New Japan Pro Wrestling
Sakura Genesis 2024 took place in Ryogoku Kokugikan in front of 6,632 fans on Saturday with 10 matches, including 4 championship defences. Last year’s show was one of the best New Japan shows in years, whilst this year the hype for the show couldn’t be much lower, and when all was said and done, it was evident why.
The first championship match was for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles with Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney defending against Francesco Akira & TJP and KUSHIDA & Kevin Knight in a Tornado Tag Team match and it was great. 15 minutes of all six just busting out insane move after insane move, with everyone having their moment to shine. It is by far the best Junior Tag Title match in a while, and the titles needed it after all the weird booking, including the Aswang stuff in the past few months. The War Dogs retained for the first time and continue to run the division.
Bishamon defeated Chase Owens & KENTA in a nothing match to once again crown themselves the IWGP Tag Team Champions and ended the run of the Bullet Club team after just 50 days. Goto & YOSHI-HASHI are by far the best tag team in the division, and giving them the titles back will lead to more great matches. YOSHI-HASHI is on his way to becoming one of the most successful tag team wrestlers in New Japan, which was unthinkable 4 years ago, as he is now a 4x IWGP Tag Champion, 1x NJPW STRONG Tag Team Champion, and is a 3x World Tag League winner. His list of accolades are certainly well deserved since he has been constantly improving and getting better over the past few years.
The IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship was on the line next as SHO put his newly won title on the line against his former tag team partner and biggest rival YOH. This was planned to be an important title match for the ‘Murder Machine’, but after just 90 seconds, YOH got injured, which forced the referee to end the match and declare SHO the winner. A tragic injury with YOH being in tears and getting carried out. Kosei Fujita & DOUKI came out and both declared to challenge SHO next. It was decided that they would face off in a singles match in Taiwan with the winner challenging SHO next for the IWGP Junior title. Kudos to Fujita, DOUKI, and SHO for saving the situation.
Shingo Takagi defeated EVIL to win back the NEVER Openweight Championship in a super entertaining match compared to the usual House of Torture matches that New Japan fans have seen enough of over the past few months. There was a lot of creativity in the spots, and the referee shenanigans with Kanemaru and Hiromu were especially funny. HoT just works best whenever they get their asses beaten by the faces with the crowd begging for it, and that’s exactly what we got here. After the match, Gabe Kidd came out and cut a monster promo on Shingo Takagi and even shaded President Tanahashi & New Japan. He showed once again why he is a guy the promotion needs to build around in the future.
Tetsuya Naito retained the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship against New Japan Cup Winner Yota Tsuji in a 30+ minute match in the main event of the show. They remained in first gear for the majority of the match but picked up the pace well towards the end of the match. The problem with Naito’s current big matches is that they get clunky and choppy the longer the matches go, which seems to be because of the condition of his body. It’s a good match that should have been much better. After the match, Jon Moxley & Naito made their match in Chicago a championship match, with Moxley likely walking out as the winner.
Full Card for the Windy City Riot show on April 12th:
-> Matt Vandagriff vs. Zane Jay
-> Alex Windsor & Trish Adora vs. Mina Shirakawa & Viva Van
-> Minoru Suzuki vs. Ren Narita
-> Stephanie Vaquer (c) vs. AZM for the NJPW STRONG Women’s Championship
-> Guerrillas Of Destiny (El Phantasmo & Hikuleo) (c) vs. Fred Rosser & Tom Lawlor vs. TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste) vs. The West Coast Wrecking Crew (Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs) for the NJPW STRONG Tag Team Championship
-> Jack Perry vs. Shota Umino
-> Mustafa Ali vs. Hiromu Takahashi
-> ???, ???, ??? & Eddie Kingston vs. ???, ???, ??? & Gabe Kidd in a Riot Rules Match
-> Matt Riddle (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. for the NJPW World Television Championship
-> Nic Nemeth vs. Tomohiro Ishii
-> Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. Jon Moxley for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
New Japan announced the line-up for the annual Best of the Super Juniors and it’s fine, but it’s uninspired and repetitive. The typical names from the roster are in the tournament as well as four outsiders with Titan from CMLL, Blake Chrisitan from ROH, HAYATA, and Ninja Mack from NOAH. I would have loved to see one more guy from CMLL or another cool outsider instead of someone like Taguchi, who is losing all of his matches
Full Best Of The Super Juniors 31 Line-Up:
-> Ryusuke Taguchi
-> El Desperado
-> Kevin Knight
-> YOH
-> Hiromu Takahashi
-> BUSHI
-> Titan
-> TJP
-> DOUKI
-> Francesco Akira
-> Robbie Eagles
-> Taiji Ishimori
-> Yoshinobu Kanemaru
-> SHO
-> Clark Connors
-> Drilla Moloney
-> Kosei Fujita
-> Blake Christian
-> Ninja Mack
-> HAYATA
