Written by Brandon Hoffman
New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s The New Beginning in Osaka emanated live from the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium. We began this year’s installment of the annual New Beginning show with a pre-show tag team match to send off a Young Lion.
Most Violent Players (Toru Yano & Togi Makabe) v. Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato – Tag Team Match
Murashima won the Young Lion Cup not too long ago, and this match was his last in NJPW before going on excursion. It made Murashima look great, bodyslamming Yano and hitting belly-to-back suplexes on Makabe. Otherwise, nothing truly exciting happened since Young Lions are told to hold back their full potentials until after excursion. The ovation the crowd gave Murashima was nice though.
Then, the company paid tribute to former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Tadao Yasuda, who passed away earlier this week.
Now onto the main card, Walker Stewart and Chris Charlton are your English commentators.
Unbound Co. (Hiromu Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori) v. United Empire (Francesco Akira & Jakob Austin Young) – Tag Team Match
Two for two on the sendoff matches tonight, since Hiromu is gone from New Japan after this one. Hiromu used referee Kenta Sato to do a hurricanrana on Akira, that was funny. Mostly, this match focused on the cheating nature of United Empire, establishing themselves as heel with no room for the crowd to cheer them at all.
Strangely, Ishimori tapped out Young with the Bone Lock for the win. Hiromu didn’t hit his Time Bomb or anything to finish this one, but maybe that was because Akira would attack Hiromu after this match to get some more heat on United Empire. Robbie X came down to save Hiromu from getting his neck Pillmanized, leaving for a proper goodbye from the crowd to one of NJPW’s best Juniors in the last 15 years.
War Dragons (Shingo Takagi & Drilla Moloney) v. United Empire (Great-O-Khan & HENARE) – Tag Team Match
The ultra-heeled up United Empire continued to terrorize the Unbound Co. with chair shots from O-Khan and hard chops from HENARE. It’s often forgotten how great the reckless abandon style of wrestling is when these four are involved, and this match was such a great example of that. Drilla and Shingo hit their War Dragon tag finisher on O-Khan to finish this match with yet another United Empire loss. At least NJPW are trying their best to keep the heat on them in defeat. Could that be a theme for the rest of the night?
After the match, Drilla Moloney grabbed a microphone and shared some interesting news. With all these people like EVIL and Hiromu Takahashi leaving NJPW, Drilla has announced … that he’s not going anywhere! He’s officially resigned with New Japan, giving the crowd something to cheer about in the midst of all this contract expiration news. Fingers crossed that this could mean we see War Dragons as the IWGP Tag Champions later this year.
Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) & Boltin Oleg (c) v. TMDK (Zack Sabre Jr., Ryohei Oiwa, & Hartley Jackson) – NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship Match
My goodness, the action just didn’t stop. Once all these peeps got the ball rolling, they would keep up the pace with shoulder tackles, lariats, and suplexes alike. Boltin and Hartley’s interactions in particular were filled with big meaty men slapping meat, as Big E would say. Zack and Oiwa teaming together just feels so natural too. I could watch Oiwa and Goto exchange lefts and rights all day and wouldn’t complain.
After all the chaos, the defending Champions won with their triple-team Shoto on Hartley Jackson for the win. The former championship reign of TMDK still remains as confusing as ever, having won the titles at Wrestle Kingdom 20 only to lose them less than a month later back to Bishamon/Oleg. And then when TMDK gets their rematch, they lose that too. Oh well, at least Hartley and Oiwa have gold on their resume now.
Andrade El Idolo v. Gabe Kidd – IWGP Global Title #1 Contendership Match
Andrade’s mask reminds me of Matanza Cueto from Lucha Underground. This match had all the potential to blow the roof off the place, and the explosiveness of both men certainly didn’t disappoint. The heavy lariats from Kidd got Andrade flipping head over heels unwillingly for him, and Andrade’s entire moveset popped the crowd. Seriously, Osaka was hooked on that fakeout Moonsault, the Three Amigos, the whole shebang.
This one ended when Andrade hit The Message on Gabe for the win. Andrade will now be facing either Yota Tsuji or Jake Lee on New Beginning USA, Feb. 27 in Trenton, NJ. Overall, this match should have been made a bigger deal than it ended up being, purely because of the star power of both men. Perhaps it could have been better built up if it took place in America, AEW to be specific. Or perhaps it could be because Andrade didn’t take off his pants, which would’ve turned this into a five-star classic if we’re being honest here.
Callum Newman v. David Finlay
The lyrics to Callum’s new theme “Make way for the Prince” definitely positions him as the leader of United Empire now. Oh, and he has a sword now. Alright then. This match was very weird because the crowd understood the assignment but the dynamics of the match did not. How often do we see a wrestling match where the face beats down the heel for several minutes uncontested?
If Callum was trying to tell the story of him not being completely fit as the Empire’s leader, then this match did a great job of that. Otherwise, Finlay and Callum wrestled like the War Dogs were still a faction. The last few minutes of this one featured some course correction, with Newman putting out Finlay like Old Yeller with the Prince’s Curse (Bloody Sunday).
Finlay took a moment to soak in and thank the crowd after the match. He even apologized to Hiromu Takahashi who was at the Japanese commentary desk. Even though NJPW didn’t make a big deal as they did with Hiromu, this most likely means Finlay is leaving the promotion too. It absolutely sucks that so many key people are leaving New Japan. Are they even going to have 24 people for the New Japan Cup coming up?
Hello, President! In between Finlay/Newman and the NEVER Title match, suited up Hiroshi Tanahashi came out to the ring to announce Dominion on June 14th, in Osaka-Jo Hall. It’s going to be on Japanese Network TV Asahi. Hooray.
Aaron Wolf (c) v. Ren Narita – NEVER Openweight Championship Match
“It’s the House of Torture speedrun. If you’re playing the drinking game, you’d already be blitzed,” said Chris Charlton. And he was completely right, because this match didn’t even hit the three minute mark. What a colossal disappointment. This was only Aaron Wolf’s second singles match, and he got Torture’d to a quick loss. So much for building new singles stars.
Genuinely, what else is there to say? The House of Torture’s gimmick is that they purposefully don’t wrestle and put in the effort. You could have wrestlers who do this like Orange Cassidy and they do great for themselves, but HoT blatantly ruined the rising stock of one of NJPW’s hottest new acts. Even if Wolf wins the title back at some point, the pain of sitting through more HoT nonsense to get there won’t be worth it. So much for the cheating ways dying with EVIL’s departure.
Knock Out Brothers (OSKAR & Yuto-Ice) (c) v. RoughStorm (Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura) – IWGP Tag Team Championship Match
Just when the atmosphere got deflated by Wolf/Narita, it got high again with another banger from the NJPW Tag Division. But wow, this crowd does NOT care about Shota Umino at all. Anything he would do got met with a mixed reaction and OSKAR slamming down Shota specifically got a big pop. The sequences between Uemura and Yuto-Ice were stellar by the way, taking up a big majority of the match with its intensity and fearless offense.
The Knock Out Brothers remain the best part of current-day NJPW. Their ability to hook a crowd and deliver matches of the year are unlike anyone else in the company today. Uemura and Umino also looked great as challengers even if the crowd was still split on Umino. Investing in this kind of future for NJPW is perfect for the company. Also, KOB won the match with their tag finisher in what was easily the best match of the night.
The Demand (Ricochet, Bishop Kaun, & Toa Liona) then appeared on the titantron to throw out some challenges. At New Beginning USA on Feb. 27, we’re going to see Ricochet defending the AEW National Title against Taiji Ishimori, and the Knock Out Brothers will defend the IWGP Tag Titles against the Gates of Agony (Kaun & Liona). Can’t wait to see both of these.
Yota Tsuji (c) v. Jake Lee – IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match
Jake Lee in All Japan Pro Wrestling years ago was pretty great. This “Court Jester” with the United Empire is simply boring. A comedy act being put in the main event while being slow and methodical just does not work. Tsuji’s overhand chops were deadly though, leaving a literal purple handprint on Lee’s pectoral muscle. Ouch. Overall, it was quite the uninspiring main event with the long-range Gene Blaster from Tsuji picking up the win.
The closing moments from the show saw most of Unbound Co. appear in the ring to say goodbye to Hiromu Takahashi. Poor Yuto-Ice was crying the whole time. The Junior Division is gonna feel very empty without the Ticking Time Bomb.
