|

NJPW’s Newest Young Lion, Shion Obata, To Make Debut On November 19

ByAndrew J.T. Gelinas
img 0961

A new young lion will debut in a little over a week.

NJPW unveiled the card for their upcoming Tanahashi Jam event, which will take place on November 19 from Korakuen Hall. One of the most exciting things that is going to happen on this show will be the debut of the company’s newest young lion, Shion Obata, who will be making his pro wrestling debut against Oleg Boltin.

For any eagle eyed New Japan viewer, they will be already aware of Obata as he’s been spotted on numerous occasions at ringside with the other young lion trainees, however he’s easily the most physically impressive. Obata is listed at 6’1” or 6’2” and weighing around 130 kg, or 290 pounds. He is also 25 years old.

Writing in the September 14 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer gave fans some insight into Obata’s background.

“(Obata) was a college wrestler at Nippon Sports Science University, the team coached by Yuji Nagata, which also must be a first of an active pro wrestler being a college wrestling coach. Last year he placed second in the Emperor’s Cup national championships in Greco-Roman at 286 pounds and third in the trials to make the Japanese national team that would compete in the 2025 world championships. He left amateur wrestling at the end of June and started training here.”

-Dave Meltzer

Definitely expect New Japan to push this guy pretty quickly, like how they did with Boltin or even Aaron Wolf to some extent.

Tanahashi Jam 2 will be a major event for the promotion as it will air live on TV Asahi. The card will feature some outsiders, most notably being New Japan legend Tatsumi Fujimami wrestling in an 8-man tag match also featuring the aforementioned Aaron Wolf, who won the gold medal in Judo at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

The full card looks like this:

  • Oleg Boltin vs. Shion Obata
  • Shota Umino vs. Axe Wang
  • Hirooki Goto, Tatsuya Matsumoto, YOH, & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, Satoshi Kojima, Togi Makabe, & Yuji Nagata
  • Hiroshi Tanahashi produced “Monster Rambo”
  • Aaron Wolf, Kaisei Takechi, Tatsumi Fujinami, & Yuya Uemura vs. Ren Narita, SANADA, Yoshinoku Kanemaru, & Yujiro Takahashi
  • NJPW World Television Championship: Shun Skywalker (c) vs. Toru Yano
  • Hartley Jackson, Kaito Kiyomiya, & Ryohei Oiwa vs. Kosei Fujita, Takeshi Masada, & Zack Sabre Jr.

For more news from across Japanese professional wrestling, you can click here.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Shion Obata’s upcoming debut as soon as we hear more.