The Road to The New Beginning event on January 29th from the New Amori Prefecture Sports Park Maeda Arena drew a Super No Vacancy Full House crowd of 1,766 on Wednesday, continuing the impressive attendance numbers for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) during The New Beginning tour.
Wednesday’s event marked the final card (in Japan) before two nights of featured matches at The New Beginning in Sapporo. The show opened with a battle between NJPW Noge Dojo Young Lion, Yuya Uemura picked up the victory over Yota Tsuji, avenging his recent loss to his adversary.
Bullet Club members and former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Taiji Ishimori and El Phantasmo defeated NJPW Los Angeles (LA) Dojo Young Lion Gabriel Kidd and Ryusuke Taguchi in the second match. The Bullet Club tandem are situating themselves as contenders for the winners of Roppongi 3K (C) [Sho/Yoh] and Yoshinobu Kanemaru/El Desperado on February 9th at The New Beginning in Osaka.
The third match saw the team of Toa Henare and Togi Makabe defeat Manabu Nakanishi and Hiroyoshi Tenzan as Nakanishi draws closer to his retirement date on February 22nd.
The fourth match saw a preview of the aforementioned IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match on February 9th when the Suzuki-Gun team of Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, and El Desperado defeated champions Roppongi 3K and Tomoaki Honma. Suzuki once pinned Honma after his Gotch Style Piledriver technique, continuing his good form heading into his IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship match against Jon Moxley at The New Beginning in Osaka.
The fifth match saw the Los Ingobernable de Japon (LIJ) team of Shingo Takagi, Evil, and Bushi defeated NEVER Openweight Champion Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, and Tiger Mask. On Saturday, Evil and Tomohiro Ishii face one another in the second of two headline matches during the first night of The New Beginning in Sapporo while Takagi makes the V1 challenge against Hirooki Goto in his latest reign with the NEVER Openweight Championship.
The headline match of the evening saw the CHAOS team of Robbie Eagles, Will Ospreay, and Kazuchika Okada defeated Douki, Taichi, and RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Jr (ZSJ). On night-two of The New Beginning in Sapporo, Will Ospreay challenges for ZSJ’s title in the headline contest, while Taichi and Okada face one another in a special singles match. It marks the first singles match between the two since 2008 when Taichi defeated Okada, who was a Young Lion at the time.
In the marquee match, the LIJ team of IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental ‘Double Champion’ Tetsuya Naito, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi, and Sanda defeated the Bullet Club team of Gedo, KENTA, and Jay White. KENTA challenges Naito for the ‘Double Championship’ on February 9th at The New Beginning in Osaka.
