New Japan Pro Wrestling
NJPW ended the Destruction tour with the show on September 29th in Kobe World Hall in front of 4,528 fans, which is the highest attendance of New Japan in Kobe since 2019. It’s another good number for the promotion, which is getting hot again locally after a good G1 Climax business-wise, as well as the Hokkaido tour that had an average of around 1,000 fans for tour shows. Many of the investments NJPW made this year following the departure of Okada are finally showing to pay off.
Hirooki Goto and Gabe Kidd had a fun undercard match on the show as they brawled to a double count out before the contest was restarted under no disqualification rules. The intensity of the rivalry between the War Dogs and CHAOS is incredible, and the brawls throughout the tour leading to this match were some of the most entertaining interactions on New Japan house shows this year. This match continued that trend and brought out a side of Hirooki Goto that fans hadn’t seen from him in a while. In the end, he picked up the win with the GTR and gained momentum heading into the upcoming months.
A couple of weeks ago, Zack Sabre Jr. announced that TDMK will have a new member, and on the show in Kobe it was revealed to be the returning Ryohei Oiwa, who finished 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 being trainees under Yoshinari Ogawa. He looked great in his return to New Japan, picking up the win with a Rolling Lariat and is someone who will be a top player in the upcoming decade.
DOUKI retained the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship against his former mentor, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, in a really good match. Kanemaru went for the legs of DOUKI to make it hard for the champion to use his speed advantage over the challenger, and it worked at points in the match. In general, it was the most motivated Kanemaru had been in a while as he tried to become one of the few wrestlers who have won the Junior Heavyweight Championship of AJPW, NOAH, and NJPW. After the match, SHO attacked the champion and challenged DOUKI to a future championship match, which DOUKI accepted. It won’t be the best title match, but it’s an important one for DOUKI as it’s one of the few blemishes left for him this year as he lost twice to SHO in 2024.
Shingo Takagi beat HENARE to become a 5x NEVER Openweight Champion. The two 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 in the biggest win of his career. The worry coming into the match was that they couldn’t add anything new to their encounters, particularly as fans have seen that match-up a lot over the past two years, and that was the case. The match was really good, but everything they did was already shown in their previous clashes against each other, and they have reached their limits together. The title change was expected as it ends their series in 2024 with a record of 1-1-1, and Takagi walking into the road to Wrestle Kingdom as champion makes sense. HENARE’s first run as NEVER Openweight Champion was short but effective for him. Still, it says enough about how the company views him that they cycled back to Takagi.
David Finlay retains the IWGP Global Championship against YOSHI-HASHI in a fantastic match that started slow but had great pacing with a tremendous finishing stretch. The crowd was rocking for this one as they rooted for YOSHI-HASHI to overcome Finlay in his first singles title match since 2019. He was great in the underdog role fighting from underneath against Finlay, who has fully figured out how to work as a heel and is now one of the most consistent wrestlers in New Japan. David Finlay’s improvement into fitting his role in New Japan as the top foreigner is evident as he continues to deliver in the biggest spots that the company puts him in. The Rebel’s work on the top was great, interesting, and entertaining as he was able to keep the crowd engaged and made them root for his opponent even more. After the match, David Finlay made it clear that he wants to face Hirooki Goto next for the IWGP Global Championship after losing to him in the G1 Climax.
Tetsuya Naito defeated Great-O-Khan to retain the IWGP World Championship in a compelling match that was different from most of the IWGP World Heavyweight Title matches that happened in the past years. It was more grounded as O-Khan brought especially good grappling to the match early on until Naito took over, which brought out the underdog version of O-Khan that was established in the G1 and worked fantastically there. While it worked well here, the problem was that the crowd had trouble believing that O-Khan could shock the world so the match didn’t have the heat that it needed to work. The finishing stretch was well done. It wasn’t explosive, but O-Khan isn’t the wrestler to have that, preferring to work methodically. However, Naito wasn’t the best counterpart for him here. On top of that, the match went over 30 minutes when it should have ended after 20, but the idea behind it is similar to the long epic matches that the other young guys had earlier in the year. This was another example of NJPW throwing a young guy into a long main event to practice the layout.
The show ended with a promo between Tetsuya Naito and Zack Sabre Jr. as they will face for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship in two weeks, but this was interrupted when Shingo Takagi interfered and asked for a Championship match himself. Then, Ryohei Oiwa emerged to challenge Shingo Takagi for the NEVER Openweight Championship on October 14th in the Sumo Hall. Ryohei Oiwa being a major part of a closing segment with Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, and Zack Sabre Jr. on his first night back from excursion says a lot about how the New Japan office views him.
All Japan Pro Wrestling
The first day of the tournament had two shocking upsets. Dan Tamura got a huge win over Shotaro Ashino, who suffered a surprising loss here, particularly as he entered the tournament as one of the potential finalists. His 2024 is a huge disappointment after he returned from injury, especially after winning the Champion Carnival last year. Due to his injury break, he lost all his momentum and couldn’t continue that upon his return as the young wrestlers all overtook him in the hierarchy. The other upset was in the main event of the show as Ryuki Honda defeated Triple Crown Champion Yuma Aoyagi clean to eliminate him from the tournament in a good match that felt like both wrestlers held back a little to save for a future Triple Crown Championship match between the two. Aoyagi’s record in the Royal Road tournament can’t be much worse as he lost all of his eight first-round matches, including the last two as Triple Crown Champion.
The final four ended up with Ryuki Honda, Kento Miyahara, Ren Ayabe, and Rei Saito with the semifinals and finals being held at a Korakuen Hall show on September 22nd in front of a sold-out crowd of 1,473, which is another fantastic number for the company. All Japan’s investment into the youth is paying off as they have drawn over 1,000 fans in every Korakuen Hall show this year.
In the first semifinal, Ryuki Honda defeated Kento Miyahara with the Final Vent in a very fun sprint match. The crowd was extremely loud for the two from the very first minute. Miyahara tried to end the match quickly, but it didn’t pay off. They fitted a lot into the 11 minutes that they had, and the final three minutes were spectacular as Honda caught Miyahara with the Final Vent to win the match and advance to the final of the Royal Road tournament for the second year in a row. The second semifinal ended with a victory for Ren Ayabe over Rei Saito with a Modified Dragon Sleeper to advance to the final. That was the weakest of the three tournament matches of the day as Ayabe is just not on the level of the other younger wrestlers yet. Still, Rei Saito had a good performance here as he is a great big man and has developed into a wrestler who constantly has really good matches.
With that, the final was between the two ELPIDA members as Ryuki Honda and Ren Ayabe clashed in a match that went over 25 minutes. It had a very slow start but picked up well, and, importantly, it didn’t feel long as Ayabe and Honda were able to fill the entire match length with interesting action. The final few minutes were fantastic, with the crowd being on fire for all the near falls. Ren Ayabe was able to win the match with the Death Roulette to win the Royal Road tournament and earn himself a shot at Yuma Aoyagi’s Triple Crown Championship. Ren Ayabe’s rise ever since joining the company is the perfect example of how well All Japan is treating its youth. He went from winning two matches in the Champion Carnival to winning the Royal Road tournament just four months later with a consistent build-up. He isn’t fully there yet, though, and is still developing as he tries to learn how to use his size well. One thing he needs to improve at is hitting harder as he is often too soft, which is noticeable when working on top. Ayhabe will challenge Yuma Aoyagi on October 22nd at Korakuen Hall for the Triple Crown Championship in the biggest match of his career. He won’t win the title, but a great performance is needed so that All Japan has another wrestler that they can let challenge for the top championship every year without it feeling totally out of place. This is needed as the roster is currently too thin on top to manage the extremely hard big show schedule.
