NJPW Unveils Lineup For Super Junior Tag League

The lineup for Super Junior Tag League has been released.

New Japan Pro Wrestling unveiled the 12 tag teams that have been selected to compete in this year’s Super Junior Tag League. The SJTL was first introduced in 1994 as the Super Grade Jr. Heavyweight Tag League, and has subsequently been run every year since 2012. Some legendary tag teams that have won in years’ past include The Young Bucks, Jushin Liger and El Samurai, reDRagon, and Roppongi 3K.

Leading the way into the tag league are the current IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, El Desperado and Mistico. This dream team initially beat the Ichiban Sweet Boys, Kosei Fujita and Robbie Eagles, back in April to win the belts. The rest of Block A includes some high level tag teams.

Robbie X and Taiji Ishimori from Unbound Co. will attempt to win their first Tag League one year after they fell in the finals to SHO and DOUKI. Speaking of DOUKI, he and Yoshinobu Kanemaru from House of Torture are also in Block A. Former longtime junior ace KUSHIDA will team up with AEW’s Nick Wayne, who has become quite the popular foreigner thanks to his past work in recent Best of the Super Junior tournaments.

Kuukai will return for his second Tag League, this time working with Master Wato. Finally, Ryusuke Taguchi, who’s been working primarily in DDT of late, will return with DDT’s wunderkind Kazuma Sumi as his partner to round out the block.

Block B also has some standout teams, but the clear favorite has to be the Ichiban Sweet Boys, Kosei Fujita and Robbie Eagles. Not only are these two men among the best juniors in all of NJPW, they are easily the best full-time tag team in the division, and by extension, this tournament.

If they are to hope to reach the finals next month, they will have to survive a tough gauntlet. The first opposing team that jumps off the page is the Unbound Co. duo of Titan and the young Daiki Nagai. Those two wrestle with tremendous grit and tenacity. Additionally. United Empire have sent out Francesco Akira and Jakob Austin Young. Akira is a former winner of this tournament with TJP, so could he help lead the JAY to his second win?

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, YOH, will team up with Dragongate’s Hyo. This duo will certainly try to utilize mind games and odd behavior to confuse and disarm their opponents. Who knows, maybe they can get far. YOH’s former Roppongi 3K tag partner, SHO, with whom he won three straight Super Junior Tag Leagues from 2017 to 2019, will team up with his House of Torture teammate Dick Togo. And finally, AEW’s The Swirl, made up of Blake Christian and Lee Johnson, will fill out the rest of Block B.

The Super Junior Tag League will run for seven tour dates from October 24 to November 1, and will later conclude with the finals at Power Struggle on November 3.

Elsewhere on the card, Power Struggle will host four matches featuring AEW wrestlers. You can read more about that here.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on this year’s Super Junior Tag League as soon as we hear more.