With the majority of the wrestling world watching in Texas, New Japan continued their track to next weekend’s Invasion Attack special with another show from Korakuen Hall. This show as made available for everyone, free of charge, via New Japan World, so expect a lot of references to buffering in this report!
Browsing: New Japan
Whilst the Western Wrestling World is focussed on next weekend’s WrestleMania, New Japan is building up to their own spring special, with April’s Invasion Attack event. As with pretty much every New Japan show, they have a road to get there… and Sunday March 27 was no different, as they returned to Korakuen Hall.
New Japan wrapped up their 2016 New Japan Cup tournament on Saturday in Aomori, with a show that featured both sets of semi-finals and the tournament final, along with the usual variety of entertaining undercard bouts as the company set up their next big show – Invasion Attack – coming the week after WrestleMania.
Following the sad news of the passing of Hayabusa, the second day of the New Japan Cup understandably could have been a muted affair at Korakuen Hall. New Japan held firm though, and put on another entertaining card as the final four in this year’s New Japan Cup were determined.
With New Japan heading into their next big show – Invasion Attack – the company continues with its tradition holding a multi-night tournament to crown a number one contender for their April event. In America, holding such a tournament over more than one show is destined to lead to trouble (just look at how successful TNA’s Bound For Glory Series’ were!), but the tournament format can help to build up an unexpected challenger in just a few shows.
In most of the wrestling world, it’s extremely rare for promotions of any size to work together. New Japan seems to be the exception, as in January, they held four shows with the Mexican CMLL promotion, and this weekend they held two shows in Korakuen Hall in league with Ring of Honor.
This past weekend, New Japan wrapped up its New Beginning series of shows with events in Osaka and Niigata, ultimately crowning a new IWGP Intercontinental champion. The New Beginning series started at the end of January, with the company’s Road to New Beginning shows, stretching out over seven nights before they arrived in Osaka on Thursday.
January 30 marked Shinsuke Nakamura’s final match (for now) in a New Japan ring, with Korakuen Hall being the venue for his swansong. In the world of NXT spoilers, we already know that Nakamura has already sent in a video for a future episode of the show, to promote his debut on WrestleMania weekend. But first, there was the small matter of a farewell show.