NJPW ROAD TO THE NEW BEGINNING REPORT (1/19 and 1/20): Lansdell catches you up on all the happenings from the first two shows on the road to Osaka

Traditionally, the month or so after WrestleKingdom is a quiet time for New Japan. It’s fair to say that this year, it has been anything but. This week saw the first two shows after their marquee event, as we started the Road to The New Beginning tour. New Beginning will be the next semi-major show for the company, taking place on February 11 in Osaka. Traditionally the “Road to” shows are used to set up or build matches for that main card. This year they have some added storylines both on-camera and behind the scenes, making for some intriguing viewing on multiple levels. I’ve summarised the main happenings from the January 19 and 20 shows here, and I will keep an eye on the remainder of the tour shows leading up to the Osaka event.

The Young Lion Cup

The Young Lion Cup is a semi-regular event that allows dojo trainees to showcase their growing skills and actually win something. It had fallen out of favour recently, only taking place twice since 2005. The last one was held in 2019 and was won by Karl Fredericks (who was briefly in NXT as Eddy Thorpe), beating out a field that included Shota Umino, Ren Narita, Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura, and Clark Connors. With so many trainees in the dojo right now, many of whom have been competing in preliminary tag matches with established talent, the time was right to bring it back. Six trainees took part, with senior trainees Shoma Kato and Katsuya Murashima getting a bye to the semifinals.

Daiki Nagai, who is next on the seniority ladder, beat Zane Jay by disqualification in an extremely un-NJPW finish. Nagai is officially a member of the Unbound Company stable, which by default puts him in conflict with United Empire. Nagai had Jay in a Boston crab when Callum Newman got up on the apron. The distraction of course made Nagai break the hold, because that trope has crossed the Pacific to my chagrin. Newman offered a chair to Jay, who accepted it and waffled Nagai. We later found out that Zane Jay has officially joined United Empire

Masatora Yasuda also advanced to the semifinals with an unremarkable win over Tatsuya Matsumoto. He would go on to lose in the semis to Kato, who has advanced sufficiently to be allowed to use a Fujiwara armbar as his finish. I imagine he will be off on excursion very soon. The more intriguing semifinal was between Murashima and Nagai, as Nagai has been getting a lot of opportunities to show out while Murashima has been less promoted. The chairshot from Zane Jay the previous night allowed Nagai to lose without losing too much face, and he tapped out to Murashima’s bouncing variant of the Boston crab.

The final takes place on February 1, and is hard to predict. I would be surprised if both Kato and Murashima don’t leave for their excursions right after it, though.

Aaron Wolf’s continued learning

Aaron Wolf continued to get in-ring reps on these two cards. He is still extremely green, and runs out of steam in a hurry, but he appears to be less nervous now. He has started to show some personality and, perhaps more important, some vulnerability. He still feels like a monster but not an impervious one, which will make it easier to have someone take the Never Openweight title from him when he’s ready to move up the card.

Ren Nartia will be his first challenger at New Beginning on February 11. I could see Narita being the one to beat him for the belt, but I think it’s unlikely to happen yet. That said, I think it should be sooner than later. Wolf right now is ideally suited to the NJPW World Television belt, with its built-in 15-minute time limit.

Never Six-Man title change

Having won the titles in the Tokyo Dome, the TMDK team of Zack Sabre Jr, Ryohei Oiwa, and Hartley Jackson dropped them to Bishamon and Boltin Oleg in one of the only six-man tag matches I can honestly say was excellent. The decision, on the other hand, is a bit confusing. I can understand that ZSJ and Oiwa are more valuable as singles wrestlers at this point. I can even get behind the decision to give Hartley Jackson, who has worked his butt off for New Japan both in preliminary tag matches and as a trainer. What is less clear is why you would take Bishamon out of the resurgent tag team division. Putting Oleg with two established veterans could conceivably help his continued improvement, but I cannot help but think that Aaron Wolf has replaced him as the shiny, beefy new Olympian toy.

All that to say, the belts still feel unimportant but the popularity of Goto and Oleg will at least make people want to watch the defences. There’s no real division for the titles, and they don’t build up challengers for them, so it’s largely fruitless to try to predict who the next ones will be, but I’ll roll the dice and just say Taichi, Tomohiro Ishiii, and Ryusuke Taguchi. Sure, why not?

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Junior Heavyweight Tag Title picture

At New Year’s Dash, the TMDK team of Kosei Fujita and Robbie Eagles won the titles in a four-way match. They were the only established team in the match, which lasted a mere seven and a half minutes. Yes, not only was there no place on Wrestle Kingdom for a title match but they didn’t even want to give ten minutes on a secondary show to some of the most over junior heavyweights in the company.

I would love to tell you that they made up for it with TMDK’s first defence on the January 20 show. Although the match against Sho and Yoshinobu Kanemaru lasted ten minutes longer, it was still a House of Torture match. Fujita is one of the brightest prospects on the roster, regardless of weight class, and he deserves more of a spotlight. Multiple factions seem to be lining up teams to go after these titles: Jacob Austin Young and Francesco Akira in United Empire, Ishimori and Hiromu from Unbound Company, Sho and Douki from House of Torture. Hopefully there is an actual resurgence in the division, which used to have the likes of the Young Bucks at the forefront.

Junior Heavyweight Title picture

I could easily have griped about the lack of a Junior Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleKingdom, but the explanation Douki gave was actually amusing and in-character. That said, the number one contender match we did get was ludicrously short-changed on time. El Desperado’s win was predictable (though I was rooting for Fujita), but his subsequent loss on the January 20 show was much less so. Douki as a heel champion does have legs, but the result makes me wonder where El Desperado goes next.

During the prelim tags we have seen the building of some feuds that could and should lead to some contenders being named. Akira and Hiromu are circling each other, while Master Wato and Yoh have been stuck in the House of Torture loop. The potential contenders to Douki are there, as long as they are handled properly. Maybe we’ll even get a good match out of them, with enough time given to it!

Heavyweight Tag Team Title picture

On commentary it was mentioned several times that the Knockout Brothers have revitalised the tag team division. It’s kind of strange to say that about a team who has been around for less than a year but it is entirely correct. Oskar and Yuto Ice feel like an old-school tag team, reminiscent of the Road Warriors or Demolition. Both of them hit hard, one of them is a great talker, they have the sort of chemistry that only comes from years of working together, and their whole presentation is perfectly suited to them as people. A KOB title defence now feels like a main event, because they feel like a must-see.

The six-man Ranbo at Wrestle Kingdom annoyed me a lot, for several reasons. Aside from shoehorning four former world champions (three of whom were recent) and the current tag team champs into one match for an afterthought set of titles, it also meant that the World Tag League winners (ZSJ and Oiwa) would not challenge for the title at Wrestle Kingdom. When TMDK won the six-man titles, it kind of telegraphed the outcome of the New Year’s Dash main event. Ultimately I think it worked out for the best, as that match was the main event of New Year’s Dash. Not only did that establish Knockout Brothers as a main event-worthy act, it also gave Yuto Ice the chance to cut an excellent, passionate promo about how much he loves pro wrestling and New Japan.

There’s still work to be done to rebuild the division, which will mean asking some singles names to form a consistent team for a while, but at least there is a foundation from which to start now. Putting Umino and Uemura at the front of the queue is an excellent start in that regard. The match they had with Ishii and Taichi to become the top contenders was a perfect example of what New Japan tag team wrestling used to look like, and I recommend watching it if you have not already done so. Taichi and Ishii are still around and should get another shot, and with any luck we will get Monster Sauce in that picture as well.

Yota Tsuji and Jake Lee

I still do not fully understand what Jake Lee is going for with his character, but it has grown on me substantially. His return at Wrestle Kingdom was so devoid of passion and emotion that it felt like he didn’t care. I maintain that it was the wrong tone to set on such an important card, but everything that has happened since has at least explained why it happened. He comes across as a guy who does not get angry, he just hurts people because he enjoys the act of doing so. His performances in the preview tags against Unbound Company have done a great job at expanding this aspect. Tsuji had steadfastly refused to grant Lee a title shot, saying he had not earned it. Instead of raging and threatening and yelling about it, we’ve seen Lee calmly burying a really nasty knee into Shingo’s ribs, injuring him in the process. Lee had not said a word at either Wrestle Kingdom or New Year’s Dash, and on the January 19 show Tsuji tried to change that by wishing him a happy birthday. Without changing his facial expression, Lee calmly choked out the champ and left him laying

The next night Lee went after Shingo’s ribs again, but gently stroked his injury as he pinned him. Then he finally spoke, issuing the challenge to Tsuji after laying out the rest of Unbound Company with more knees. Tsuji was sufficiently angered to accept, and that made Lee smile…kind of. I don’t expect a title change, but the building of this challenge through the oft-overlooked prelim tags has been very good. It’s nice to see that tool being employed in more than a cursory fashion, too. Does Lee’s gimmick have legs? Probably not in the long-term, but I definitely think they should ride it out as long as it makes sense.

The Exodus, part three

We all know about the departures of Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada for AEW. Then came the sudden loss of Jeff Cobb to WWE, the decision not to give Testusya Natio and Bushi new contracts, and the retirement of Hiroshi Tanahashi. Sanada is officially on an indefinite sabbatical, although it is widely believed he will be showing up in Pro Wrestling Noah on February 6 to team with Naito and Bushi. David Finlay has been rumoured to be WWE-bound for over a year. In part that is based on his desire to be based in the US with his family, but the specific WWE ties seem to be only because his father and brother are employed there.

Gabe Kidd has been linked with AEW since he started showing up there, despite his very vocal protests to the contrary. Losing such an outspoken proponent of New Japan would be an outsized blow to the company relative to Kidd’s place on the card, even if it is to a company that ostensibly would let him come back to Japan occasionally. Clark Connors had similar rumours surface towards the end of 2025, and now Drilla Moloney is being mentioned in the same breath. Most recently, there have been reports that Evil is heading to WWE, or at least exploring options in North America. Hiromu Takahashi is also said to be exploring options, though that reporting is less certain and did not rule out a run in another Japanese promotion. There was even talk that WWE had interest in the recently-returned Knockout Brothers.

I will give New Japan credit in that they seem to have realised how dire the situation could become. At this point the only name from the above group who is confirmed to be gone is Sanada, and even that might be temporary. With all the upheaval, the bookers have done a great job of de-emphasizing the talent who have been involved in the rumours. David Finlay has not been in a match since New Year’s Dash, and Callum Newman is using his Overkill finisher. Evil is not getting an immediate rematch with Aaron Wolf, with his stablemate Ren Narita challenging for the title instead. Hiromu has been in multi-man tags recently, with little time in the ring. When he has been involved, he’s been showing some tandem moves with Taiji Ishimori. Connors and Moloney have not only been absent, but I don’t remember their names being mentioned. Kidd has a match with Andrade on the NJPW US show on February 27, with the winner challenging Yota Tsuji for the Global title. He was also not on either of these shows, however.

Several of these talents have been announced for shows later in the tour, most of which have no consequential matches, but this story is still being written and the next three to four weeks will be extremely revealing for the future of New Japan’s roster.

Booking improvements?

Most companies would be severely hampered with a mass departure on this scale, if it all turns out to be true. Even if half of those names were to leave, it would be a staggering body blow. It’s a shame that it took this level of threat to bring it about, but the booking of these two shows felt refreshing to me. Even the preliminary preview tags seemed to have been booked with the specific goal of putting the “loyal” talent front and center. It’s common sense and should have been started a while ago so it didn’t feel so jarring, but that horse has long since bolted. You can’t climb a mountain like that with two shows, but you have to start somewhere. As down and cynical as I have been about the New Japan product recently, it’s nice to be able to say that I think they are addressing the problem in the best possible way.