New Japan Cup starts on March 2. They've expanded to an enormous 48-man bracket, which means a lot of wrestlers are getting byes into the second round.



Notable pairings:

- Kota Ibushi vs Great O-Khan. Ibushi broke his arm during the G1 Climax final against Okada. This will be his first singles match since that terrible evening. The bad news for me is that Great O-Khan will be taking an early exit.

- Okada vs El Desperado. IWGP World Heavyweight Champion vs IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion. This match is normally reserved for the Anniversary Show, taking place the day before the New Japan Cup, but they moved it to the Cup instead.

- Ishii vs Takagi in the first round. YES.

- Naito vs Cobb quarter-final is probable, a Wrestle Kingdom rematch.

- Zack Sabre Jr. vs Ospreay quarter-final is on the cards, which would be amazing, but I'm not sure ZSJ will make it past Ibushi. Depends how strong they want to book Ibushi on his grand return.

- El Phantasmo vs Will Ospreay is an exciting match. Not sure they've ever faced before in NJPW.

- Bottom right quadrant is stuffed with Bullet Club wrestlers. Potential battles include EVIL vs Tama Tonga, Tama Tonga vs Tanga Loa, SHO vs EVIL or Tama Tonga.

Detailed breakdown of each participant if anyone's interested.

www.njpw1972.com/115515

Let’s do a bracket challenge! Pick your winners of each round and see who wins.

Okada
Yano
Goto
CIMA
Tanahashi
Naito
Cobb
YOSHI-HASHI
Ibushi
ZSJ
Henare
Ospreay
Takagi
Owens
EVIL
Takahashi

First round isn't very interesting to be honest, I'd say there are only three matches that are somewhat unpredictable. Even the second round won't be super unpredictable as a lot of the byes are lower card wrestlers.

Okada
Taichi
Goto
CIMA
Tanahashi
Naito
Cobb
YOSHI-HASHI
Ibushi
ZSJ
Henare
Ospreay
Takagi
Owens
EVIL
Takahashi

This.

G1

Super Juniors

Every so often they do the J Cup (right that's a thing?)

Does this ever feel like "too much" or do these events give it purpose inbetween the giant shows? I know AEW is doing more stuff like this, but WWE rarely does and I wonder if it's just goofy Japan or logistic nightmare not wanting people to job in tournaments since they tend to book people all dominant. Then again WWE may not do bracket tourneys often, but stuff like the Rumble and MITB are basically these in small bite sized pieces for us dumb Americans. Maybe we don't have the attention span?

Feb 26, 2022 22:04:35 GMT @ness said:

This.

G1

Super Juniors

Every so often they do the J Cup (right that's a thing?)

Does this ever feel like "too much" or do these events give it purpose inbetween the giant shows? I know AEW is doing more stuff like this, but WWE rarely does and I wonder if it's just goofy Japan or logistic nightmare not wanting people to job in tournaments since they tend to book people all dominant. Then again WWE may not do bracket tourneys often, but stuff like the Rumble and MITB are basically these in small bite sized pieces for us dumb Americans. Maybe we don't have the attention span?

It’s just kind of how Japan has always been. They don’t do a ton of storytelling and only have two “big shows” per year (Wrestle Kingdom and Dominion). Tournaments are an easy way to make a bunch of wrestlers fighting each other seem like it matters.

If the G1 is their version of the Royal Rumble (big yearly event that people love, winner gets a title shot) then the New Japan Cup is their King of the Ring (cool tournament for bragging rights, winner isn’t always obvious and tends to get a push, usually has a few big moments along the way).

Pre-pandemic the calendar year ran Wrestle Kingdom, New Japan Cup in March, Best of Super Juniors in May-June, Dominion, G1 in August-September, World Tag League in November-December, Wrestle Kingdom.

When the pandemic hit there were barely any NJPW shows in May-June so BOSJ was cancelled. They pushed the G1 out to September-October or maybe even October-November, then ran reduced versions of Best of Super Juniors and World Tag League in tandem. That structure remained last year.

So normally the calendar is laid out nicely with big breaks between tournaments, but having G1 followed almost immediately by two similar tournaments in parallel is intense for both fans and wrestlers.

Sometimes less is more, and such is the case in this tournament. 48 wrestlers is too many. A lot of the first round matches and second round matches are a complete waste of time. Foregone conclusions, poor matches. In fact, I'm going to namedrop the wrestlers who have no business in this tournament and see how many worthy names are left.

- Tenzan
- Nagata
- Dick Togo
- Taka
- Bad Luck Fale
- Gedo
- Kojima
- Honma
- Fujita
- Oiwa
- Douki
- Nakashima
- BUSHI
- Jado
- Tiger Mask

15 wrestlers, and you could easily remove a barely-worthy wrestler like Chase, Yujiro or YOSHI-HASHI to make it a 32-man tournament with almost no dead weight.

----------------------------

Going from the bad to the good, the first half of the first round had some good matches.

Toru Yano introduced a new toy to his collection in his match against Taichi. Unfortunately it was used against him. Caption competition.



Very fun match and the only non-obvious result. Unfortunately for RT , Taichi won, so I'm in the lead in the prediction game.

----------------------------

Tanahashi vs YOH was pretty good. YOH's strategy was to be junior Tanahashi. He had babyface fire, relentlessly attacked the leg, used Dragon Screws. Perhaps he should have tried the Sling Blade and High Fly Flow. The moment he started trying to use his own moves, Tanahashi slowly took control, winning in the end with a Dragon Suplex. Solid match.

----------------------------

Naito vs Yujiro wasn't good, but there was an interesting moment. Ref bump, EVIL and SHO run in and start mugging Naito, standard House of Torture stuff. Yujiro tells them to go away, saying that he wants to fight Naito on his own. Crowd give him the face reaction by clapping a lot. EVIL and SHO reluctantly leave the ring. Yujiro helps Naito to his feet, asks for a strike exchange. Then he kneels down and wallops Naito in the nuts. Gotta admit, that was a pretty cool spot.

Naito survives. SHO distracts the referee for some reason, Naito notices and low blows Yujiro, bumps SHO off the apron and rolls up Yujiro for the three count. Icing on the cake: EVIL attacks Naito post-match, Naito counters and scores another low blow.

It's moments like this, where the babyface outwits the cheating heel faction, that feel good. But these minor moments of triumph are not worth the endless agony - or should I say torture - that House of Torture bring to the table.

----------------------------

Main event: Heavyweight Champion Okada vs Junior Heavyweight Champion El Desperado.

A match that's equally as predictable as Jeff Cobb vs Togi Makabe or Zack Sabre Jr. vs a young lion, but at least you're going to get an interesting match out of it. And it certainly was.

El Desperado isn't a high flyer. He can fly, and does occasionally, but he's more of a technical/brawler junior, despite his luchador appearance. Nevertheless he really had to use his speed and cunning to get an edge over Okada, who asserted his height, weight and strength advantage in the opening minutes. Sound psychology used well. The match as a whole was really good, but it kinda fell apart at the finish.

Desperado locks in the Brock Lock, his submission finisher, for 1-2 minutes. Okada eventually counters into his Money Clip. Desperado escapes quickly, and they go into a fast counter sequence. Okada apparently isn't hurt at all by being locked in a leg hold, and Desperado is back in the Money Clip. He passes out, very clearly. A lame way to finish the match, but for some reason the referee doesn't ring the bell. Okada releases the hold, hits two lariats and starts taunting. Desperado fires up, hits his finisher. He knows Okada would kick out, so he goes for a second. Okada counters, then they have a fast back and forth, like Okada didn't just get hit by a finisher and Desperado wasn't unconscious 60 seconds prior. The result of this back and forth is clear: Okada hits the Rainmaker and wins.

Finish made no sense, guess it was an attempt to make Desperado look extra strong while doing the Okada finish, but in the end Desperado lost twice, once to Okada's dumb submission hold.

With a better finish, would have made my MOTY list.

Yano is such an enigma. He either goes out first round guaranteed or he makes the semi-finals. There is no in-between. I should have known better.

Ibushi is out.

www.njpw1972.com/115824

After concerns around Ibushi’s condition across several potential singles matches in the New Japan Cup tournament, the decision has been made for him to withdraw. His first round match against Great-O-Khan on March 6 will be considered forfeit, and O-Khan will advance to March 12 in Aichi where he will face Taiji Ishimori.

The tournament is into the second round but I've only just finished the first round.

Will Ospreay vs BUSHI was a real highlight. Shockingly good match. Will make my MOTY list. When you have a complete mismatch where the result is obvious, it's good to do something different, and they certainly did that. Am I going to share what they did? Nope.

In a similar vein, Taguchi made his match against EVIL more fun that it should have been. He basically dressed up as the old LIJ EVIL in an attempt to bring EVIL back to wrestling his old ways. It didn't work but it was fun.

Ishii vs Shingo was the attraction and they delivered a blistering strong style affair as you'd expect.

Round 2

CIMA def. Yoshinobu Kanemaru
Watched the match because CIMA is a wildcard. It was fine. CIMA isn't bad and showed some real toughness after Kanemaru jumped him before the bell. Wouldn't rule out the possibility of him getting past Goto, but it's not a match I'm excited about.

Hirooki Goto def. Dick Togo

Kazuchika Okada def. Master Wato
Master Wato has steadily been rising the junior ranks, and while he's not at the top of the division, he's a lot better than he was a year ago. The match was pretty good. Okada did a fine balancing act in giving Wato a lot of chances while still appearing to be in a class of his own when he picked up the win.

YOSHI-HASHI def. Kosei Fujita
A young lion getting a bye to the second round is a joke, but good for YOSHI-HASHI as he gets an easy ride to the third round.

Tetsuya Naito def. Gedo

Jeff Cobb def. Satoshi Kojima

Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Bad Luck Fale
A few years Bad Luck Fale used to be a spoiler, a guy who could conceivably beat the likes of Okada and Tanahashi in a tournament setting. Nowadays he wrestles maybe twice a year, so despite his size, he's basically at a Chase Owens level of jobber. Might beat a lower midcarder if he's lucky. Which is why Chase Owens gave him a ton of assistance to add some stakes.

Still, considering his size, it's not so easy for these guys to hit their finish on him, so they normally win via rollup. Tanahashi did just that or, more accurately, Bad Luck Fale practically rolled himself up to take the loss.

Zack Sabre Jr. def. Douki
For those who don't know, Douki is a Suzuki-gun stablemate of Zack. Complete jobber, but he jumped Zack at the bell and got some advantage, but eventually Zack wrapped him in a horrific looking submission hold and Douki tapped.

Great O-Khan def. Taiji Ishimori
I was expecting the upset, but Ishimori couldn't get the job done.

Will Ospreay def. El Phantasmo
Should have been the highlight of the second round. They put on some spectacular sequences, but as a whole both wrestlers just didn't seem into the match at all. Ospreay lacked his usual spark, while El Phantasmo's endless charisma and wacky antics were practically non-existent. Finishing sequence was nice. Overall a letdown.

SANADA def. Henare
Henare was a man who desperately needed a repackage, and he's got one since joining the United Empire. But unlike stablemate Great O Khan, Henare has done fuck all, at least as a singles wrestler. Not his fault as he had to miss a lot of time during the pandemic, but I was hoping Henare would go over against an old rival to give him some momentum, but nope. I dislike SANADA so I overlook how high NJPW is on the guy.

Chase Owens def. Tiger Mask

Shingo Takagi def. Tanga Loa
Tanga Loa impressed me in the G1, so I had high hopes, but the match was a real disappointment. Tanga Loa admitted this in his backstage interview, as his mind was all over the place with recent Bullet Club events. Frankly, an awesome kayfabe explanation.

EVIL def. Tama Tonga
More of an angle than a match, as this is the moment where Bullet Club officially outed Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa and Jado. The finish came when El Phantasmo and Taiji Ishimori chased away House of Torture, seemingly in support of Tama Tonga, then immediately did a double cross and superkicked Tonga, allowing EVIL to get the win.

Hiromu Takahashi def. Minoru Suzuki
In the 2020 G1 Climax, Kota Ibushi and Taichi fought. Every single move was a kick. It was awesome.

Hiromu Takahashi - I'm sure it was his idea - must have been inspired to repeat this concept, and what a better opponent than Minoru Suzuki. The first offensive move of the match was Takahashi chopping Suzuki on the chest. Thus commenced a chop battle for the ages. They chopped in the ring, on the floor, and back in the ring again. 95% of the offense was chops. Suzuki's chest started bleeding almost immediately, but he consistently won the battles.

In the end the match looked to be Suzuki's as he had worn down Hiromu significantly, and started going for his Sleeper Hold/Gotch Piledriver finish. However Hiromu somehow rolled Suzuki up for the shock victory.

Nowhere near as good as Ibushi vs Taichi, the chop battle wore out its welcome at around the 15 minute mark (still a very impressive feat). But I like the concept. Takahashi is a guy who wants to prove he can hang with the heavyweights, and that was a great way to prove himself, even though he didn't look like the winner at the end.

Round 3

I'm both tired and sick so not going to do a full match rundown. The quality of matches is still relatively low.

Okada vs Taichi was the best match of the round. I always feel like Taichi will get that one win over Okada, but it never happens. Nevertheless the match was excellent and Taichi got closer than he ever did before. Okada was so impressed that he even offered Taichi a shot at the belt, but Taichi seemed to take that as a pity move so maybe he won't accept.

Zack vs Great O-Khan was a disappointment. Their G1 match was a revelation. This match had similarities but it wasn't as compelling, plus they repeated the finish from the G1 match where Zack tapped him out with an armbar.

Ospreay vs SANADA was about as mediocre as expected. Noteworthy because Ospreay broke SANADA's orbital bone with a botched Shooting Star Press (ground version, not the top rope version). At least that's what the internet says. It did look pretty bad, Ospreay was at the wrong angle and his knee connected with SANADA's face, and he was visibly selling afterwards. However they wrestled for 5-10 minutes after that. The finish came rather abruptly and it looked unplanned: they suddenly did a spot where Ospreay spammed elbows to the face and the ref stopped the match.

I explain all of this because Ospreay day after he cut a worked-shoot heel promo directed at his internet critics, saying that the SSP was a move he does all the time and was perfectly safe, and he broke the bone with his elbow strikes. Pretty convincing promo, and perhaps a fantastic way to cover up an unpleasant botch.

Hiromu vs EVIL was a lot better than expected. As much as I can't stand EVIL and his faction, the moments where he loses are huge markout moments. Finish was Hiromu shoving EVIL into his manager Dick Togo (on the apron), hitting EVIL's finish on himself and getting the win. Brilliant. He also really rubbed it into EVIL's face on the mic right after the match. House of Torture is still the worst thing NJPW has done in a long time, but I'll take the few feel good moments that come out of it.

Quarter Finals are really interesting:

Okada vs CIMA

Naito vs Cobb

Zack vs Ospreay

Hiromu vs Shingo

All interesting matches and I am especially hyped for Zack vs Ospreay. They haven't met in around two years, and Ospreay has changed a lot since then.

In regards to the Finals:

SPOILER: Click to show

YYYEEEEESSSSSSS

Treading carefully in this thread, not reading RT's last post. Not yet.

I've had a very busy week, managed to watch the remaining QFs and SFs last night. Just the final to go. Hopefully today.

-----------------------------

Quarter Finals

Okada vs CIMA - Nothing to write home about, a fairly routine Okada victory. Okada and CIMA have some history together, both were trained by Ultimo Dragon but went their separate ways. Respect shown after the match. I imagine it's pretty cool for them to wrestle one another again even though in kayfabe terms they are leagues apart.

Naito vs Cobb - Their WK match was good but lacking that something special to make it a truly great match. This was more of the same. Cobb is starting to show some more personality, mocking Naito's gestures, but besides that it was a fun power vs speed match. Cobb needs to work on his rollup defense as it's how he loses most of these big matches. But to be fair, the rollup Naito employed as a counter to Tour of the Islands was amazing and I believed Cobb was unable to escape before the three count.

Shingo vs Hiromu - Once again a fun match but nothing exceptional. Congratulations to Hiromu for getting as far as he did.

Zack vs Ospreay - When I first saw the bracket I was very excited at this possibility and so glad that it happened. The NJP Cup has largely been disappointing, fortunately this match delivered and somehow exceeded my soaring expectations.

Right from the opening bell they went into an extraordinarily fast chain wrestling sequence and the action never relented. You can tell these two are so comfortable wrestling each other given their years of experience in England. They were really laying in their shots, Ospreay in particular, who has become a feared striker over the past couple of years. The match was super dynamic and unpredictable, it lacked a clear structure yet everything fit together so well and the transitions were phenomenal. Ospreay tweaked his leg during the match and sold it brilliantly. Of course Zack seized on the opportunity. He evaded the Hidden Blade and Stormbreaker on several occasions. Ended up applying a nasty leg hold that forced Ospreay to tap immediately.

After the match Ospreay argued with the ref saying that he didn't tap, he was hitting Zack to try and break the hold, but the ref wasn't buying it. Really interesting finish because it was presented like Ospreay tapping straight away, on instinct, before having time to consciously register the hold.


-----------------------------

Semi Finals

Zack vs Shingo - At first Zack struggled to get into a groove as Shingo bulldozed him with his brutish power, but eventually Zack got an advantage, first by working the neck and then attacking his right arm. The latter strategy has proved advantageous in the past, neutralising Shingo's biggest strikes, and the running lariat he employs to set up his finish.

So it proved true in this match. Shingo fought like a lion and even his Pumping Bomber, but his hurt arm prevented him from taking full advantage. Zack was able to recover. He countered Last of the Dragons into a Sleeper Hold, and refused to relinquish the hold until Shingo passed out!

Another shockingly awesome finish. Zack taps out one former IWGP Heavyweight Champion then passes out another. What a tournament he's having.

Okada vs Naito - Another excellent match to add to their storied rivalry. As expected they worked a slower pace. Both guys seemed a lot more focused and deliberate than they had been so far. Even the side headlocks and chinlocks at the start were applied with such force that they almost became legitimate submission holds.

It built to a nice crescendo, as all Okada matches do. Naito rather randomly went for a Stardust Press without any buildup, but crashed and burned. Looked like Okada was cruising to victory, but suddenly they started trading a lot of counters and reversals. All very fluidly done. Naito landed his signature rollup, Okada landed his. Both guys kicked out. They kept going with the reversals. Naito rolled up Okada a second time and scored the three count!!!! WHAT!!!!

Unbelievable finish but a pretty interesting way for Okada to exit the tournament. On the rare occasions Okada loses it's always decisively with a finisher, can't remember the last time he was rolled up.

-----------------------------

The final is Tetsuya Naito vs Zack Sabre Jr.

I'm shocked Zack made it this far, I was expecting him to lose to both Ospreay and Shingo. But I think he's the favourite against Naito, purely because Zack vs Okada is super fresh, and Naito vs Okada has already happened twice this year. But Naito winning wouldn't surprise me too much either.

Yesterday I watched the New Japan Cup final then went straight to Wrestlemania and completely forgot to post about it.

Mar 28, 2022 2:19:00 GMT RT said:

In regards to the Finals:

SPOILER: Click to show

YYYEEEEESSSSSSS

YYYEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS

I'll post more later, didn't think the match was that great but what a moment.

My hero.





I didn't write any NJC predictions beyond the first round, but I certainly wouldn't have predicted this glorious outcome.

Love the press conference he did after winning.

www.njpw1972.com/118223

Regarding his final match with Tetsuya Naito, ZSJ was self critical, declaring ‘Any time I don’t win by submission, I consider it a loss, so I don’t take any satisfaction. But Naito is a very difficult wrestler with an odd rhythm, and my submission game was lackluster yesterday. There was a moment where I had a triangle choke, but with my ribs hurt I couldn’t breathe, so I couldn’t find a good position. And Naito’s head is very fat, which makes it hard to apply a triangle choke.’

‘I also couldn’t get anywhere with a rear naked choke. My body was beaten up, but my ego didn’t let me lose the match. I’m always chasing a submission, but I thought it was best in this situation was to use the Zack Driver, under advice from beyond. But it doesn’t feel like a satisfying move for me; I’m passionate about technical and submission wrestling, so to use a head drop feels a bit uncouth, but I think it shows just how important the win and the title match are to me.’

That is the type of interview you don't see anywhere outside of NJPW. Wrestlers talking about details of the match and their philosophies on how wrestling should be.

Oh man, I need to watch this now. I love ZSJ shoot style interviews on his matches and his strategies. Shows the depth of the stories he tries to tell that he can break down matches like this.

Hate him.

Why?