YOH Wins NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Tournament

By Noah Leatherland

NJPW have reached the climax of this year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament. The field of twenty has been whittled down to one winner, with YOH defeating Kosei Fujita and lifting the BOSJ trophy high.

YOH and Fujita went to battle for nearly 30 minutes to cap off this year’s BOSJ tournament, a bout that was a rematch of last year’s tournament final. YOH promised to bring CHAOS into the match with him, and in the heat of the battle, broke out a very familiar string of moves.

Despite that heavy artillery, Fujita still battled back. It wasn’t until YOH landed the Direct Drive that he was finally able to pin Fujita’s shoulders to the mat for a three count. The confetti rained down and the trophy was presented to YOH, cementing him as the winner of the 33rd NJPW Best of the Super Juniors.

YOH’s celebration was cut short by the reigning IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion, DOUKI, and then a sneak attack from SHO. YOH managed to fight the House of Torture duo off, with former member of CHAOS running out to stand by his side, Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI and Toru Yano.

In the post-match comments, Fujita took ownership of his loss:

No doubt about it, I lost. YOH, you were the stronger man today… At least for now! As I said when I was being led out: one more time, YOH. Sometime, somewhere, let’s do this again. One win each—let’s settle this once and for all. You were the stronger man today. I’ll admit it…

Then, the tournament winner spoke about drawing up on his former stablemates:

First of all, since we found ourselves in the same situation—when Fujita made it to the final—I really wanted to settle the score with that ‘Ultimate CHAOS’. We just couldn’t quite get all the pieces to fall into place last time, but today everything clicked perfectly, so I’m absolutely thrilled.

(Quotes translated via DeepL)

Here are the full results from NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Finals, courtesy of purolove.com:

• Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Tatsuya Matsumoto def. Tiger Mask, Masatora Yasuda & Taisei Nakahara (6:16)
• Jake Lee, Francesco Akira & Jakob Austin Young def. Shota Umino, El Phantasmo & Jado (7:44)
• Master Wato, Ryusuke Taguchi, Daisuke Sasaki, Nick Wayne & Valiente Jr. def. Taiji Ishimori, Robbie X, Titan, Gedo & Daiki Nagai (10:25)
• El Desperado & Hyo def. SHO & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (6:21)
• Yuya Uemura, Taichi & KUSHIDA def. Ryohei Oiwa, Hartley Jackson & Robbie Eagles (8:10)
• Aaron Wolf, Toru Yano & Jun Kasai def. Ren Narita, Yujiro Takahashi & Dick Togo (7:11)
• Yota Tsuji, Yuto-Ice & OSKAR def. Callum Newman, Great-O-Khan & Zane Jay (13:55)
• Best of the Super Jr. – Final: YOH def, Kosei Fujita (28:01)