Written by Brandon Hoffman
This year’s New Japan Cup gained some crazy trajectory from start to now, with some of NJPW’s booking decisions shaking the heads of many. Round 1 and Round 2 saw lots of House of Torture nonsense. Thus, in order to get to the rainbow, we needed to endure the rain. These Quarter-Finals were the first glimpses of a great “elite eight” for the 2026 Cup.
March 15, 2026, Night 9
Boltin Oleg v. Ren Narita, Quarter-Final
The final House of Torture match in this year’s Cup, and the heavens rejoiced. Narita is a great wrestler when gimmicks are thrown out of the windows, but his quasi-leadership of the HoT lumbered all of his recent matches with the antithesis of wrestling. The House of Torture bring out the entertainment side of a promotion so locked into wrestling ability, which makes me personally yearn for wrestling more than entertainment. Narita worked Oleg’s leg for multiple minutes in this one, all for Oleg to no-sell with a double Samoan Drop spot.
Late into the match, Don Fale and Yoshinobu Kanemaru walked down to the ring to help out Narita, but Toru Yano and Aaron Wolf ran behind them to fight off the House. Kanemaru’s whiskey and Fale’s table splash attempt filled up bell to bell time instead of wrestling moves, which led to a crowd pop when all of that got thwarted. In the end, Boltin Oleg hit the Kamikaze to defeat the NEVER Openweight Champion, Narita and advance to the Semis.
As much as people rejoice with the House of Torture being vanquished, we had to sacrifice a potentially good match to make a lackluster match out of Oleg right before he goes into the Semis.
Yuya Uemura v. Shingo Takagi, Quarter-Final
The Yamanashi crowd really wanted to see their hometown boy Shingo Takagi win. This was such a great wrestling match from two men who are quintessential wrestlers at heart. The story was simply that of Shingo’s arm getting destroyed by an unrelenting Uemura, and it worked beautifully. All the arm dissection led to Uemura’s armbars constantly locked onto Shingo, channeling a bit of Zack Sabre Jr. with those submissions.
Admittedly, there were a bit too many repeated moves for my liking because of the lack of diversity in Uemura’s arsenals. It was still effective to bring the fight to Shingo nonetheless, but Shingo’s powerful offense appeared to be more of a threat to Uemura. The last few minutes led to the finishing sequence and everything exploded into a purely awesome end. That dumb-looking Dead Bolt Suplex worked as the finish for once, since Shingo’s arm got caught in limbo and he constantly tried to flail out of the hold to no avail.
With Uemura victorious over Shingo after the Rampage Dragon previously held a 3-0 singles record over the Heat Storm, it telegraphed an evolution in Uemura’s fighting spirit. Being able to beat Shingo after years of losing to him is a great vehicle to justify Uemura’s future into (hopefully) the finals of this whole tournament. Overall, this match made such a great basket for fans to put their Uemura eggs into.
March 17, 2026, Night 10
Callum Newman v. Hirooki Goto, Quarter-Final
It might have been the acoustics of this arena or the lack of overall fire between these two, but this Q-Final was fairly underwhelming. Newman looked strong before this one by beating two big boys in OSKAR and Hartley Jackson, so this match against Goto was a contrast from his previous Cup matches. Along with this, Goto’s World Title defense a year ago against Newman gave this match some contextual history that deserved some oomph behind it.
Perhaps it was because of all the expectations in the world laying on Newman’s shoulders, but sadly, Newman didn’t really explore much to enhance his heelishness. His last two matches featured bowling spots in the crowd, and this one had Zane Jay distracting. Wow, what a downgrade from the intensity the previous matches brought. Poor Goto by the way, his New Japan Cup consisted of two United Empire opponents which didn’t highlight Goto’s special grittiness and hard-hitting beauty.
This match ended with the Prince’s Curse by Newman to end Goto’s run and bring Callum into the Semis. The match itself was good and there were no heinous botches or miscommunications to call the Quarter-Final bad, but it deserved more. The action never quite hit that second gear to make everything feel important, unfortunately.
Shota Umino v. Zack Sabre Jr., Quarter-Final
You know it’s a big match when Shota Umino’s nose got busted out of seemingly nowhere. Much like the rest of the Quarter-Finals, this match got packed with tons of backstory including their meeting in Wrestle Kingdom 19’s main event. All the tension in the world between Zack and Umino led to lots of testing of patience and willpower. Zack quipped “who do you think taught you that?” at Umino in the beginning sequences made for a great mentorship callback. As Walker Stewart said in the commentary throughout this match, every time Umino wrestles Zack, it signals a benchmark in his chaptered history as a wrestler.
The match became very stop-start at times, with both men just waiting around to get uppercutted or slapped. It’s supposed to be this drama-filled inner monologue within Umino to discuss whether or not he can take the initiative. Most scenarios led to Umino actually not striking while the iron was hot. I thought that would lead to Umino’s demise but through either dumb luck or Zack being a cocky dumbass, Umino constantly escaped misfortune.
This match’s final sequence transitioned smoothly to move after move and ended with Umino’s Second Chapter putting down Zack. The wrestling and switching submissions were really good, and I don’t believe the negative outweighs the positives here. But I’m just sayin, Umino going straight from struggling against The House in Rounds One and Two to triumphantly beating ZSJ in the Quarters needs to make more sense. A hard-hitting spectacle nonetheless, on par with Uemura and Shingo’s banger of a contest.
Upcoming:
March 20 Semi-Finals: Boltin Oleg v. Yuya Uemura, Callum Newman v. Shota Umino
March 21 Finals: ?? v. ??
The Quarter-Finals of the 2026 New Japan Cup showed a lot more promise than the previous Rounds due to the focus on the in-ring product over some sports entertainment mumbo jumbo. Pushing the correct names instead of hanging onto previous generations is the absolutely correct move as well. As good as people like Shingo and Goto remain, it’s finally time to show what names like Callum Newman and Yuya Uemura can do when thrusted into the main event spotlight.
