SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
What a revelation the NJPW Cup was this year when it didn’t involve members of House of Torture interfering in tournament matches. When the dust settled the tournament spotlighted four of NJPW’s top young talents in Boltin Oleg, Shota Umino, Yuya Uemura, and Callum Newman.
The semi-final round of the tournament featured two great matches that were more in line with what fans look for when they turn to NJPW for their pro wrestling fix. The matches were about competition, sport, storytelling, and fighting spirit. NJPW’s roster has been gutted in recent years, as the company simply does not have the financial means to compete with WWE and AEW to retain talent.
The departures of several key talents left NJPW with few answers over the last couple of years when it came to delivering star power and big marquee matches that English speaking wrestling fans would want to go out of their way to see on NJPW World.
NJPW was ready this year with several wrestlers exiting the company. NJPW booker Gedo had his ducks lined up in a row and the company has had a direction since Wrestle Kingdom ended and several cogs on the roster have left and signed or are about to sign with other companies including Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors, David Finlay, Evil, and Hiromo Takahashi amongst others all exiting the company to sign elsewhere.
NJPW was ready for these talents to leave and began building around their young talent, which has had time to gain experience and improve over the last couple of years as the company has struggled to find new main eventers. Yota Tsuji captured the IWGP Hvt. Championship and IWGP Global Hvt. Championship at Wrestle Kingdom. The company is building around him right now and he’s improving rapidly as a main event act, although there are still some missing pieces.
Tsuji is continuing to grow into his role as a top star in the company, but he’s wrestling matches that have improved psychology, as seen with his title defense against Jake Lee where he targeted his legs to prevent Lee from utilizing his dangerous knee strikes and kicks.
Tsuji then exited stage left for the other young talent to take center stage during the NJPW Cup this month. Perhaps the most surprising performer in the tournament was Shota Umino. Umino has struggled mightily with NJPW trying to force-feed him to fans as the next big babyface. They’ve tried several different things with Umino including shaving his head and having him wear all white gear, but nothing has really worked.
Something clicked for Umino this year and during the NJPW Cup he made a strong run to the semi-final round before losing to Callum Newman. Umino got really aggressive during his semi-final round match with Newman and looked almost unhinged as he went after his neck. Umino has lost a lot of key matches in the tag division recently and suffering another loss on the big stage wouldn’t sound ideal, but he did not look bad losing to Newman.
Oleg seemed to be a one-note wrestler that could only shine when he could trade power moves and strikes with other opponents, but he stepped up and delivered a memorable performance against Yuya Uemura in their semi-final NJPW Cup match.
Uemura went after Oleg’s arm and Oleg showed he was able to sell his arm and tell a story while still showcasing his impressive power during their match. Despite taking the loss in the semi-final round, it felt like Oleg had taken a big step forward as a performer on a big stage for NJPW.
It takes two to tango and Uemura also had a number of good matches in the tournament, but he looked really good closing out the tournament against Oleg and Newman. He gave fans something to grasp on as he tried to wear Oleg down by going after his arm with various submissions throughout the match, but he also sold Oleg’s power well.
NJPW set up a program for Newman against Will Ospreay earlier in the year when he teased hitting Ospreay with a chair at New Years Dash on Feb. 5, but was stopped by his fellow United Empire stablesmates. Newman has steadily improved as a heel and he’s got a reason to have a chip on his shoulder as he has stated he was abandoned by Ospreay and other members of United Empire that left NJPW.
Given the level of push Newman has gotten so far in 2026, it wasn’t a huge surprise that he won the tournament, but it has been surprising how quickly he has climbed up to the top of the NJPW card in 2026. Newman had a one-off challenge for the IWGP World Hvt. Championship at Wrestling Dontaku on May 4, 2025 when he took his stablemate Jeff Cobb’s place to challenge Hirroki Goto for the IWGP World Hvt. Championship when Cobb made a quick exit from NJPW to sign with WWE. Newman lost that match, but his growth since it took place is somewhat staggering.
Newman arrived as a top heel in NJPW after capturing the NJPW Cup. He had a little bit of help from Zane Jay during the tournament to enhance his heel character, but his performance in the final match was tremendous. Newman and Uemura both went after each other’s arm during the match.
Uemura showed tremendous fighting spirit by kicking out of two Prince’s Curse finishers from Newman. He hit the Deadbolt once, but was unable to hold on for the pin due to the damage to his arm from Newman. It’s one thing when a younger wrestler looks good working with a veteran, but Newman and Uemura looked tremendous working with each other, which bodes well for NJPW’s future.
Newman had to use a new finisher to put Uemura away, which makes his character even more interesting moving forward, as the storyline element will be there that perhaps he has something extra up his sleeve if he can’t beat his opponent on a given night with his usual signature finisher.
NJPW isn’t out of the woods yet, but with NJPW President Hiroshi Tanahashi making comments in a recent interview with Pro Wrestling Today indicating that he wants to explore locking in talent to multi-year deals so they aren’t faced with constantly having to fill holes in their roster is a big step. With Oleg, Umino, Uemura, and Newman emerging as top tier talent along with Tsuji the future is bright, but only if the company can adjust its business practices to best succeed in the modern wrestling landscape.
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.)
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.