New Japan Pro Wrestling
NJPW started the Destruction tour that is leading to the major Kobe World Hall show on September 29th, as the first three shows happened this past weekend, including Shingo Takagi’s 20th Anniversary show and two Korakuen Hall shows with the TV and NEVER Openweight Championships being defended.
Shingo Takagi held his 20th Debut Anniversary Event in Kofu in front of 1,678 fans, which saw him team together with BUSHI and Dragongate’s YAMATO against his Los Ingobernables de Japon partners Hiromu Takahashi, Tetsuya Naito, and Yota Tsuji. The match ended in a 30-minute time limit draw and was a fun match to celebrate Takagi’s career. Interestingly, in the post-match, Takagi mentioned that he needs to be a champion to deserve to fight Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. New Japan has been teasing multiple possible challengers for Zack Sabre Jr. and Tetsuya Naito for Wrestle Kingdom, with Shota Umino, Yota Tsuji, Shingo Takagi, and Hiromu Takahashi all teasing a potential match.
The Sunday Korakuen Hall show featured an NJPW World Television Championship match between Jeff Cobb and Yota Tsuji that ended in a 15-minute time limit draw. It was a great match that started a bit slow but delivered in the last few minutes with big spots and great nearfalls. The story New Japan told between the two over the last year has been straight-forward, as Tsuji won the first two matches against Cobb in the New Japan Cup and the G1 Climax, with Cobb now wanting to get his revenge and beat Tsuji. He tried everything that he could until the very last minute, countering every big move of Tsuji and showing that he’d studied him well, but it still wasn’t enough to beat him. The time limit draw was to be expected here, but it was the right choice as neither should have lost this match heading into Wrestle Kingdom season. Post-match, Ren Narita attacked both, and it seems like they are heading towards a three-way match with the Television Title on the line in the upcoming weeks.
On the Monday show, HENARE defeated Hiromu Takahashi to make his first defence of his NEVER Openweight Championship after a great match that went 25 minutes. The match layout was built around HENARE playing the role of a beast that Hiromu needs to overcome, and he was great in the role as it was one of his best performances in a singles match this year. It brought out the fighting spirit of Takahashi well, and he was a great underdog in his match who needed to fight for every piece of offense, which made the match work. In general, Hiromu works much better as an underdog than working on top that he has been doing more recently in the Junior Division, so, from that standpoint, Hiromu being more of an openweight moving forward who does more than just yearly challenger for a heavyweight championship should be the direction that they need to head with him.
HENARE’s next challenger is also his biggest rival, as he takes on Shingo Takagibat the Destruction In Kobe 2024 show on September 29th in the Kobe World Hall. Takagi and HENARE have fought twice for the NEVER Openweight Championship this year, with the first match ending in a double knockout and the second match starting the title run of HENARE with his biggest win of his career. Overall, they had way too many matches in the past 18 months to get hyped for another one, as everything they could do was already shown in their previous encounters, and their last two matches have already shown that they have reached their limits together. A title change is expected to end their series in 2024 with a record of 1-1-1 and Takagi walking into the road to Wrestle Kingdom as champion, including likely defending the title at Royal Quest against Callum Newman, who defeated him in the G1 Climax.
Instead of running with this, I would have switched the championship here, but I get why they didn’t want to do it as it would limit their choices for Wrestle Kingdom with Takahashi. New Japan has been teasing the major first-time-ever match-up between Hiromu Takahashi and Tetsuya Naito for Wrestle Kingdom as the major draw to sell tickets. The entire summer was used to slowly build up to it, and this continued with Takahashi going for the NEVER Openweight Title that was tied to Tetsuya Naito, with Takahashi being part of the first NEVER Openweight tournament, where Naito was on commentary. Everything screams for the singles match between Hiromu and Naito to happen at the biggest show of New Japan’s year, with the only question left being whether it’s for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship or not.
Backstage, Zack Sabre Jr. announced that TDMK will have a new member on September 29th in Kobe. While there is no tease of who the new member could be, there are multiple possibilities. The first possible option is that it’s an Australian wrestler, which would fit perfectly into the stable that originally started in Australia and has still multiple Australians in the faction with Robbie Eagles, Shane Haste, and Mikey Nicholls.
The most likely possibility is that it’s returning Ryohei Oiwa, who is finishing his excursion in Pro Wrestling NOAH this weekend with a match against GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya. Oiwa has been connected with Zack Sabre Jr. throughout his entire career as they faced twice in singles matches in the New Japan Cup and for the NJPW Television Championship, and Zack was also presented as a mentor of Ryohei Oiwa in the early stages of his career as well as both training under Yoshinari Ogawa.
Interestingly enough, when Kosei Fujita joined TMDK, Oiwa was upset that it wasn’t him, as Zack chose the newest member between both of them. Now two years later, it seems like Oiwa will finally be able to join Zack’s faction and it could be the start of the build towards resentment between Oiwa and Fujita, which could lead to a big rivalry between them for the next decade.
