Knockout Brothers Take Back IWGP Tag Team Championships At Road To KOPW Show

The Knockout Brothers are IWGP Tag Team Champions again.

OSKAR and Yuto-Ice from the Knockout Brothers defeated United Empire’s Great-O-Khan and HENARE to take back the IWGP Tag Team Championships during the first show on New Japan’s Road to King of Pro Wrestling tour at Korakuen Hall on Tuesday.

This win happened nearly four months after GOK and HENARE defeated the KOB midway through NJPW’s Dominion show on June 14. The two UE members shocked a lot of people when they ended KOB’s first run with the tag belts after 259 days, which was the longest reign with the belts since Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa of the Guerrillas of Destiny across February 2019 and January 2020.

Both OSKAR and Yuto-Ice showed tremendous grit as they were forced to weather a storm of offense from both UE members. To see GOK fight with such ferocity was a sight to behold as it almost never happens. The Unbound Co. duo eventually won after they hit Great-O-Khan with the K.O.B. in 34:21, the longest IWGP Tag Team Title match since the Dangerous Tekkers, TAICHI and Zack Sabre Jr. defeated SANADA and Tetsuya Naito on July 25, 2021 in 37:58.

Following the contest, OSKAR and Yuto-Ice welcomed their Unbound Co. ally Jeff Cobb into the ring and announced that the three of them would work together to attempt to unseat Great-O-Khan, HENARE, and AEW World Champion Will Ospreay for the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team titles at NJPW’s King of Pro Wrestling show on October 12. This development comes following KOB’s recent spat with Will Ospreay on social media where Ospreay took offence to OSKAR saying he doesn’t watch AEW but wants to work with AEW’s Adam Copeland and Christian Cage, while OSKAR attacked Ospreay for being a six-man tag team champion while not wearing the belt or acknowledging being a champion on AEW television.

Adding Jeff Cobb to the mix adds another interesting wrinkle as he used to be a member of the United Empire dating back to when it was simply The Empire, and now he will possibly face off with his old friend Ospreay.

NJPW will hold their KOPW show on October 12 inside the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo. The event will be headlined by the much anticipated IWGP Heavyweight Championship bout pitting current champ Yota Tsuji with this year’s G1 Climax winner Ryohei Oiwa. Elsewhere on the card, Gabe Kidd will defend his IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship against Shota Umino, and Aaron Wolf will take on Kosei Fujita in his first defense of his NEVER Openweight Title in his second reign.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the Knockout Brothers reclaiming the IWGP Tag Team Championships as soon as we hear more.