Callum Newman Wins IWGP Heavyweight Championship at NJPW Sakura Genesis

By Noah Leatherland

Callum Newman has reached the pinnacle of NJPW, defeating Yota Tsuji to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. United Empire stood tall at the end of Sakura Genesis, proudly gathered around their newly minted world champion.

6,009 fans were on hand in the Ryogoku Kokugikan to see Newman ascend to the top of the mountain. Tsuji battled valiantly to maintain his hold on the title. As the war waged on Newman dipped into his back of tricks, dragging the referee into the line of fire. Zane Jay attempted to get involved with the official down, only for Will Ospreay to step in, hoping to reason with his United Empire stablemates. Tsuji battled back, but only to later receive a swift low blow and a MAKE WAY to seal the deal. With the win, Newman has become the youngest IWGP Heavyweight Champion in history.

Chaos ensued after the match. While Newman celebrated with Ospreay, a masked assailant came out to attack Tsuji, soon revealing himself to be Gabe Kidd.

After things settled down a little, Shingo Takagi confronted the new champion, irate, and positioning himself as the first challenger.

While things have been shaken up at the top of NJPW, the status quo was maintained elsewhere on the card. Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI and Boltin Oleg retained the NEVER Six-Man Tag Titles against the House of Torture. The NJPW World TV Title remains around the waist around Konosuke Takeshita, having wrestled to a 15 minute time limit draw against Shota Umino. Then, in the semi-main event, the Knockout Brothers retained the IWGP Tag Team Titles against TMDK’s Zack Sabre Jr. and Ryohei Oiwa.

Here are the full results for NJPW Sakura Genesis, courtesy of purolove.com:

• KUSHIDA & Masatora Yasuda def. Tatsuya Matsumoto & Taisei Nakahara (8:05)
• Hartley Jackson & Kosei Fujita def. Togi Makabe & Master Wato (7:02)
• Shingo Takagi, Taiji Ishimori & Robbie X def. Jake Lee, Francesco Akira & Jacob Austin Young (8:11)
• Aaron Wolf, Toru Yano, YOH & Tiger Mask def. Don Fale, SHO, DOUKI & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (7:12)
• Will Ospreay, Great-O-Khan & HENARE def. Yuya Uemura, Taichi & El Desperado (14:54)
• NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Title: Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Boltin Oleg (c) def. Ren Narita, Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens (12:08)
• NJPW World TV Title: Konosuke Takeshita (c) vs. Shota Umino – Time Limit Draw (15:00)
• IWGP Tag Team Title: Yuto-Ice & OSKAR (c) def. Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa (22:33)
• IWGP Heavyweight Title: Callum Newman def. Yota Tsuji (c) (24:17)