The Week in Japanese Wrestling (13/4/2024 — 19/4/2024):
New Japan Pro Wrestling:
New Japan Pro Wrestling started this week hot with a slew of new champions, including a brand new IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Boltin Oleg and Toru Yano picked up the vacant Six-Man belts, last defeating House of Torture in the finals of a miniature tournament. TMDK’s Mikey Nicholls and Shane Haste are the new STRONG Tag Team Champions, winning their first gold in Nee Japan in a four way match at their Windy City Riot show. That event also saw TMDK stablemate and leader, Zack Sabre Jr, reclaim his NJPW Televison Championship from Matt Riddle, with the former champion walking off immediately after the match as if frustrated with the decision. Douki may not be the new Jr Heavyweight Champion, but he does certainly hold the belt, continuing to carry it around after defeating Kosei Fujita to become the new number one contender and then laying out the champion when he came to reclaim his prize. NJPW have also found a replacement for YOH in this year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament, with KUSHIDA taking the place of the injured wrestler. And finally, Nee Japan has a new top champion. In the main event of Windy City Riot, AEW’s Jon Moxley defeated Tetsuya Naito to become the new IWGP World Heavyweight Champion. With this win, Moxley is now the only man to have held the top titles in NJPW, AEW and WWE. Truly legendary stuff. As his first challenger, Mox apoonted his protege, Shota Umino, but before he could finish, he was attacked from behind by Ren Narita. Narita will receive the first shot at Wrestling Dontaku, and whoever wins will face Umino at Resurgence. It’s truly been a very eventful week.
Pro Wrestling NOAH:
Breaking news: Monday Magic is still the best thing NOAH has done in years. This week’s episode saw Jack Morris and Anthony Greene follow through on their open challenge, and their challenge was answered by the Mummy Brothers who were defeated in roughly six minutes. Morris then said they thought the challenge would be entered by “real wrestlers” and decided the challenge would continue on to next week. Ninja Mack also made a successful defence of his Hardcore title, defeating Alpha Wolf, only to then be challenged by former All Japan wrestler, Shuji Ishikawa, who laid the champ out. Their match is set for Wrestle Magic 2024. That carwill also see Alejandro challenge Daga for the Junior Heavyweight Championship after pinning him in a singles match earlier this week. And in the main event, El Hijo De Dr Wagner Jr will defend the GHC Heavyweight Championship against the winner of Kaiyo Kiyomiya and Jake Lee. Fun things are happening.
Big Japan Pro Wrestling:
BJW has a new Deathmatch Champion. Hideyoshi Kamitani defeated Yuki Ishikawa to become the new champ and now looks to face Ryuji Ito for the belt at BJW’s biggest show of the year: Endless Survivor. That card will also feature a defence of the BJW Tag Team titles as Masashi Takeda and Takumi Tsukamoto take on the invading forces of Madman Pondo and Necro Butcher.
Japan:
Josh Barnett and Minoru Suzuki’s Bloodsport Bushido has officially released its full card, and it is bonkers. The event features a number of technically gifted wrestlers from Japan and outside as well as proper MMA and shoot fighters. Some of these fights include: Jon Moxley vs Josh Barnett, Minoru Suzuki vs Timothy Thatcher, “Rampage” Jackson vs Hideki “Shrek” Sekine and Santino Marella vs Kazushi Sakuraba. Just to name a few. Yeah, this is going to be fun. The show will take place on June 22nd.
Joshi:
The world of Joshi has been rocked this week. Perhaps the biggest news coming from an already massive week, former Stardom owner and founder, Rossy Ogawa, who recently was removed from the company under suspicion of talent poaching has created his own promotion, “Marigold”. With him came a number of talent he worked closely with in Stardom: Giulia, Utami Hayashishita, Mirai, Mai Sakurai, Yuzuki and Nanae Takahashi, as well as Ice Ribbon’s Nao Ishikawa. All of these women had been freed from their contracts before this, which left no indication of foul play. What rose controversy was that seven wrestlers from Actwres girl’Z — Fuka, KOUKI, Chiaki, Chika Goto, Miku Aono, Misa Matsui and Natsumi Sumikawa — then appeared on stage as well, announcing they were joining the company. AWG had only announced their departures a mere fifteen minutes earlier. The tone of their announcement made it seem like the company was blindsided by this, but they have since released a statement implying they were hasty in their assessment of the situation and that perhaps the talent weren’t entirely done working with them. Ogawa mentioned plans to aid WWE as a feeder program of sorts and Yuzuki mentioned the company was still looking for new recruits, ideally unmarried women aged 13 to 30. Marigold has a lot of buzz around it at the moment, both positive and negative, and it will be interesting to see how this all develops. Also, the Marigold girls appeared at a Pro Wrestling NOAH show, alongside Ogawa, and The Great Sakuya spat green mist in his face.
