The co Best of the Super Juniors (BOSJ 27) and World Tag League 2020 (WTL 2020) tournaments got underway on November 15, 2020. The event at the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium drew a crowd of 2,558 (reduced crowd due to Coronavirus, 2019), and witnessed the largest card since New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) returned from the COVID-19 (Coronavirus, 2019) delay.
The third match of the event and the second WTL 2020 match saw former two-time IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi and the returning Toa Henare take on Great-O-Khan and a mystery WTL 2020 partner.
Former NEVER Openweight Champion Jeff Cobb was unveiled as being O-Khan’s partner and the newest member of The Empire unit. Cobb has established himself as a tough opponent in NJPW but was facing a long climb towards a marquee position. With The Empire behind him, Cobb may find a quick ascent up the pecking order, similar to Evil when he joined the Bullet Club.
While Cobb doesn’t have an IWGP Heavyweight Championship match at stake, he can find himself a position at Wrestle Kingdom 15 due to his alliance with The Empire.
He and O-Khan were dominant in their match against Tanahashi and Henare, surprising the duo who didn’t have time to prepare for Cobb as an opponent. Cobb would gain the fall on Henare at the 2 minutes and 28 seconds mark with his Tour of the Islands technique.
The Empire team attacked Tanahashi’s knee following the match, something that neither Tanahashi nor Henare will not forget — especially with Wrestle Kingdom 15 coming shortly.
Tanahashi/Henare face IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Dangerous Tekkers (Zack Sabre Jr/Taichi) on November 16th, while Cobb/O-Khan face the CHAOS team of Hirooki Goto/Yoshi-Hashi on the same night.
It will be interesting to see how well The Empire team can work together now teams can prepare for Jeff Cobb.
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