Shingo Takagi Eyes Yota Tsuji and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at NJPW Road to Sakura Genesis

By Noah Leatherland

NJPW are on the road to Sakura Genesis, making a stop in Saku. Shingo Takagi stood tall at the end of the night, and alluded to some world championship aspirations.

Takagi was apart of a ten-man tag team match that pitted Unbound Co. against the United Empire. Takagi secured the win for his team, a pumping bomber putting away the Empire’s Zane Jay down for a 3-count. Takagi addressed the crowd after match, acknowledging how many championships his Unbound Co. stablemates hold. The Knockout Brothers, Robbie X, Taiji Ishimori and Yota Tsuji all have championship gold in their possession, which prompted Takagi to say:

Can I go for a title too, then!? I won’t say which title. But what I will say is: I was the third IWGP World Heavyweight Champion! You know what I’m getting at, don’t you?

(Quote translated via DeepL)

As Takagi said this, he not-so-subtly looked Tsuji’s way. Despite both being in Unbound Co., it seems that Takagi has his eyes set on the top prize in NJPW.

But before that, Yota Tsuji defends the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against the New Japan Cup winner, Callum Newman at Sakura Genesis. The event takes place on April 4th.

Here are the full results for Road to Sakura Genesis, Day 4:

• Masatora Yasuda def. Tatsuya Matsumoto (7:48)
• Tiger Mask def. Taisei Nakahara (6:13)
• El Desperado, Taichi & Yuya Uemura def. Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & KUSHIDA (10:29)
• Aaron Wolf, Shota Umino, Toru Yano & YOH def. Don Fale, DOUKI, SHO & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (8:17)
• Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, Master Wato & Oleg Boltin def. Chase Owens, Dick Togo, Ren Narita & Yujiro Takahashi (11:46)
• Hartley Jackson, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr. def. Daiki Nagai, OSKAR & Yuto-Ice (10:18)
• Gedo, Robbie X, Shingo Takagi, Taiji Ishimori & Yota Tsuji def. Callum Newman, Francesco Akira, Jake Lee, Jakob Austin Young & Zane Jay (15:43)