RADICAN’S TAKE: NJPW gives fans something to beliieve in with New Beginning in Osaka PPV performances

Is NJPW back? Well, let’s not go overboard, but New Beginning in Osaka was the most satisfying NJPW card in quite some time. Even with the terrible Aaron Wolf vs. Ren Narita match taken into consideration, the show was a monumental success for NJPW on a number of fronts.

NJPW has handled their roster well considering all of the departures and rumored departures to come this year. Hiromu Takahashi said his goodbyes (for now) at New Beginning in Osaka. He’s been scaled back in the booking for the most part, so his loss isn’t a big deal for NJPW. The upside is that several wrestlers on the same card stepped up and showed they are ready to carry NJPW in 2026.

Callum Newman has been the most impressive wrestler on the roster so far in terms of his transformation from undercard underdog to top-of-the-card heel. His promos, charisma, and in-ring performance have all dramatically improved. With an emphatic win over David Finlay in an excellent match on the PPV last week, he’s in prime position to fill the hole that appears Finlay will be leaving in the roster, as all signs are pointing towards him leaving NJPW, although nothing is official yet.

The Knockout Brothers of Yuto-Ice & Oskar have single-handedly brought life to NJPW’s heavyweight tag team division since they returned from excursion last September. They have shown great chemistry together in the ring and they put on a near masterpiece at New Beginning in Osaka en route to beating Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura. The hatred between these two teams seems real and I can only hope Umino and Uemura get one last shot at beating The Knockout Brothers.

Yuto has stood out the most out as someone NJPW can potentially build around in the future as well. His passionate promo in defense of NJPW to conclude New Year’s Dash on Jan. 5 after The Knockout Brothers retained their IWGP Hvt. Tag Team Championship over ZacK Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa was surprising to hear given the nature of his hip hop/weed smoker gimmick.

Yuto may play a no-nonsense brawler, but he wears his heart on his sleeve and that is something that will endear NJPW fans to him in the future. Takahashi came out at the end of New Beginning In Osaka and several wrestlers including Yuto came out to the ring with him.

Yuto couldn’t control his emotion as Takahashi said farewell. It was hard not to feel bad for him as he covered his face with his hood to hide his emotions. I can see Yuto becoming a beloved babyface in NJPW Japan in the future given not only his charisma, but also by how he comes across like he cares deeply about NJPW. He has the type of spirit and heart that NJPW fans will rally around if it is harnessed in the correct manner.

Yota Tsuji took a small step forward as well putting on a very different, but nonetheless excellent main event match in successfully defending the IWGP Hvt. Championship against the personality-driven Jake Lee. Tsuji has been pushed hard and is steadily improving, but it still feels like something is missing from him to take the step towards becoming a true draw for NJPW.

Lee is a much different type of heel in that he is almost all personality and he picks a body part and works it over the entire match to weaken his opponent. Tsuji was up to the task here, as he worked over multiple body parts before eventually finishing Lee off. One of the things Tsuji could work on is a more mature strategy overall in his matches. He tends to go for his Gene Blast finisher way too often still, so some variance in his offense would be smart for him from a character perspective.Tsuji using attacks on multiple body parts to soften up Lee was a big step in the right direction.

Overall, New Beginning in Osaka was filled with good storytelling and good-to-great in-ring action, which is close to the formula for what made NJPW popular in the first place when both of those things were consistently great. NJPW has booked around the talent that is staying while staying away from tying themselves up storyline-wise with talent that might depart in the near future. It looks like that strategy just might pay off sooner than later if the trends started at New Beginning in Osaka continue.

Sean Radican has been Pro Wrestling Torch for over 22 years. He has covered the independents, ROH, and NJPW in-depth over the years in addition to also watching all the major promotions in the U.S. PWTorch VIP members get access to his weekly Radican Worlwide podcast looking at a variety of news topics from the past week and then an in-depth Go-Home segment with a guest on a big topic of the week. You can contact him at pwtorchsean@gmail.com. You can follow him on X @SR_Torch and on Bluesky @SeanRadican.