30 wrestlers. Single Elimination. The winner to challenge Kota Ibushi for the new IWGP World Heavyweight Championship.

EVIL and Tanahashi get a first-round bye: EVIL because he won last year's New Japan Cup; Tanahashi because he is the NEVER Openweight Champion.

Some tantalising matches among the brackets: Ospreay vs ZSJ is a very likely second round match. We could have Jay White vs Ospreay or Jay White vs ZSJ in the semis. Okada vs Shingo in the first round will be a belter.

Any thoughts and predictions? Who will win the tournament? Any upsets on the cards?

Anything to give us Yano please.

Mar 3, 2021 23:56:12 GMT @ness said:

So Kota gets to go down as the last IWGP/IC champion and maybe do history again as the first iwgp world? Seems like good wiki accolades.

I'm annoyed. Jay White's tweet about "this is the champion you asked for" is how I feel.

New Japan Cup spoilers

SPOILER: Click to show

Shingo Takagi pinned Okada. Was a pretty great match too. Heard Okada has some back problems so I hope he rests up.

First round has already had two huge upsets. I'll take it from the top.

Jeff Cobb def. Satoshi Kojima

Kojima has always impressed me. He's one of the older heavyweights who used to be great but is now basically enhancement talent, but he can always deliver a solid match, especially against a fellow hoss. Kojima just has a presence and a fire that he must have been born with because it's so natural. Great physique too.

However Cobb is on another level. He impressed me a lot in the 2020 G1 Climax and hasn't stopped improving. He's learnt how to showcase his extraordinary strength in the best way, not just throwing guys left and right, but picking his moments and displaying his tremendous suplexing ability when it counts. Besides that he's a formidable stoic heel who doesn't have any holes in his game.

When I first saw his Tour of the Worlds finisher I thought it was dumb as fuck, just a powerslam with a spin, but the more I see it the more I appreciate it as a wicked finish. Especially against bigger opponents.

Great O-Khan def. Tetsuya Naito

No way Naito wins the Cup after just having had a title match with Ibushi, but still a shocker to see him go out this early. This was a fun match with Naito mocking O-Khan at the start, as he tends to do with young boys just back from excursion. He was able to control the match for a while, but he tweaked his knee on an unfortunate bump and O-Khan was relentless from there. Naito was able to stay in the match and nearly win, but O-Khan secured an Indian Deathlock and Naito couldn't do anything about it for several minutes. The ref had to stop the match.

Love the booking. O-Khan beats Naito without cheating and looks strong, but there is an argument to be made for a rematch because Naito suffered a freak injury and didn't get completely 100% outwrestled.

Toru Yano def. Bad Luck Fale

Fale sucks and these two have faced so many times that they're pretty much out of ideas. Just a by-the-numbers Yano comedy match, with a semi-creative finish.

Hirooki Goto def. Taichi

About as mediocre as you'd expect.

Minoru Suzuki def. Tomoaki Honma

Believe it or not, Honma is still kicking. The jobber of all jobbers, NJPW showed an interesting stat saying he hasn't won a singles match for 5 years. This certainly wasn't going to be his first.

I am of the opinion that Honma is a terrible wrestler, but I may have to revisit that opinion slightly. Despite being pretty immobile and having an offense consisting entirely of strikes and headbutts, the match was somehow quite good. I attribute this to a stylistic agreement with Suzuki. If anyone can create drama and emotion out of a match full of strikes, it's Suzuki. But it wasn't the Suzuki show - Honma packed a wallop, and dare I say he almost outstruck one of the most lethal strikers on the roster?

In the end Honma just didn't have the endurance to keep up, allowing Suzuki to drain his energy with some nasty forearms, a sleeper hold, and fnish the job with the Gotch Piledriver.

KENTA def. Juice Robinson

Juice was scheduled to wrestle KENTA at Wrestle Kingdom, but suffered an unfortunate injury in the lead up and had to back out. Now he's back with a completely new look. Dude changes his look more often than Big Show changes alignment.

The new look is an improvement over his previous Blues Brothers getup, which isn't hard to do. The Japanese described him as "flamboyant" which is the nice way of putting it.

The match was good. Just good. About the same level as the KENTA/Moxley match, or basically any KENTA match. Solid 3.5 stars, nothing more. Surprised at the result since I had Juice as the heavy favourite.

Shingo Takagi def. Kazuchika Okada

We've had a couple of shockers already but this was easily the biggest. Shingo is no slouch and would be the favourite in most first round matchups, but Okada is Okada and this appeared to be the moment he would finally rise back to the top. In my predictions I had him reaching the final.

Gedo swerved us all, and fortunately both wrestlers delivered in a fantastic match that will be hard to top. Okada showed little respect at the start, locking in weak holds and telling the ref to ask Shingo if he wants to quit. Shingo is normally a straightforward brute force wrestler, but he took control of the match by showing some rare cunning. With a clever fakeout he dragged Okada to the floor and beat him up.

Takagi remained in control for a long time. Okada's comeback game is strong but Shingo repeatedly shut him down seemingly effortlessly by landing a huge forearm or lariat. Okada couldn't find a way to stop the juggernaut. At the 15-20 minute mark Okada scored with his signature dropkick, followed by some Money Clip (Cobra Clutch) and Tombstone Piledriver spam. This did the trick in their previous match, and Okada appeared to have tamed the Dragon once, but Shingo was able to stay alive. Shingo hit a top rope superplex and down to the final stretch we go.

Okada has been the best endgame wrestler on the planet for a long time. He's always able to find that little extra gas in the tank which enables him to win these big matches every time. Not on this occasion. Shingo was able to outlast Okada. His strong lariats were too much for even Okada to take, and Shingo even hit Okada's own Rainmaker lariat. In the end Shingo smoothly countered Okada's Rainmaker into a Last of the Dragon for a career-defining victory. ****1/2

Let's see how far Shingo can ride this momentous victory. Will he go all the way?

More first round goodness.

Zack Sabre Jr. def. Gabriel Kidd

Gabriel Kidd is one of two young boys participating in the tournament. Like Zack, he is British. The match itself was an excellent technical showcase which built nicely into a heated finish. One of the best matches around. Zack proves he's a master craftsman and Kidd proved that he can hang technically with the best in the world.

Will Ospreay def. Hiroyoshi Tenzan

Not a great match but a very good one, as good as you're going to get from Tenzan these days. Ospreay is working a pure heavyweight style now, the only time I recall him going to the sky was when he hit the Oz Cutter. Tenzan fought hard and managed to hit all of his moves, but it isn't enough to beat a younger talent at the top of his game. This sets up a mouth-watering second round between Ospreay and Zack.

Yuji Nagata def. Yota Tsuji

Tsuji is another young boy, but his performance wasn't as convincing. Neither was Nagata's. Poor match. These two are just here to make up the numbers anyway.

SANADA def. Tomohiro Ishii

Holy shit SANADA, I always thought you were mediocre, but to have a bad match against Ishii of all people? Of course SANADA wins. He said after the match that in a fan poll asking who they want to win the tournament, he placed second.

What makes SANADA so popular? Is it his goofy hairstyle? His complete lack of personality? His bland matches? His incohesive moveset? Beats me.

David Finlay def. Chase Owens

Chase Owens is the Texas Heavyweight Champion, whatever that means. If Owens is the champion of anything, then that promotion can't be very good. The match wasn't awful but pretty average as you'd expect from these two.

YOSHI-HASHI def. Yujiro Takahashi

New Japan World's video player gives you the ability to speed up the playback. Since learning this I have watched all Yujiro Takahashi matches at twice the speed. Remarkably, his matches are still the most boring on the card.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure how Takahashi still has a job. He has literally zero good qualities. Mediocre look. Can't talk. Clumsy. Negative charisma. Moves in slow motion. Has an awful moveset. His finisher is that terrible leg swing DDT Miz used to have as a finish. He never hits it either. Fucking terrible.

Jay White def. Toa Henare

This match main evented the same show as Finlay vs Owens and YOSHI vs Yujiro. I'm not kidding when I say White's entrance was better than both of the previous two matches combined. The guy has an enigmatic chemistry that makes you want to watch him even when he's heeling it up and mocking the crowd.

He faces Henare, a jobber but a fellow New Zealander with a decent gimmick.

White dominated most of the match, taking the piss out of his opponent every step of the way. Normally White is on the backfoot and uses his flawless defensive wrestling to stay alive, but on this occasion he was just dominating offensively. Henare finally made a late burst in the closing minutes of the match, hitting a string of big offense, but it was too little too late. White survived the onslaught and hit Blade Runner for the win.

SANADA is popular because he is hot and I won't be convinced otherwise.

Second round is done.

EVIL def. Jeff Cobb

Not the result anybody wanted, but it's the result we got. Cobb looked incredibly strong in defeat. He fended off Dick Togo multiple times, took a second interference from Yujiro Takahashi for EVIL to squeak the win. Decent match.

Toru Yano def. Great O-Khan

Another shocker which sees two United Empire guys go out on the same show. Fun match, O-Khan showing some versatility, he knows his character well and was able to gel it with Yano's usual style. Amazing spot where Yano tied O-Khan's hair (a long braid) around the guardrail to win by countout. O-Khan escaped by cutting his own hair with scissors, only to lose the match to a rollup a few minutes later. Absolutely tragic. Never thought I would feel pity towards O-Khan, but I did.

Shingo Takagi def. Hirooki Goto

No surprises here, a 20+ minute smash mouth hoss fest. Shingo is going places.

KENTA def. Minoru Suzuki

KENTA more than makes up fo his lacks in athleticism with his character work and ring smarts. KENTA brings a newspaper to the ring. Why? Because Suzuki's entrance is really long and KENTA wanted something to do. Very amusing. The newspaper also played a role in the early minutes of the match. KENTA goofed around a lot but eventually got sucked into Suzuki's dick-measuring strike contests. But let's not forget KENTA is one of the hardest strikers in the game and was perfectly capable of standing toe to toe with Suzuki. Eventually KENTA caught Suzuki with a surprise Go-2-Sleep. It didn't look good but it was a clean win so I'll take it.

KENTA's promo game is getting better as well. Hilarious backstage interviews. He mocks Okada who (apparently) can't pronounce name correctly. He just beat Sunoru Mizuki and will face Shikagi Tango in the next round. Beautiful. He also had a backstage war of words with Takagi himself. Unfortunately Takagi is an awful ad-libber and KENTA destroyed him verbally.

SANADA def. Yuji Nagata

No comment.

Will Ospreay def. Zack Sabre Jr.

Unsurprisingly, a phenomenal match and wouldn't surprise me if it turns out to be the best of the tournament. The two best British wrestlers in the world are gold together and they proved it once again. An absolute way which saw Ospreay's nose broken and bloody after taking a rough bump. However he prevailed in the end. If I were to nitpick I'd say that Ospreay survived too much ZSJ offense. He kicked out of the Zack Driver (never kicked out of before to my knowledge) and later survived one of his finisher submissions holds applied to an injured arm. Besides that, perfect match.

David Finlay def. YOSHI-HASHI

A minor surprise. David Finlay's finisher is weak and so was the match.

Jay White def. Hiroshi Tanahashi

Wasn't feeling this match. There were some good moments but as a whole it was a disappointment. The finishing sequence was especially bad. Jay goes for Blade Runner. Tanahashi escapes and hits a move. Jay counters into a Blade Runner. Tanahashi escapes and hits a move. They did that five times in a row. The fifth time Jay hit the Blade Runner and won. Whoop de doo. So Jay can just spam finisher attempts like a video game and win.

If the finals isn't Shingo vs White I'll be shocked.

My prediction is Shingo vs Ospreay with Ospreay winning the tournament. Originally it was Okada vs Ospreay in the final but that got spoilt pretty quickly.

Yes. Give me Kota vs. Pip Pip Cheerio Motherfucker all day every day.

Mar 17, 2021 21:50:31 GMT RT said:

If the finals isn't Shingo vs White I'll be shocked.

SPOILER: Click to show

well fuck.

Quarter Finals. Looks like RT already knows the big result here so I'm not going to hide anything.

EVIL def. Toru Yano

Pretty poor match. The finish, while something not seen in a Yano match before, was kinda dumb if you think about it for more than a few seconds. However it was a nice visual I guess.

Shingo Takagi Shikogi Tango def. KENTA

Real clash of styles match. I've said this before but KENTA is a smart worker. He knows his physical limitations, so he works an old school, cerebral style. I've also noticed how easy it is for him to dominate against these no-nonsense brute wrestlers. He did it against Goto in the G1, he's done well against Ishii, and for the majority of this match he was dominating Takagi and making it look easy.

The drawback is that when KENTA has a long heat segment it gets pretty boring. He works real slow and lays in his rest holds like Randy Orton,. However he's the only guy who works like this in the company so it does have that freshness aspect to the Japanese audience.

Shingo's comeback came very late in the match. It was like 80% offense for KENTA until the final few minutes, but whenever Shingo hit a move it was like a bomb going off. He is super explosive, can gain a lot of speed very quickly and his moves pack a wallop. So it's not surprising that Shingo was able to overwhelm KENTA relatively quickly after being beaten down all match. He did a similar thing to Okada and to Goto. A match with great psychology but not an especially entertaining one.

David Finlay def. Jay White

Shocker of the tournament, and this is a tournament where Naito and Okada both went out in the first round.

White and Finlay have a long history: they came up as young boys together. So they had a bunch of singles matches. Finlay won the first one, White won the next 11. They've had one match since returning from excursion which White also won. So White boasts about his 12-0 streak in the leadup to this match even though 11 of those wins were in a past life. Good heel work.

So we get to the match. White dominates Finlay pretty easily. Gedo with many little assists. Juice Robinson is at ringside, and surprisingly does nothing, until the fourth assist at which point he calmly picks up Gedo and walks him out of the arena. Now it's one-on-one but it seems the damage has been done. Indeed, White continues to dominate, even more than KENTA dominated Shingo. It's at least 90% offense for Jay, and Finlay's hope spots are nowhere near as effective as Shingo's.

I felt White sold a bit too much, but the sequence leading up into Finlay's real comeback was well executed. Finlay delivered the goods too, showing a babyface fire and intensity I've not seen from him before. They didn't go too crazy with the counter spam, just the right amount. Amidst all the chaos Finlay is able to string a bunch of his signature moves together. He finishes it off with an Acid Drop, his finisher. Even though it's his finish I was sure White was going to kick out.

One. Two. Three.

My jaw hit the floor. Not only did Finlay beat White, but he beat him clean as a whistle. The aftermath was great too. Finlay rubbed it in White's face. White just took it, shellshocked. He didn't attack Finlay or start angrily yelling at the ref. He couldn't believe it. Wonderful work, selling the loss without taking the spotlight away from the triumphant babyface.

It wasn't an amazing match but it is the first quality singles match I've seen from Finlay. I can't believe he'll get past the next round but let's see what the future holds for this rising star.

Will Ospreay def. SANADA

They're rolling with the bloody nose from Ospreay's previous match. Ospreay has a broken nose (in kayfabe, at least) and he's going full on Dashing Cody Rhodes. Don't touch my face, the works. Except he's really overacting the part. It did create a memorable moment where SANADA - who almost never speaks - said in English "I don't care about your face."

So the stage is set. SANADA's matches are boring and routine as hell and I rarely enjoy them. However the broken nose dynamic, coupled with both men utilising their immense athleticism in fun sequences and transitions throughout the match, resulted in a rare SANADA match that I really enjoyed.

The other matches in the QFs relied on long heat segments and a babyface comeback. This was much more a back and forth battle, neither wrestler staying on offense for a long time. Some of the sequences were fantastic, particularly Ospreay's escapes from the Skull End. It ended - as Ospreay matches do this days - with an Oz Cutter near fall, a violent elbow strike to the back of the head, and a Stormbreaker.

Still on track for my Shingo - Ospreay final.

Onto the semi-finals show.

Ibushi, Tanahashi, Okada vs Bullet Club

A match notable for three reasons.

1. Ibushi, Tanahashi and Okada are a super team. The current Ace, the former Ace, and the former former Ace.
2. Okada does not like Ibushi.
3. A small earthquake interrupted the match. You can see on the live footage that the arena was shaking, most clearly visible when the camera panned up to the ceiling. The wrestlers immediately left the ring. The crowd stayed seated and the wrestlers hung around ringside for 20-30 minutes until it was deemed safe to compete. Then they wrestled a much abridged version of what the match was supposed to be.

Although it appeared to be a small and fairly inconsequential earthquake from the live footage, it was actually a 7.2 magnitude which I believe is pretty large. Just goes to show how well Japanese buildings are constructed that the safest thing to do in a large arena is to stay inside.

Will Ospreay def. David Finlay

Very exciting match. The first half was pretty bland meat and potatoes wrestling. Nothing bad, but it was your standard shine-heat-comeback formula. Things got interesting when Finlay attempted his finisher, the Acid Drop. As he was running up to the top turnbuckle, Ospreay shoves him off and Finlay crashes to the floor. He immediately grabs his ankle like it's broken. The ref checks on him, Ospreay stalls, a doctor comes over.

Finlay continues the match and they work a really fantastic closing stretch. At first Ospreay just brutalises the guy because Finlay can barely move. Evnetually he able to bust out a couple of incredible counters to stay alive. In the end Ospreay was able to hit Stormbreaker for the win. Incredible selling performance by Finlay, really showed how to work with a leg/foot injury, unlike Ibushi and even Ospreay himself who get their legs worked over but hit all their crazy athletic shit flawlessly.

Still not completely sold on David Finlay but that is a career best performance. He has my attention, and the attention of many others. His work has justified this mini-push NJPW gave him.

Shingo Takagi def. EVIL

Lousy match. EVIL was in maximum bullshit mode, it seemed like the majority of the second half of the match was him cheating in various different ways. At least the right man won.

Will Ospreay vs Shingo Takagi

I decided to watch their Best of Super Juniors final from 2019. Holy shit, what a match. Both men were on fire and perfectly in sync with one another. Some amazing sequences, Shingo did a rare dive, just balls to the walls action, not a single missed spot.

Their New Japan Cup final match from today didn't have that same level of fluidity. They tried to repeat some of their similar fast-paced sequences but miscommunicated or slipped up on several of them. However this didn't impact the match too much. In general this was much more of a bruiser style war than the flashy Junior epic of two years ago. That said, Ospreay did pull some tricks from his old Junior book, including a 450 splash to the outside and a gorgeous Shooting Star Press. Shingo was never truly able to find his footing, never having that monstrous rally that enabled him to overcome Okada, Goto, KENTA, and EVIL. Ospreay was just too quick, one step ahead. Shingo was tough as always, but Ospreay was too strong on offense and finally hit that Hidden Blade/Stormbreaker combo that has wiped everyone out.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Spoiler}

After the match Ospreay did something truly shocking. I'm sure there'll be an official video up on YouTube soon, I'll wait until then to post it.

Post-tournament promo from Will Ospreay. It's quite long but keep watching because something shocking happens around the 4 minute mark.

I get what they were going for but it didn't work for me. Imagine some guy is threatening you in a bar, then instead of attacking you he turns around and slugs his girlfriend, then runs away.

Yeah that just felt really random. Didn’t really do anything for me.

I see you've been on wreddit RT.

It kinda worked for me. As a moment it was really shocking, I hadn't experienced that kind of reaction in wrestling since...well, since David Finlay pinned Jay White :lol: But the point is that it was something I never saw coming. It also establishes that Ospreay is unhinged, psychotic, and he is capable of doing anything to beat Ibushi. As you say it doesn't really work as an intimidation tactic but it does further Ospreay's heel persona.

Also going outside of kayfabe, this is a way to write out Bea Priestley since she is returning to her STARDOM career. I assume STARDOM and NJPW are on separate touring schedules now so they have Ospreay break up with her like that on programming to give a reason why Bea is going to disappear from NJPW.

I did read that on reddit but I had the same reaction before I read the comments :lol:

It definitely got a "wtf!?" out of me, I can't lie. I buy Will Ospreay as a total asshole now, if that's what they were going for. I also liked Cobb and Khan stepping in immediately. That was a great touch. "This is our business, stay the fuck over there." Like they didn't even react, the just have Ospreay's back no matter what.

I dunno. Maybe I liked it more than I initially thought. :lol:

Yeah Cobb and Khan blocking Ibushi was a nice touch.

I don't think it's the greatest thing ever but it was a memorable/shocking moment that puts Ospreay over the edge as a truly diabolical heel.

The Empire have also promised a new member, very intrigued to see who they have. My money's on Robbie Eagles.

When I read your post and you said something shocking happened, my expectations went sky high. So I'm blaming you for me being very meh about it.

It shocked me to my very core. If Ospreay RKOing his longtime girlfriend didn't shock you, I'm not really sure what to say. Especially considering something like that has never happened in a major Japanese promotion. Never saw it coming even when Ospreay telegraphed it with his words.

This was pretty ... blah. And I can't help but think of Orton RKOing Stacy Kiebler (his on-screen girlfriend at the time) to establish his "no distractions" mindset heading into Mania vs. The Undertaker.

I think the blow-up on Twitter that this is "domestic violence" is absurd, though.

Not going to lie, I have no idea who majority of these people are. I read this whole thread like it was a Fan Fic because tournaments rule!

Ended up being super disappointed to find out that wasn’t David Finlay, the old David Finlay who’s probably 60 right now, involved in a lengthy tournament.

Thanks for the fun write ups though! 👍

I once used Fit Finlay as a double Scattergories for athlete using the letter F. Dad hated when I'd use wrestlers in my answers.

FYI, in case it wasn't obvious, David Finlay is the son of Fit Finlay.

Mar 28, 2021 20:28:04 GMT @ness said:

I once used Fit Finlay as a double Scattergories for athlete using the letter F. Dad hated when I'd use wrestlers in my answers.

That's great.

Reminds me of the time we were playing Taboo and all 3 of my teammates blurted out "CORKSCREW!" after my hint of "Buddy Landel's elbow drop." The other team straight up quit after that  :lol:   Boring adults...

The best part is my backup hint was just as good- "Josephus. History of the World. I got a great...." 100% chance all three of my teammates would have once again blurted out "CORKSCREW!" and caused the out-of-their-league adults to throw in the towel.