Yota Tsuji Retains, Stars Say Goodbye and More at NJPW The New Beginning in Osaka

By Noah Leatherland

As the first major NJPW show following the retirement of The Ace, Hiroshi Tanahashi, The New Beginning was more aptly named than ever this year. Yota Tsuji successfully defended the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in the main event, whilst major changes littered the undercard.

Yota Tsuji walked into Osaka for his first defence of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Jake Lee had attacked the champion at his coronation on January 4th in the Tokyo Dome, and managed to secure himself as the first challenger to the reborn title. Despite Lee’s best efforts, Tsuji delivered one Gene Blast too many and maintained his grip on the top prize in NJPW.

Earlier in the night, Hiromu Takahashi had wrestled his final match for NJPW. He ended his NJPW run on a high, picking up a victory with Taiji Ishimori over Francesco Akira and Jakob Austin Young. The Timebomb received a grand farewell after Tsuji’s defence in the main event, with Unbound Co. (including a very emotional Yuto-Ice) gathering in the ring to see him off.

Takahashi was not the only one saying goodbye at The New Beginning. After David Finlay’s loss to Callum Newman, he also gave his own misty-eyed goodbye to NJPW, embracing Gedo, sharing a moment with Takahashi at ringside, placing a kiss on the lion mark and posing for the crowd one last time before heading to the back.

There were also a medley of title matches up and down the card. The NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Titles were the first ones up for grabs, with Bishamon and Boltin Oleg defending against TMDK’s Zack Sabre Jr., Ryohei Oiwa and Hartley Jackson. The champions retained their trios gold, fending off TMDK to extend their reign for a while more.

In a shocking turn of events, Ren Narita unseated Aaron Wolf as the NEVER Openweight Champion. The result was heavily down to an assault by the House of Torture, with the official match lasting just over two minutes.

Then, the fiery feud for the IWGP Tag Team Championships took center stage as the Knockout Brothers took on RoughStorm, Shota Umino and Yuya Uemura. The personal tensions that had bubbled in the build to this match made for a high-octane affair. In the end, Yuto-Ice and OSKAR came out on top, continuing their reign as tag champions.

The show also saw the next challenger for Yota Tsuji decided. Andrade El Idolo defeated Gabe Kidd for a shot at Tsuji’s other title, the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship. El Idolo gets his shot at NJPW The New Beginning USA on February 27th.

Here are the full results for NJPW The New Beginning in Osaka:

• Togi Makabe & Toru Yano def. Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato (8:17)
• Hiromu Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori def. Francesco Akira & Jakob Austin Young (9:40)
• Drilla Moloney & Shingo Takagi def. Great-O-Khan & HENARE (9:24)
• NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Title Match: Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Boltin Oleg (c) def. Hartley Jackson, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr. (12:20)
• Andrade El Idolo def. Gabe Kidd (14:20)
• Callum Newman def. David Finlay (13:53)
• NEVER Openweight Title Match: Ren Narita def. Aaron Wolf (c) (2:08)
• IWGP Tag Team Title Match: OSKAR & Yuto-Ice (c) def. Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura (19:37)
• IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Yota Tsuji (c) def. Jake Lee (23:40)