{"id":211982,"date":"2026-02-13T12:55:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=211982"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:55:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:55:38","slug":"njpw-announces-participants-and-brackets-for-njpw-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/02\/13\/njpw-announces-participants-and-brackets-for-njpw-cup-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"NJPW announces participants and brackets for NJPW Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3386776268\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NJPW has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.njpw1972.com\/628529\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> the participants for the New Japan Cup 2026. The tournament will begin on March 4 and end on March 21. The winner of the tournament will go on to face Yota Tsuji for the IWGP Hvt. Championship at Sakura Genesis on April 4.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The tournament will feature 24 wrestlers with eight randomly chosen wrestlers getting a first round bye. The wrestlers getting a first round bye are <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Drilla Moloney, Shingo Takagi, Tomohiro Ishii, Henare, Hirooki Goto, Hartley Jackson, Yujiro Takahashi, and Zack Sabre Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The complete schedule of first round matches can be seen below:<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Left side<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>March 4: Yuya Uemura vs. Great-O-Khan (winner faces Drilla Moloney on March 10)<br \/>\nMarch 4: Aaron Wolf vs. Don Fale (winner faces Shingo Takagi on March 10)<br \/>\nMarch 5: Taichi vs. Ren Narita (winner faces Tomohiro Ishii on March 12)<br \/>\nMarch 5: ELP vs. Oleg Boltin (winner faces Henare on March 12)<\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Right side<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>March 6: Yoshi-Hashi vs. Jake Lee (winner faces Hirooki Goto on March 13)<br \/>\nMarch 6: Oskar vs. Callum Newman (winner faces Hartley Jackson on March 13)<br \/>\nMarch 8: Shota Umino vs. Chase Owens (winner faces Yujiro Takahashi on March 14)<br \/>\nMarch 8: Yuto-Ice vs. Ryohei Oiwa (winner faces Zack Sabre Jr. on March 14)<\/p>\n<p>The quarterfinals will take place on March 15 and March 17. Then the semi-final round will take place on March 20. The tournament will wrap up with the finals taking place on March 21.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-4042652046\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-3334076777\"><div id=\"pwtor-2934932615\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>NJPW has announced the participants for the New Japan Cup 2026. The tournament will begin on March 4 and end on March 21. The winner of the tournament will go on to face Yota Tsuji <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/02\/13\/njpw-announces-participants-and-brackets-for-njpw-cup-2026\/\" title=\"NJPW announces participants and brackets for NJPW Cup 2026\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":211985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prowrestlingnews","category-news_japan","category-news_wwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2026\/02\/IMG_4650.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211986,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211982\/revisions\/211986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}