Best Of The Super Juniors Continues, Moxley & Takeshita In An Eliminator Match on AEW PPV| Weekly Puro Guide

The annual Best of the Super Juniors tournament began this month and is featuring all of NJPW’s biggest Junior stars and a few new outsiders, with Dragon Dia from Dragon Gate, Blake Chrisitan from ROH, and both HAYATA and Ninja Mack from NOAH all involved. The tournament started on May 11th, with the final happening at Dominion on June 9th.

This past week, it was announced that the finals of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament will main event Dominion. With that, Jon Moxley (c) vs. EVIL is the first IWGP Heavyweight Title match in 10 1/2 years that isn’t the main event of a solo-branded New Japan show. The last match was Okada vs. Naito at WK 8, which was decided by a fan vote. According to El Desperado on Tokyo Sports, the talents were told on the first night of the tournament. A major stage for the Juniors that is making the BOSJ even more prestigious than it already is!

Over the course of the past 7 days, New Japan held six BOSJ tournament shows and it had a couple of highlights with the best match of the tournament so far being on the second night as El Desperado defeated Kosei Fujita. This was a great foundation for their future matches, especially the submissions of Fujita that he wasn’t able to lock in at times. Fujita is amazing at such a young age and proved why he is getting a lot of hype from the fans of the promotion. If anything from the tournament, then this is the match to check out.

One of the big losers of the tournaments so far has been TJP. The “Captian” of United Empire started with a 0-4 record after losing to Knight, Kanemaru, Connors, and BUSHI. On Day 6, he started a turnaround as he defeated GHC National Champion HAYATA, and on Day 7, he picked up an important win against Kosei Fujita. With a record of 2-4, his chances to reach the semi-finals aren’t high, but with his upcoming matches being against the top 3 of the A Block, where TJP can get important tie-breakers, a potential comeback is possible.

Another wrestler who had a troubling start was Hiromu Takahashi. The former 4x winner of the BOSJ started his tournament with two losses against KUSHIDA & DOUKI on the first two nights but won his last three matches, including a major victory over SHO. He’s once again one of the tournament favourites and, with a three-match winning streak, has a good chance to continue his momentum and punch his ticket to the semi-final.

The biggest winners so far are KUSHIDA in the B Block as he’s the only wrestler with 8 points so far with big wins over Ishimori, Hiromu, and SHO. In the A Block, multiple wrestlers are at 8 points, including Clark Connors, El Desperado, Titan, and Blake Christian, with the last name starting with a perfect 4-0 record before dropping his last two matches to Desperado & HAYATA.

The quality of the tournament so far has been fine, but nothing amazing. Many matches are too short to reach the next level, but most are at least solid with some good matches in between. KUSHIDA has been the MVP after 7 days. He hasn’t been as motivated as he is right now in a long time, and it’s paying off. He’s gad great performances in every match and brings something good out of each of his opponents.

Official Best of the Super Juniors Standings:
A BLOCK –
8 – Blake Christian (4-2-0)
8 – El Desperado (4-2-0)
8 – Clark Connors (4-2-0)
8 – Titan (4-2-0)
6 – HAYATA (3-3-0)
6 – Kevin Knight (3-3-0)
4 – Kosei Fujita (2-4-0)
4 – Yoshinobu Kanemaru (2-4-0)
4 – BUSHI (2-4-0)
4 – TJP (2-4-0)

B BLOCK –
8 – KUSHIDA (4-1-0)
6 – Taiji Ishimori (3-2-0)
6 – Drilla Moloney (3-2-0)
6 – Robbie Eagles (3-2-0)
6- DOUKI (3-2-0)
6 – Hiromu Takahashi (3-2-0)
4 – Ninja Mack (2-3-0)
4 – Francesco Akira (2-3-0)
4 – SHO (2-3-0)
0 – Dragon Dia (0-5-0)

AEW announced that Jon Moxley will face Konosuke Takeshita in an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Eliminator Match at Double or Nothing, and if Takeshita is victorious, he will get a chance at Moxley’s IWGP World Title.

The match was set up after Konosuke Takashite made an appearance after Moxley defeated Powerhouse Hobbs and indicated that he wanted a shot at the IWGP World Heavyweight Title. It will be interesting to see if Takeshita is able to get a shot at the World Championship as he’s the former Ace of DDT, and seeing him eyeing the top prize of New Japan Pro Wrestling is something no one saw coming.