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NJPW New Beginning in Osaka 2025 (February 11) Preview & Predictions

Voices of Wrestling Staffby Voices of Wrestling Staff•

New Japan Pro Wrestling
New Beginning in Osaka
February 11, 2025
EDION Arena Osaka
Osaka, Japan

Watch: NJPW WORLD

Meet our previewers

August Baker: It’s the beginning of the year, so August is caught up on wrestling and has a writing itch. He can be found on Bluesky at month8.theotheramb.com where you can check out his weekly RPG updates and his futile rage at an uncaring world. 

J. Michael: A gullible idiot. Not that the J. Michael family aspires to an ascetic lifestyle, but they are completely pulverized and conned by the supermarket every week. Recently, while aimlessly walking through the aisles, hungry as fuck, like a complete imbecile, J. Michael was beguiled by both the Crumbl cereal and the Corn Flakes branded breadcrumbs.That is, he bought a box of repackaged Cookie Crisp, and a smaller box of crushed cereal. Keep that in mind as he tries to offer assertions and assessments with self-assurance in the pages to come. Read the huge primer he wrote last month about 2025 New Japan, and enjoy retweets about manga on the brink of cancellation and fanciful polar bears in Japanese zoos @ryugu_jo. 

John Carroll: It’s a little less than seven weeks until John leaves for Japan (for their fifth trip- yes they do have a problem, thanks for asking!) which means it’s around the time they have to start paying for lots of stuff, from wrestling tickets to shinkansen rides to hotels and more, and they’re trying not to freak out every time the dollar starts dropping against the yen as a result. They’re on both the Nazi site (@toshansuinla) and the non-Nazi site (@justoneenby), whichever works for you. They mostly just post the same shit anyway.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Togi Makabe

August: A rather inglorious start to Tanahashi’s retirement tour. Let’s just get this out of the way: neither of these guys can run. Or jump. Or do much of anything really. I get sad watching them, and I generally don’t watch wrestling to be sad. I want to say that at least they will work hard and do their best, but judging by Makabe’s body of work the past few years, that’s not a guarantee either. I’m sure this match appeals to someone, but that someone is not me. Prediction: Togi Makabe hasn’t won a singles match against a non-Young Lion in over 6 years. Let’s just move on. Hiroshi Tanahashi.  

J. Michael: Hiroshi Tanahashi debuted on October 10, 1999 in Korakuen Hall. His opponent: a square-jawed senior Young Lion named Shinya Makabe, who debuted two years earlier. They would wrestle 21 times over the next four years, with Makabe winning the first TWENTY. Tanahashi won the final match, and the most consequential: the finals of the G2 U-30 Climax to decide the inaugural IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship on April 23, 20003. Ignore the fact that Makabe was already 30. 

That was the turning point. While Shinya Makabe became Togi Makabe the next year, he was pretty done defeating Hiroshi Tanahashi. In the next 14 years, they would face each other 16 times: Togi Makabe went 2-13-1 in that series.That draw is fairly memorable: it took place in the 2009 G1 Climax, and it resulted in Makabe and Tanahashi tying at the top of the A Block. The unbreakable tie was infamously decided by a coin toss. Makabe won that toss, so if you want to be accurate, Togi Makabe is 3-13-1 against Hiroshi Tanahashi.

They have not faced each other in a singles match since 2018. In many ways, Tanahashi surpassed Makabe on that night in April 2003. He beat Makabe to the IWGP Championship by four years (2006 to 2010), and won the title SEVEN more times than Makabe (8 total while Makabe had a single five-month reign). But then, hasn’t Makabe truly won? He’s almost certainly a more prominent figure, becoming a popular figure on Japanese variety talk shows once he tapped into the lucrative brute-loves-sweets gap moe gimmick. He can show up whenever he wants, all his moves are over, he bumps by negotiation, and he cuts some of the most mind-numbingly mundane and excruciatingly long backstage comments.

Unless Togi Makabe wrestles Tanahashi once a month for 2025 and runs the table, he will never get the better of the Ace in the head-to-head. Unless we go back in time, and these two calcified motherfuckers might move slow enough to reverse time. But Shinya Makabe, the holistic historical entity, will almost certainly end up 22-14-1 against his old rival, unless you count the coin toss. Prediction: Hiroshi Tanahashi

John: It sometimes boggles my mind just how over Togi Makabe is still. I’m not sure if anyone other than me and like three other weirdos from the Super-J-Cast server actually watched it, but New Japan bizarrely decided to livestream the Road to New Beginning house show from Aomori this past Saturday on NJPW World, in what they referred to as a “test stream”. It came with no commentary at all, in any language, and even more bizarrely it was not archived- you either had to watch it live or you’d never see it. But since it started airing at 1 am on a Friday night, well, what the fuck else better did I have to do with my time (certainly not sleep like a normal person!). And on that show, you may notice that the team of Shota Umino & Togi Makabe defeated the United Empire duo of Great-O-Khan & Jacob Austin Young in a little over 10 minutes, Makabe pinning Young with the King Kong Kneedrop. If you weren’t watching live, and I bet you probably weren’t because unlike me you’re not an absolute sicko, you’ll never get to hear just how loud the 1,508 people in snowy Aomori got for Makabe hitting that damn kneedrop. I mean jesus, there are crowds many times as big that don’t get half that loud for anything.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is: sometimes it’s okay that a guy doesn’t move as well as he used to. It’s the opening match of a stacked card that’s going to feature plenty of amazing matchups, full of athletes in their primes showing off all the wild and crazy things they’re capable of doing. And before we get to all that, two old men who once upon a time helped bring New Japan back from the absolute brink (if you think some of the crowds NOW are tiny, well, you should see what they were drawing in like 2008) will stumble out, take some awkward-looking bumps, and probably get a louder crowd reaction than many other matches on this show in the process. That has a place on a wrestling show, especially in an opener! Lighten up! Prediction: Hiroshi Tanahashi

Shingo Takagi vs. Drilla Moloney

August: Drilla looks great as a heavyweight. He could lay in the strikes a little harder, so putting him in there with Shingo right off the bat is a great move. Much will be made of Shingo going through a similar junior-to-heavyweight transition, and while Drilla probably won’t reach the heights of Shingo, I’m excited about the future. That said, I think Shingo wins here and these two will meet again, maybe in the New Japan Cup. Either way, the War Dogs are about to be swimming in top tier heavyweight talent. Prediction: Shingo Takagi

J. Michael:  As August noted, Drilla is now a heavyweight. With a K-Pop hairstyle. That was revealed backstage, not by Moloney, but by a media guy when Shingo asked about it. If we’e talking gap moe, this is top notch.

They were able to dance around this issue for quite a while; sure he came in as a Junior for the BOSJ two years ago, but even then he was straddling the border between the divisions, with a bull rider’s white-knuckled grip as he leaned to the heavyweight side. After he fucking squashed everyone in the Concurso, it would have been ludicrous to present him as under 100 kilos, even in wrestling, the province of deceit. Once again (and, unashamedly, until the 2025 Concurso drops), I present the comments:

  • “Overwhelming shadows. His voluminous pectoral muscles, well-proportioned abdominal muscles, and prominent oblique muscles are all first-rate. His poses, which show his understanding of his strengths, are also wonderful. The shadows of his back muscles are so clear that they are mistaken for the face of a monster, and they are frighteningly evenly balanced on both sides”
  • “His deep abdominal muscles, his demon mask-like back, his bulging shoulders, his thighs that are split into four… Every part of him is amazing, but I was captivated by the size and beautiful contours of his pectoral muscles. His muscle mass is unbelievable for a junior, and he is by far the most impressive of all the athletes.”
  • “Beauty like an ancient Greek sculpture. Artistic like a character straight out of the manga “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.” The very embodiment of testosterone.”

Yes, it is inherently unbelievable that a junior could have this muscle mass, and, well, testosterone might be a key word here. But the facade has finally been lifted, and Moloney has moved on from the juniors, having dominated the tag division with Clark Connors, and doing next to nothing in the singles division. He literally has no junior heavyweight singles matches in New Japan outside the 2023 and 2024 BOSJs.

Of course, the outlier is his match against Tetsuya Naito, where he picked up a very flawed victory in the LIJ vs. War Dogs series. That has been mentioned during the lead up here, although most of the bickering between Shingo and Moloney has been about moves. Shingo has attempted the Drilla Killa multiple times, while Moloney has done the same, as fruitlessly, with Shingo’s Last of the Dragon. Twice backstage, Shingo has vowed to end the match with a new move called the Molon-Knee. Shingo’s impressively unfunny backstage, a stream of earnestly delivered puns and jocular nonsense.

Speaking of Shingo, this is as much a test for him as it is for Moloney. Shingo had grown amazingly stagnant in the NEVER division, and that title was a debilitating anchor. He had devolved into the concentrated essence of the division’s philosophy: a torrent of no-sell sequences. And, like most things, the concentrated form is nocuous. The second HENARE match last year was the pinnacle of this deficient concept, but the truly disappointing display was the Takeshita match at Wrestle Kingdom. They stuffed 10 pounds of no-sell sequences into a 5 pound cauldron, with the additionally obnoxious framing of selling 30 minutes of affliction from roughly the five-minute mark.

When Ishii had a match orders of magnitude greater with Takeshita the very next night, that confirmed things; Shingo needed to move on from this division, badly. Right now, he’s someone that could foment intrigue across the entirety of the company, just by being kept on a low boil and without a discernible path.  Prediction: Shingo Takagi

John: This is an interesting match between two wrestlers who are both at a crossroads. As J. Michael already covered, Shingo feels a little stale as a NEVER guy- I liked his match with Takeshita more than they did, I think, but I’d still agree it was both disappointing and nowhere near as good as Takeshita/Ishii was the next night. He seems to be on his way down the card at the moment. Meanwhile, Drilla is of course a rising prospect now that he’s moving up from junior to heavyweight. Besides his obvious size and muscularity that J. Michael again already covered, I’d also like to highlight his promos as another sign that he might be ready for a bigger spot in the company. I think Moloney’s backstage promos have greatly improved of late, to the point where he’s a guy I enjoy hearing from now after every show (not that I ever thought he was a BAD promo, but he used to be kind of just there for me, so I think he’s made some big improvements there). That’s more important in NJPW than people seem to realize at times, and is a good sign for his ongoing push. I could really see this match going either way, as I think no matter who wins here we’ll likely see the two of them rematch in the New Japan Cup and the other guy get his win back. I’ll break from my colleagues here and go with Drilla to pull off the shocking upset as he moves up to heavyweight with a bang, leading to Shingo getting payback in the first or second round of the upcoming NJC. Prediction: Drilla Moloney

Shota Umino vs. Great-O-Khan

August: Can someone get O-Khan a real pair of scissors? He doesn’t need Brutus Beefcake-style gardening shears (though that would rule), but maybe something we can actually see. These are big dudes, get them a big pair of scissors! We know they’re not doing a “losing streak causes a reevaluation” story because Shota beat Claudio at Dynasty, so what are they doing? A half-assed losing streak won’t have the same impact, but it would fit the pattern of everything involving Umino feeling half-assed. They’re not going to give him another push so soon, are they? I want to get mad or even annoyed at Umino for taking up so much time on these shows with his passionless entrance and his boring face, but I guess I’ll take a lesson from the man himself and just stare blankly in front of me. Meanwhile, O-Khan is fun. This feels like a match where the winner lays down a challenge later in the show. Prediction: Great-O-Khan

J. Michael: This has to be going somewhere. Sure, the same could have been said last year, when Shota Umino descended into the inconsequential mire, looking befuddled and painfully strained, hopelessly lost in a preordained, theatrical art. But this is so far beyond even that nadir. Following his loss to Zack Sabre Jr. in a performance that could be described as either underwhelming, Shota Umino is looking much more dour than ever before.

His face, blanketed in torpor, the most perfunctory expressions of concern and repugnance at Great-O-Khan’s brazen vandalism being coerced by his languid nervous system to faintly materialize through the vacuous reservoir of swollen, turgid flesh covering his face. His distended stomach. His barren, bleary eyes sitting like two chestnuts lying atop an ocean of . calcite, enclosed by a perpetual orbital bone fracture. The labor in his vocal chords as the words trickle through his mouth, too aimless to be erratic, but also too impossibly stupid to compel anyone to sincerely listen, beyond the almost healing nature of the absurdity of it all:

O-Khan, don’t mess with me. And don’t play with other people’s property.

How many times have I told you this? Have you ever given any thought to the value people place in these objects.

That penlight was irreplaceable. For trying to damage it, you’re a piece of crap.

To be honest, I had no intention of messing with you after the match. Even though you wanted to destroy me outside the ring, I didn’t want to go there. But I can’t let you get away with this. I’ll do all that I can to stop you.

I’ll protect and honor all the penlights and merch the fans bring to support me.

I swear to the fucking God that gives Ishimori grace, this actually happened. These were words spoken, in real life, spilling forth from the desperately bleak visage of post-Wrestle Kingdom Shota Umino, in response to Great-O-Khan threatening to destroy some merchandise a fan bought. Suddenly, we’re in the palaces of Alexander the Great, and Aristotle is debating axiology with a fucking Sophist. What value does an object hold? What is value itself? Is value values, or do they stand in defiance of one another. But then, this feud is also somehow about authenticity? I can’t make sense of it. GOK often espouses the intricacies of value in his comments, but they never made it a goddamn storyline.

Anyway, on this tour GOK has ripped apart fan-made cardboard title belts, threatened penlights, cut apart t-shirts, and ripped a t-shirt in half like the racist politicking Trump stumping dickhead (then throwing it in the face of Shota, who then wore it like a complete buffoon). Then, for some reason, GOK went mythological and determined that Shota needed to be reborn like, phoenix style, and to do so Umino needed to return to the shaved head and black trunks of a Young Lion. So he just cut Shota’s fucking hair on the 2/4 show. 

Something is happening. That was made blatant in Umino’s backstage comment on 2/3, when he just stood there, looked around in a total fog, then walked off without speaking. He did the same on 2/4, though he added a few beats where he morosely stared at his cut hair (which he also oddly shuffled though like he was counting bills from his wallet).

I know it’s a fool’s errand to grasp for pertinence in the backstage comments, but something’s up. Whatever it is they are setting up here with Anguished Umino, I don’t think it will work at first. But, somehow, I believe that we have seen this story play out enough, and I am confident that we will be pleasantly surprised when, 8-10 months from now, we find ourselves thinking, “Well, it sure seemed fucking stupid when Shota took over the House, but he’s really starting to blossom in the role.” That, my friends, is our best hope. Prediction: Shota Umino

John: Yeah, like, what the fuck is Shota Umino even doing at this point? Great-O-Khan is trying his best with this feud, really leaning into being Shota’s personal tormenter, and Umino in response has been a big mumbly ball of nothing. It’s really the only “bad” feud on what’s been an otherwise very enjoyable New Beginning tour, and I’m sorry, you cannot be the supposed future ace of the company and also be getting outshined by YOH pretending to call Rocky Romero on a rotary phone every night because he misses him. But THAT has been way more entertaining than whatever the fuck Shota thinks he’s even doing here. But with all that said I still think he wins this, because I’m not at all convinced they’re ready to give up on him. It wouldn’t shock me at all if he wins the New Japan Cup and heads right to Sakura Genesis for another title challenge, as crazy as that sounds right now. I’d LOVE to be wrong and love to see O-Khan pin this guy clean at this point, believe me. I just don’t see it happening. Prediction: Shota Umino

Taichi vs. SANADA

August: This is without a doubt the most energy I’ve ever gotten from a SANADA feud. He didn’t rise to the occasion when EVIL turned on him, and his leaving LIJ was almost friendly as far as wrestling break-ups go. But I truly believe Taichi hates this man and SANADA is getting off on that. Will that translate to a good match? Taichi has been reliably great for years now, but SANADA is still SANADA. Much like a previously discussed wrestler, showing passion has always been his weakness, and this is going to depend on showing some hate. SANADA does feel like he has some juice in this story though, but I also might be buzzing off their Road To match where Taichi kicked his nuts into the bleachers. Logic says SANADA should win this, he’s a more pushed commodity, but I’m going to keep picking Taichi until he gets a match against Sabre. Anniversary show? Prediction: Taichi

J. Michael: Disclosure, Part I: Through editorial edict, and logical reason, we keep the order of these reviews the same, no matter which order they are written. Thus, if someone starts their portion but then is pulled away, someone might pull ahead. In this case, I started before John, but they pulled ahead of me (note from John: even more confusingly, J. Michael then pulled back ahead of me, so I’m able to start referencing their previews in mine again later- are you confused yet??), so I now have the pleasure of vindicating theoretical astrophysics by proving that time can mathematically move in both directions, by challenging a notion that hasn’t been presented yet.

That notion: War Dogs SANADA is lazy, has provided Taichi with a minimalist framework to operate within, and is a very strange entity in the New Japan landscape.

I can’t argue the final point. SANADA wearing his fuckboy half-shirt, which, as designed, reads as literally advocating, demanding, directing we the viewers to fuck a certain amount of men (five originally, subsequently amended in committee to four). With the other ones, I simply believe that we have reverted to Proper SANADA. This is who he is: sparse, austere, frigid, like a Clyfford Styll hanging boldly against an exposed concrete wall. These were not the qualities of a World Champion, even if I think the first half of his reign was really commendable, aside from the forced participation in the Jacksonville Scheme. 

I don’t find posts of sloths and write long, bitter diatribes against them. That’s who they are, they excel at being them. Now, you might argue that humans could be held to a higher standard than existing as humans, but SANADA excels at being innately human. This act doesn’t work earnestly, but as a dismissive dickhead, I think it does. As a man dedicated to pairing leg bits with sexy bits in a match, I know it works. Boot to dick. Shin to grundle. Knee to scrotum. All fair game, and I commend him for it.

As John will point out, the buildup to this match has been brilliant. On 2/3, SANADA turned around Kenta Sato, grabbed Taichi’s leg, and thrust it gently into his pelvic core. Sato, who is one of the competent New Japan refs and really should be better than this, instantly called for the bell, to Taichi’s vehement protestations. The next night, SANADA tried the same, but Sato wasn’t fooled. Taichi, though, blew a gasket and kicked SANADA low as hard as he could. If you haven’t seen it, for God’s sake click that link. 

In some way, I wonder if they should have run the singles match that night and had Taichi’s penile terrorism be the blow-off. I’m not sure they can top that. I do know that Taichi, sadly, does not exist to win matches in this company. He should move on to face Zack, as August correctly stated, but he won’t. Prediction: Taichi

John: War Dogs SANADA has been such a weird creature, as the guy who was just IWGP World Heavyweight Champion for the better part of a year (yeah, he only lost the belt 13 months ago, as crazy as that now sounds!) has crashed down the card faster than possibly anyone in company history. Could you even picture this version of him winning the big strap again? Hell, at this point he feels well below the NEVER title! I have no idea why he thinks being a heel means “do crowd brawling somehow even lazier than Yujiro’s before stealing a fan’s water bottle and hitting the opponent with it”, but this honest to god seems to be his approach. He steals a refreshing beverage from a fan on practically every show that makes tape! He even did it on that weird Aomori “test stream” that you’ll apparently never get to watch again!

Taichi meanwhile is one of those guys who you just kind of have to accept is going to be chronically underpushed in this company for the entire rest of his career; in a much healthier Japanese wrestling scene he would have left NJPW the moment he was told he wouldn’t be in the G1 Climax last year, headed off to All Japan or NOAH where he could be a legitimate title threat and wrestle in main events, something he has both the talent and popularity to do. But one assumes the pay cut involved in doing so nowadays would simply be way too great, so he remains an NJPW roster member even if in many ways it feels like his time here has already passed, and probably will until he’s ready to hang ‘em up. Although I never thought KENTA would go back to NOAH either, so hey, I guess you never know.

But with all of that said, this match still has some potential! Taichi has been very entertaining on the warpath (even if SANADA has given him very little to work with besides an admittedly hilarious t-shirt), and it was satisfying to see him get some measure of revenge on the final Korakuen show when he delivered the mother of all nutshots, one day after SANADA had faked being low blowed to get a DQ win mind you. I think that bit of revenge may have telegraphed the finish here, though. Given that we’re right around the time when Yuya Uemura is supposed to be coming back, it would make complete sense for SANADA to get the win here (likely via bullshit) and then be beating Taichi down after the match only for Yuya to make his triumphant return, setting him up to make the save for his fellow Guy. That in turn could set up Yuya to beat SANADA in the early rounds of the upcoming New Japan Cup, where he’d have to be considered another one of the favorites to win the entire thing. Assuming, you know, he’s actually ready to come back. Which hopefully he is! Prediction: SANADA

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
Ichiban Sweet Boys (Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita) © vs. Roppongi RE-Vice (Rocky Romero & YOH)

August: Roppongi Re-Vice might be the laziest tag team name I’ve ever seen, so I guess it fits this pairing well. I like YOH more than most people, but question if we really have to go back to Rocky Romero. Can we do something else, please? Anything, I beg. They lost a bunch in tag league, they lost in San Jose, and they’re probably losing here. Fujita coming off a GREAT match against El Desperado makes me think he’s not long for the tag team division, and these titles don’t really mean anything, so I guess they could lose this one, but… actually, now that I think about it, there’s no reason Rocky and YOH can’t win. Make Rocky a 30x jr tag champion, who cares? Let Fujita run free. Prediction: sigh Roppongi RE-Vice

J. Michael: It will be expertly worked, brilliantly crafted, and, if the preview tags are any indication, legitimately eclectic. This has been one of the funniest runs across the board in a tour, up and down the card. In this case, I can highlight the CHAOS/Hontai vs. TMDK substory: whether or not to do the hammer-fist thing that CHAOS does. 

First, Despy declined Goto’s invitation early in the tour on 1/22 (with Red Shoes hilariously inviting Despy to participate):

Then Fujita wanted to get in on the fun but Zack also refused (which should have been cool and subtle foreshadowing to a Zack-Despy match at Anniversary…):

Then YOH and Goto gave it to Robbie on 1/23:

So Fujita convinced Eagles to give it back to YOH on 1/30, with ZSJ once again demurely declining:

Also, YOH has been pretending to talk to Rocky, who was absent all tour, on an unplugged rotary phone. Eventually, Robbie burst in and also pretended to speak to Rocky. Prediction: Ichiban Sweet Boys

John: Rocky Romero’s absence hung heavy over the entire build to this match, but honestly, it all ended up being so funny that I’m pretty sure I liked it better this way. Robbie Eagles just absolutely mocked him mercilessly for not being there all tour long in his backstage comments, which just got more and more funny as it went along. And both J. Michael and I already mentioned YOH’s strange habit of “calling” Rocky on a clearly-not-plugged-into-anything rotary phone backstage, but neither of us mentioned the best part: how every time he did so, he started by asking his mother for permission to speak with him (I guess the implication being he still lives at home with his mother). People who don’t watch the backstage promos in this company really have no idea what they’re missing.

Oh yeah, so, the match. It will probably be pretty good I guess? I don’t really care that much, to be quite honest. Man was Desperado vs. Fujita awesome though. Prediction: Ichiban Sweet Boys

NEVER Openweight Championship
Konosuke Takeshita © vs. Boltin Oleg

August: Assuming the relationship with AEW is still relatively stable, there’s no reason for Takeshita to lose this title. It sure would have been nice to see him in the lead up to this though, huh? Would have made talking about this match a little easier. So… yeah. Looks like Takeshita was on the Jericho Cruise instead. Well. I’m sure that was nice for him. I look forward to Oleg having a proper feud at some point. Prediction: Konosuke Takeshita

J. Michael: What a treat it is, to have a match like this fourth from the top. I went back and to their G1 Climax match on August 10, 2024. I meant to skip through it, but I pretty much watched the whole 12 minutes. It was a great atmosphere, in the Xebio Arena Sendai, one of the best venues New Japan runs. There was a wonderful response to the match card going up on the big screen, and they chanted for Oleg at the opening bell.

It was a brilliant battle of strength and impact between two athletica, buff dudes. Takeshita massacred Boltin with his elbows. Boltin suplexed Takeshita on his fucking head. There was a battle of a vertical suplex (won by Takeshita). There was a dual clotheslines battle (won by Boltin). Takeshita kicked out of a static Kamikaze, but Boltin eventually reached the endgame by catching Takeshita in mid-air when Takeshita went for his flying clothesline thing, hitting an F-5, and then the proper running Kamikaze.

As someone who basically only watches New Japan and DDT (me, and fans that vote on end-of-the-year awards in Japan, apparently) my stance on Takeshita remains the same as when I wrote the G1 Climax 34 preview: he’s the best wrestler in the world, and should be the top guy in New Japan ASAP. He’s the ingredient that could bring everything together. Prediction: Konosuke Takeshita

John: Hey, that bit about the fans who vote in the Shupro end of year awards only watching New Japan and DDT ain’t true, man: they also watch STARDOM! If you don’t believe me, check out this hilarious bit from backstage in Sendai where Zack Sabre Jr. proudly announces that TMDK finished third for the prestigious Shupro Best Unit award! He seemingly thinks everyone else is going to be way more impressed with that than they actually are (Kosei Fujita in particular seems to be like, uh, that’s it, only third?), tries to rally people by noting that they did finish highest of any unit in NJPW (the way he sort of panics like “oh god they’re not getting that this is GOOD, I probably should have said we were first in New Japan right away huh” is so funny), and then clearly isn’t prepared at all when Fujita asks him who the hell finished first yet before finally mumbling out “uh, Cosmic Angels I think?” YES, ZACK, COSMIC ANGELS! Don’t you forget it! As the great Arametha once described them in the VOW discord, they’re “your girlfriends, my girlfriends, and each other’s girlfriends as well”. Sorry Zack, maybe you’ll get them next year. This really was an even more amazing tour than usual for the New Japan backstage comments, by the way! Scripted promos could never.

Anyway, uh, this actual match! Konosuke Takeshita (who I guess I’m supposed to actually write in all caps when he’s in NJPW, but something about his name just feels too long to do it for to me- sorry buddy, I wouldn’t do it for Kazma Sakamoto either if I ever lost my mind and decided to start writing about GLEAT for some reason!) hasn’t given any backstage comments of course, since he hasn’t been around all tour. He was busy mostly standing around and doing run-ins in AEW like usual, although he did finally wrestle a couple matches recently. He also went on the Jericho Cruise, and hey, good for him- I sure wouldn’t turn down a cruise I’m presumably getting paid to show up on, even if it meant being on a boat with hundreds of American wrestling fans (I’m sure not PAYING for that, though). 

I’m sure this match will be great just like their G1 match was, but the million dollar question on my mind isn’t really the result here (all due respect to Boltin, Take is obviously getting his win back from the G1 in Osaka). Instead, I have a much more simple question: will Takeshita be in the New Japan Cup? His presence in the NJC would elevate it immensely, but is that just too many dates for him to take on given his super important AEW work of mostly not actually wrestling? I’m going to be hopeful, but realistic, and say that while I may want him there, I’m not expecting it. I’ll just let myself be pleasantly surprised if it actually happens. Prediction: Konosuke Takeshita

IWGP Tag Team Championship
The Young Bucks (Nicholas & Matthew Jackson) © vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi)

August: Whoever thought it was a good idea to preview this match with a series of LIJ vs Honma tags should be forced to watch those Road To matches on repeat. The Feb 3rd match with Makabe was particularly painful to watch. Watching 3 men with less than 2 knees combined stumble into each other was not my idea of a good time. But at least Hiromu is willing to throw himself around the ring and entertain. Story-wise, it’s to prove himself against the heavyweights, but really it’s to provide a little bit of action in otherwise very bad matches. That shouldn’t be a problem with the Bucks standing against them. They’ll be able to bump for Naito to make him look good and go dive for dive with Hiromu. Assuming, of course, they don’t deliberately have a bad match. Prediction: LIJ

J. Michael: 

TENDEDERO!

TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! 

TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! TENDEDERO! Prediction: LIJ

John: Tetsuya Naito is washed. There, I said it. Are you all happy? The man with no knees, one functioning eye (that he proceeded to have surgery on to make worse so it would match the broken one a little better in a move that had Hiromu fucking Takahashi going “uh, are you sure man”), and god knows what other ailments from being the best wrestler in the world for the better part of a decade is washed. I don’t really understand why this brings some of you the sheer glee that it does (besides the fact that you’re probably just bad people!), but hey, it’s clearly true at this point.

And you know what? I don’t give a fuck.

Because Tetsuya ‘Washed’ Naito has spent the entire New Beginning tour having the absolute goddamn time of his life. Yes, he can’t walk. Yes, he can barely see. Yes, his opponents for this show weren’t even on the tour, and unlike Rocky they don’t even really have a good excuse besides “they used to skip many of the tours even when they were on the roster, so why would that change now?”. Which is actually a pretty good excuse, come to think of it. But nobody, and I mean nobody, is having more fun in professional wrestling right now than this guy, teaming with his beloved protege. He started the tour constantly calling Hiromu “leader!” in a funny running bit, but even that turned out to be nothing compared to, yes, TENDEDERO! Relentlessly harassing Milano Collection AT for no reason turned out to be just the beginning, because it all culminated in what was honest to god the funniest NJPW backstage comment I’ve ever seen. I legit almost died laughing. The basic gist of it is that Hiromu discovered he had the special power to summon Naito from offscreen just by yelling the ridiculous move name they came up with (they had a FAN VOTE to pick a name for a DOUBLE CLOTHESLINE, and then just decided to go with…..SPANISH FOR CLOTHESLINE), until that power suddenly left him. And the way Hiromu was just left standing there going “Wow, he’s really not coming back huh?” just left me cracking the fuck up at 1 am. You absolutely have to watch it for yourself if you haven’t yet, and trust me, I didn’t even give it all away.

So yeah, you know, Naito might need Hiromu’s help to do a swinging DDT now. Big fucking deal. I’m still enjoying this about as much as I’ve enjoyed anything in his entire career. And now the Young Bucks will saunter on down from California again after showing up at Wrestle Dynasty like the two coolest white dudes on the planet, somehow confirming that apparently every single member of the Elite just hit way better in NJPW than they do in the promotion that’s literally named after them. Honestly, I laughed when they did that interview late last year claiming they were having boring matches on purpose, but you know what? I sort of feel like I owe them both an apology for that one after seeing them put in a timeless Young Bucks performance. They rocked so effortlessly hard at the Tokyo Dome while also just looking thrilled to be there, as you’re just left to imagine a world where NJPW has  actual money and could bring all these guys back full time. Oh well!

But anyway, stay tuned for my upcoming column: Are We Sure That Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi Aren’t The Greatest Tag Team Of All Time?

The answer, of course, is just one word: TENDEDERO! Prediction: LIJ

IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship
Yota Tsuji © vs. Gabe Kidd

August: Few things in wrestling annoy me more than the New Japan commentators talking about “the dojo” whenever a pair of young guys are fighting. It’s like talking about a MLB veteran’s minor league batting average, or how many touchdowns an NFL quarterback threw in college. Yes, this information can provide (very) limited context, but mostly it’s just noise and numbers and nonsense. These are Main Event Professional Wrestlers, and repeatedly reminding everyone that a few years ago they were still dojo kids and getting bullied by Shibata does the wrestlers a disservice. It doesn’t matter that Tsuji and Kidd had 30 matches together as Young Lions, those were different people in a different time and have nothing to do with the match in front of us. Besides, we as viewers know they were in the dojo together because we pay attention to the product and don’t have goldfish brains. And if we didn’t know that, is that information necessary? No, it’s usually not. Anyways, end rant, etc etc, this match is going to be fucking great. Picking a winner is hard, I don’t think there’s a wrong answer. 2025 could be a breakout year for Kidd, we’ll just see if it’s as Global champion or something bigger. Match of the Year potential here, just don’t encourage me to mute it. Prediction: Gabe Kidd

J. Michael: I have to push back on that. The dojo system, as noted in the 2025 NJPW Primer, is one of the most productively idiosyncratic aspects of Japanese wrestling. When I was watching the Royal Rumble, I was struck by how stagnant the wrestlers that came through their training center have become. Partially, it’s because they don’t have to become good wrestlers; they just masquerade through a sequence of tableaus and disconnected moments, to a live audience ambivalent towards the ring performance side of the medium. And so, Rick Steiner’s son doesn’t need to do much but spear people emphatically at various parts of a match. It doesn’t matter if 90% of the match is enveloped in ambient crowd noise, or even if the spear gets a reaction. Toss it into a clip package, problem solved. That said, there are actual professional wrestlers training these people, and at some point you’d think that they’d teach them to marry the television side with the fundamentals of pro wrestling. It’s like one of those coaches that, in good faith, rushes to teach students complicated techniques and actions in lessons before they’ve truly drilled the fundamentals into the student’s brain.

The dojo system produces great wrestlers. Even the clumsy ones would work laps around some of these NIL projects and fitness influencers in Orlando. It also does inherently produce these generational storylines for which all companies grasp, even the ahistorical ones. I don’t think August’s analogies fit at all; referencing these things aren’t done in isolation. They don’t reference Yota Tsuji’s Noge Dojo days arbitrarily; they do so when he faces Kidd, or Uemura, in reference to their time spent together, growing and fighting. They sometimes do so when someone faces a dojo senior, like if Tsuji faces Umino or Narita. These are not meaningless, vapid references. 

The only way to foster resonance is through time; that is the only critical agent. Ren Narita failed as Shibata Homunculus Guy because he did not have the credibility of Shibata, and Shibata only earned those credentials through time, through the accumulation of authenticity and the specific sequence of contextual moments that birthed the stoic, forthright Shibata that people adored. The way to inject avoirdupois into a rivalry, feud, or match is to call upon those moments, to illuminate the consequences. And I don’t believe they do this frivolously; it’s not like they still mention Naito’s dojo days when he wrestles Goto, or Tanahashi. Eventually those things fade away as more significant credentials constellate.

But sometimes they do not, and I hope they never do as long as Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura, and Gabe Kidd share a ring together. That’s where I’m a bit confused, because of all the times to mention the dojo, this match inherently commands it. These guys were the Pandemic Young Lions, and as this program has shown, this has had a profound effect on them. Tsuji and Kidd have talked all tour about that aspect of their careers, and the arduous nature of training in the dojo, supporting the senior wrestlers, and evolving as wrestlers during that brutal time period. These guys wrestled every fucking show, to silence. 

That forges an unimaginable bond, one that we see completely dismantle common logic in wrestling. The way these two have vacillated between admiration (“only the two of us can lead New Japan into the new era” type statements) and vitriol (the wild brawls, especially after the February 4th show) exhibits that. As did Tsuji using the Kannuki Suplex to honor Uemura in the G1 Climax semi-finals against Finlay. Or Kidd continually denouncing Umino in favor of Tsuji. I’m not sure if any of this, or any of these guys, will bring New Japan back to the numbers of 2019, but I do know that the product will be substantially better because of it. Their sequences in the multi-man tags were the most intense of the tour, and the crowd reactions suggest that the embers might be catching.

Now, I don’t dispute that it can be annoying, so August isn’t off-base there. And I don’t listen to the English commentary much, so I might have just wasted everyone’s time attempting to dispel something that is a legitimate problem. But I believe that this match, and the framing of it as a distinct pathway towards New Japan’s future, demands this sort of history-baiting. And while I’m not a Tsuji believer, and, on the subject of things we find annoying, I am fed up with his fucking Humphrey Bogart hat and his fucking flan, I do believe that he has a chance to have a solidifying title reign. Because New Beginning was consolidated into this massive card, he wasn’t able to headline a show with the title (and, I presume, this match absolutely would have headlined a New Beginning show). I’d like to see him grasp that opportunity at some point this spring. Prediction: Yota Tsuji

John: Yeah, pretty much agree with everything J. Michael just said. I do listen to English commentary quite a bit, and I think Walker has done a great job making it clear how important their dojo days are to Gabe and Tsuji without getting silly about it or anything. Look, the Noge Dojo is absolutely essential to the story of Gabe Kidd in particular. This is a guy who almost fucking died going through the New Japan training during the COVID-19 pandemic. Think back to how you felt during 2020, how alone and hopeless it felt while you were stuck inside your house with seemingly no idea when it would ever end (well, unless you were one of the weirdos who never left your house before that anyway and then aggressively turned your solitude into a point of moral character I guess, but anyway). Well, now picture that, but as a “fun bonus” you’re going through the famously brutal NJPW training process at the same time, AND on top of that you’re in a foreign country where almost everyone else speaks a language you maybe know three words of. All of those things are tough on their own, but wrap them up together, all brutal training and dojo tasks with absolutely nothing else to do and nowhere to go to let off some much-needed steam, and, well. It’s understandable that this guy keeps telling us how he lost his mind.

Yes, the Noge Dojo is a huge part of the Gabe Kidd story, because as he always reminds us, he nearly died for this. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I cannot recommend his recent interview on the NJPW website enough. He gives us all kinds of new details, like how Hiroshi Tanahashi was facetiming him in a mental hospital every day, that only add even more richness to his story. Suddenly, Tanahashi sitting there on commentary crying his eyes out over what he just witnessed at the end of Gabe vs. Kenny is even more poignant. He knows everything that Gabe has been through for this company, and he watched one of NJPW’s prodigal sons- as we just covered, maybe the one who had to sacrifice more than anyone else in history to make it- absolutely tear the house down and have what is probably already a prohibitive frontrunner for Tokyo Sports Best Bout (not to mention one I expect will do very well in the MOTY poll on this very website!) in the biggest moment of his career. It doesn’t get any more touching than that. And again, it does mean something extra when he was a product of this company’s dojo system, because as Gabe always says, this is New Japan Pro Wrestling. You can’t fake that with money, just like you can’t fake real trueborn generations by arbitrarily declaring four wrestlers as “pillars”.

As far as this match goes, well. The ceiling for this is pretty much another MOTYC as far as I’m concerned. These two guys have been the in-ring highlight of the Road To tags by several thousand miles, and their wild final brawl at the end of the Korakuen match (and like I noted on Twitter, extra shout out to Jeff Cobb’s perfectly timed “HOLY SHIT!” call on English commentary when Gabe suddenly countered a Gene Blast attempt from Tsuji with a thunderous lariat) just put the exclamation mark on that. I absolutely cannot wait for this match.

Picking a winner is a very interesting enterprise as well, because as my two colleagues already covered, there’s really no wrong answer here. You have two young guys who are just starting to reach their true potential, and there’s no reason not to run with either one of them. But what I do wonder is if we might see some major storyline development on this show. The heel side of New Japan currently feels very loose and unclear: you have House of Torture running around but without their leader, as EVIL is gone (at least for now). You have SANADA kicking dicks and stealing water bottles, seemingly having nothing to do with the rest of the War Dogs or their general vibe these days. And you have the core trio of Kidd, Moloney and Connors, two of whom are dojo products (and Moloney, despite not being one himself, fits right in with them anyway as a guy who certainly had a career in the UK already but really broke out in Japan- he feels about as close to being a New Japan trueborn as someone not actually from the dojo can), seemingly embracing the crowd in a way we’ve never seen from a BULLET CLUB sub-unit. There have been subtle little things happening all over the place- the BC name is being mentioned alongside the War Dogs less than ever, David Finlay dropped “Leader of BULLET CLUB” from his Twitter bio (which along with him following HHH seemed to make people think he was jumping, but that hasn’t happened yet at least), and Gabe Kidd has been running around with a giant lionmark on his tights for the better part of a month (not to mention his new shirt). I could be reading too much into all of this, but….it does kind of feel like there’s a real babyface turn on the way here, if not even some much larger shifts coming, right?

So let me lay out how I would do this, which may or may not be how it all actually plays out in practice (but would make complete sense with all of the above, in my opinion). In Osaka, David Finlay finally re-emerges (if he’s not headed for Orlando, and please god let him stay!) and costs Gabe Kidd the Global Title- because that’s HIS belt, and none of the War Dogs were supposed to win it but HIM. Moloney and Connors stay loyal to Kidd, and together they become the Hontai War Dogs or however you want to put it, which would make sense with how tightly entwined Gabe and the lionmark have become. SANADA is definitely a heel and sticks with Finlay, as does Ishimori I guess (I don’t know, I guess he could really go either way), and the three of them come together with the remaining House members to form NJPW’s new one and only heel unit. They will probably need to be joined by a few other newly turned wrestlers in the not too distant future (Shota???), but for now, that’s where we end up. And Gabe is now out for revenge on Finlay heading into the New Japan Cup. Maybe that’s how it plays out, maybe it’s not, but hey, it would be a hell of a shake-up if it does happen, and god knows NJPW could use it. Prediction: Yota Tsuji

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
Zack Sabre Jr. © vs. Hirooki Goto

August: Goto has been putting in work the last few years, and I’m happy he’s getting another title shot before he starts the upcoming and inevitable decline. Not much to discuss matchwise here, so the big question is does Goto get his gold watch run? He certainly deserves it, I don’t think there’s a question about that. And it’s not like Sabre is a red-hot champion and taking the title off him would tank business. Hell, people might be more interested in a short Goto run than Zack having a great match with the next challenger of the month. But I feel very strongly that Goto should NOT win this match. 

Hirooki Goto is a warrior. And warriors do not always win. Call it romantic, or tragic. I call it important, a reminder that someone can try as hard as they possibly can, for as long as they possibly can, and still not reach the pinnacle they so desire. But rather than a sad story, it’s inspiring. No, you will not always win. No, you will not always get what you want. But like Hirooki Goto, you can keep fighting. You can keep improving and never give up and never take what you have for granted. Achieve your successes, your tournament wins and your tag team awards, and be proud of them. And when the opportunity comes to capture that elusive grand win, that title that has forever remained just passed your ability, you take it, even if it’s doomed to fail. That’s what warriors do. Be a warrior. Be Hirooki Goto. Prediction: Zack Sabre Jr

J. Michael: I took notes all tour, looking at the way these two have structured their sequences, ready to present an exhaustive look at this match, and the way they’ve wrestled each other in the past.

Forget all that. There’s only one thing to say: Join the Goto Revolution. Prediction: Hirooki Goto

John: Yeah, this is really a simple one for me: my head says Zack, but my heart says Goto. There’s not a whole lot more to say than that. If I want to give my fellow Goto bros a little morsel of hope, I’ll throw this one out there: Francesco Akira challenging El Desperado to a junior title match at the anniversary show was an interesting development, huh? You’d think if Zack was retaining they would jump at the chance to do Zack vs. Despe in the traditional heavyweight vs. junior champion match, given their shared Suzukigun history and all that. But you know what would make a whole lot of sense as an Anniversary Show main event? Hirooki Goto vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP World Heavyweight Title….. Prediction: Always go with the heart. Goto bros, we ride at dawn

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