Bloodsport
Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport came to Japan for the first time as “Bloodsport Bushido” was presented from the legendary Sumo Hall on June 22nd. While Bloodsport didn’t officially announce the attendance, it seemed to be around 1,000 fans as many seats, especially in the sumo boxes, were empty, and it was noticeable. The show was fine overall as it had some highlights, but also a couple of boring bouts. The “Bloodsport style” can get boring quickly if the work isn’t great.
The surprise of the night was Santino Marella vs. Kazushi Sakuraba as it was a great match. Marella is a former BattlARTS fighter, and that was on full display here as he was able to hang with one of the biggest MMA legends in Japan. Both are good at this style, and seeing this kind of side of Marella is something fans would never believe if they only watched him in WWE. The two had such a great struggle. They knew what they were doing, and it worked. Great counters from one submission to the other as one of the highlights was that Santino caught Sakuraba in a choke, and the way Kazushi worked out of it was so fascinating. He first grabbed the right arm and then rolled out of it. In the end, Sakuraba walked out as the winner, but fans were left impressed with Marella.
One of the highlights of the show was Rampage Jackson’s Bloodsport debut against Hideki Sekine. Rampage Jackson is a former UFC/Bellator fighter, and seeing him in a Bloodsport ring was great. He even took a backdrop suplex before finishing Sekine off. After his win, Jackson celebrated with a beer, cap, chain, and a shirt. Seemed like he celebrated like it was an actual shoot fight and held a little promo as he thanked Josh for getting him in the gym so he could get back where he was when he was younger.
In a rematch of an OTT match back from 2018, Minoru Suzuki faced Timothy Thatcher in a fun match. It had good grappling at the beginning and then went in a different direction than the other matches on the show, which made it stand out. They went to the outside, threw each other on the table, and each grabbed chairs but went into the ring to beat the 10 count. A great striking exchange led into Minoru hitting the Gotch Style Piledriver for the TKO win.
In the main event of the show, Josh Barnett & Jon Moxley faced off in a rematch where Moxley looked to avenge a loss from their last Bloodsport match in 2021. The atmosphere changed in the Sumo Hall as Jon Moxley & Josh Barnett walked out for their main event match, no Title was on the line, but something more important for the two – Pride. It took a bit for this match to get going, but the final 10 minutes were incredible. Barnett hit a Shoot Brainbuster and followed it up with a Giant Swing against the ring post, which busted Mox open badly resulting in him bleeding all over the ring. The match went to a time-limit draw but instantly went into overtime, where Jon Moxley was able to submit Barnett to pick up the win.
New Japan
At Dominion, NJPW announced the format for this year’s G1 Climax 34 tournament. One of the biggest changes was that the two final participants will be determined by a play-in tournament, and this past weekend, the first round of the Qualifier Tournament was held.
In the A Block Qualifier Tournament first round, Callum Newman defeated Yujiro Takahashi to advance to the second round, where he will face former IWGP Tag Team Champion KENTA. The match between Newman & Yujiro was fine and nothing special. Callum is in need of more singles outings as he is yet to fully show his full potential. On the other side of the bracket, YOSHI-HASHI defeated Chase Owens to advance. It was a fine match that thankfully saw YOSHI-HASHI pick up the win so that Chase Owens won’t be part of the G1 this year after having terrible performances in his past tournament runs.
On the B Block Qualifier Tournament side, the first round had two major upsets as Oleg Boltin picked up his biggest singles win of his career as he defeated Toru Yano, who won’t be in the G1 Climax this year for the first time in nearly two decades. Oleg will face off against the ‘Ace’ and his mentor Hiroshi Tanahashi in the next round. TJP shocked the world by pinning MLW World Champion Satoshi Kojima to advance, where he will face Taichi. The two had good interactions in the Faction Warfare Gauntlet between United Empire and Just 5 Guys as TJP was able to beat Taichi to win that match for his unit.
All semi-final matches will happen on July 3rd at Korakuen Hall, with the winners facing off on July 5th in the Tokyo Budokan.
GLEAT
Last week, Katsuhiko Nakajima made a shocking appearance on the GLEAT show in Nagoya as he was seen with Hiroyuki Suzuki, who is the president of LIDET. It’s Nakajima’s first official appearance after losing the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship to Yuma Anzai at the end of June.
Now a week later, GLEAT has posted a video of Nakajima & Suzuki having negotiations in which Nakajima says that he has been blacklisted from other promotions and has been homeless until now because GLEAT gave him a chance. It was agreed that Nakajima will be part of GLEAT’s UWF division, and his first match will be on July 1st at GLEAT’s TDCH Show as he will face Takanori Ito for the vacant LIDET UWF Championship
A surprising direction the former Triple Crown Champion is taking as fans expected him to either come back to All Japan or go to New Japan, but he could be the big star that GLEAT needs to make a big step in the Japanese wrestling landscape. The last 9 months of Katsuhiko Nakajima’s career have been one hell of a ride and full of positives & negatives. From him winning the Triple Crown Championship from Yuma Aoyagi to wrestling NXT’s Charlie Dempsey to him now wrestling in GLEAT as part of the UWF division.
