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NJPW Unveils 2026 World Tag League Field, Dangerous Tekkers Set To Reunite

ByAndrew J.T. Gelinas
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The full lineup of this year’s World Tag League has been unveiled.

New Japan unveiled the 16 tag teams who will take part in this year’s World Tag League, the final tournament on the promotion’s calendar. The competition will commence on November 23 in Yokohama and run until December 13 in Kumamoto. The winner of the Tag League will then advance to wrestle the reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions, who will most likely still be the Knockout Brothers, and Wrestle Kingdom 21 on January 4.

The World League runs essentially the same way as New Japan’s G1. The field of 16 will be split into two groups of eight teams. Each of the duos will compete against everyone else in their group, meaning everyone will wrestle seven times. The top two teams in each block will then advance to the semi finals, followed naturally by the final.

Here’s how the blocks shape up. Block A is headlined by the reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions, the Knockout Brothers. OSKAR and Yuto-Ice are easily the premier tag team in the promotion and have been ever since they came back from excursion.

If they want to advance to the playoff portion, though, they’ll have to deal with seven difficult tag teams. The only other returning tag team is Alex Zayne and Lance Archer, collectively known as Monster Sauce. This will be there 4th appearance in the Tag League, the most in A Block by a distance.

Also in the A Block are the following tag teams:

  • Aaron Wolf and Oleg Boltin
  • HOUSE OF TORTURE (SANADA and Yujiro Takahashi)
  • TMDK (Ryohei Oiwa and Hartley Jackson)
  • Unbound Co. (Yota Tsuji and Jeff Cobb)
  • United Empire (Callum Newman and Jake Lee)
  • Yuya Uemura and Yuji Nagata

While A Block is mostly populated by newer tag teams, B Block is filled with more veteran duos. Highlight this block is Bishamon, the legendary tag team featuring Hirooki Goto and YOSHI-HASHI. These two enter their 8th Tag League, which is most out of everyone, and their 7th in a row. These two are also the most successful team in history, having won the Tag League a record three times already from 2021 to 2023.

However, their road to the playoffs and a fourth title will be difficult as they will be forced to fend off some difficult foes, including Shingo Takagi and Drilla Moloney of the War Dragons and Great-O-Khan and HENARE, who will be returning finally after two years away.

One other team that could prove to be a difficult out will be the one with was the most recent team announced for the League, the Dangerous Tekkers. Made up of Zack Sabre Jr. and TAICHI, these two had incredible success when they were together. They mostly tagged from 2018 to 2022, during which they won the tag belts on three occasions.

Rounding out B Block will be

  • HOUSE OF TORTURE (Shun Skywalker and Ren Narita)
  • HOUSE OF TORTURE (Don Fale and Chase Owens)
  • Most Violent Players (Togi Makabe and Toru Yano)
  • Shota Umino and Satoshi Kojima

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

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the 2026 World Tag League as soon as we hear more.