submitting him with that very same hold.

EVIL vs Zack Sabre Jr.
Didn't quite reach the heights of their recent New Beginning match, but a nice next chapter in their rivalry which saw EVIL produce even more counters to some of ZSJ's signature moves. However, ZSJ was just as good in the scouting department and eventually managed to tie EVIL up in one of his nasty pretzel submission holds for a neat victory.

Tetsuya Naito vs Kota Ibushi
I'm probably burnt out from too much wrestling in one day, but I felt a little underwhelmed. There were some great spots and sequences, but as a whole I didn't get the sense of a smooth flow from start to finish. Ibushi wins by murdering Naito with a Misawa 1991 Tiger Driver headdrop followed by the Kamigoye. I was rooting for Naito, so I was a bit sad to see the match end that way, but not really because Ibushi is awesome too. Shame he's going to JUST TAP OUT to ZSJ, just like last year.

Toru Yano vs Davey Boy Smith Jr
I thought the criticism often thrown towards The British Bulldog's son is unwarranted, but I may have to rethink my opinion after watching him have a mostly boring match with Yano, a guy who is impossible to have a boring match with. Yano's 50th rollup attempt got the three count.

Togi Makabe vs Colt Cabana
Cabana is funny. He's been doing this for a long time, and knows how to be funny in ways that break the language barrier. Makabe was a good sport in playing along with some goofy spots. Cabana wins with a hilarious "superman" rollup, setting up the almighty comedy match of Cabana vs Yano. Baker, you should check that second round match out. I believe it's already happened.

Minoru Suzuki vs Satoshi Kojima
Koji is way past his prime, and Suzuki is getting to that stage, but the two veterans put on a pretty decent heated match, although the finish was a bit dumb. Suzuki just hits his finish after being pummelled for a while.

Hirooki Goto vs SANADA
The first ten minutes of this match were super dull, but they went from first gear to fifth gear and worked a really hot closing stretch. Lots of neat counter sequences and a couple of great near falls. SANADA wins with the moonsault.

Okada vs Ospreay boooiiiiiii

We all knew it was coming but woooooooo

Ishii vs Taichi was a star making match for the latter. When Taichi first graduated to the heavyweight division his matches were very gimmicky. A lot of stalling, cheating, and weapon use. Some of those matches (particularly vs Goto) were very entertaining, but I'm sure he realised he can't make a career out of that match. Gradually he's been cheating less and less, and wrestling in a more traditional style, taking a lot of his moveset from mentor Kawada. He's slowly built himself up as a force to be reckoned with, and this peaked in Taichi's second round match vs Ishii. Taichi went toe to toe with Ishii on multiple occasions, sometimes coming out on top in the strike exchanges. His fighting spirit and resisting the strong urge to cheat won him over with the crowd, to the point they were chanting his name over Ishii. Taichi has never been thought of a a great worker, but maybe that is about to change. I think he earned a lot of new fans and a lot of new respect with that performance.

Ospreay showed how good he is at the David vs Goliath match when he faced the formidable Lance Archer. Ospreay is being pushed really hard: he kicked out of all of Archer's finishers, including the Blackout, which had never been kicked out of before. It will be very interesting to see how he fares against Okada compared to their match last year. I don't think this is a foregone conclusion at all.

Okada vs Mikey Nicholls exceeded expectations. Nick Miller's dismissal from NXT could be an unexpectedly huge boost for NJPW. Nicholls is already proving himself as a borderline great singles worker.

Ibushi vs ZSJ was guaranteed greatness. Although I don't think it was as good as their match in last year's New Japan Cup, still a fantastically entertaing match with a nice finish.


A few CHAOS vs CHAOS matches coming up. Cabana vs Yano, Ishii vs YOSHI HASHI, Okada vs Ospreay. CHAOS has way too many members :lol:

Ishii did it again. Gave YOSHI-HASHI possibly his best match ever, and make him look like a million bucks. Just like Taichi before, YOSHI-HASHI's star has risen. But Ishii advances, defeating one CHAOS member, and facing another in the semi-final.

Ishii's opponent was decided in another inter-stable battle: Okada vs Ospreay. This match was a disappointment, to be honest. A good match, but both guys clearly weren't going full throttle. Considering how unbeatable Ospreay has appeared recently, he went down surprisingly easily, a couple of Tombstone piledrivers and a Rainmaker. Might sound like a lot, but considering he kicked out of multiple Lance Archer finishers, after taking a much more severe beatdown, this match is oddly inconsistent. Maybe you could attribute it to tournament fatigue, or Okada being back to his god tier Rainmaker self.

I love the CHAOS storyline that has been pinning this tournament.

It's been really cool to see that play out throughout this thing. It's been an underrated part of this entire thing and helped keep things really interesting at a time when New Japan could easily be sucked into a void.

On a related note, I really think it would be best if Bullet Club was killed. It won;t, because MONEY and all that, but it would be best for all involved. I don't think anyone is coming off better for being a part of it. Takahashi and Owens should continue as a unit and just let the rest go off as their own Samoan Firing Squad. Hell, brin Haku in as a semi-regular face to help them along. As much as they have a couple of OG's, it is Bullet Club in name only and a shadow of its former self.

It was already on life support when The Elite split, now they have gone, i think it needs putting to sleep. For good.

Ishii going to single-handedly eat all of CHAOS

Ishii vs Okada was a killer match. Match of the tournament. Tanahashi and SANADA did well to wrestle a slower, more technical match to distance themselves stylistically, but they didn't quite reach the dramatic heights.

Okada vs SANADA was a somewhat disappointing final for me. It had its moments, and the crowd were really into the entire match, so credit to them, but both semifinals were better.

Kazuchika Okada wins the largest ever New Japan Cup, and meets Jay White at Madison Square Garden.