NJPW Best of the Super Juniors 26 Final Review, 5/6/19

In recent years Best of the Super Juniors finals have been held at Yoyogi Gymnasium, but for the 26^th BOSJ Final New Japan moved to the bigger venue of Ryōgoku Sumo Hall.  Riding a wave of surging popularity this seems to be the year that NJPW is getting bigger – the G1 Climax starts in Dallas, Texas and there are two Tokyo Dome shows planned for the upcoming Wrestle Kingdom.  As well as running a bigger venue, NJPW also announced a headline grabbing US Championship match, as Jon Moxley made his New Japan debut fresh off his appearance at All Elite Wrestling’s Double or Nothing.  The show was headlined by a match between Shingo Takagi, winner of this year’s A Block, and Will Ospreay, winner of this year’s B Block.

The announcement of Moxley appearing for the first time in New Japan threatened to overshadow the BOSJ final, but Takagi and Ospreay were given plenty of time to go out and demonstrate why this year’s tournament has been talked about as one of the best ever. As an aside Ospreay looked incredibly cringeworthy bringing a sword to the ring with him, I hope that doesn’t become a regular thing. I think the talk of Ospreay as best in the world is highly overrated, but I’ll admit that he had good chemistry with Shingo in this match. Part of that probably has to do with the fact that Shingo really isn’t a junior and doesn’t wrestle a “typical” junior style, and Ospreay has always been good at working with a bigger opponent, especially with his increasingly heavyweight moveset. I expected Takagi would win here and move on to challenge Dragon Lee at Dominion, but this match was much more evenly balanced, with Ospreay managing to keep The Dragon on the backfoot for long stretches of the match with his high flying offence.  Shingo survived an Os Cutter, but Ospreay was also able to absorb a Made in Japan and a Pumping Bomber, and he reversed a Last of the Dragon into a huricanrana to keep his chances alive. Ospreay ultimately had to hit Takagi with a Hidden Blade, Os Cutter, and a Storm Breaker to win his second BOSJ tournament. This was definitely a good final match, and if you like Ospreay matches then you will probably love this one.

 The semi-main event match, Moxley vs. Juice was very different to the main event, ending up being a vicious brawl of a match that involved a lot of weapons and fighting in the crowd. The occasion itself felt like a really big deal – who would have thought even a few years ago that Dean Ambrose would appear in a New Japan ring? – and the Japanese commentary team made repeated reference to Moxley’s past as the match began. The occasion slightly overshadowed the match itself, which dragged in places but had a hot finish. Moxley had said before the match that he would be bringing a brawling style with him, which makes sense given his pre-WWE background, and this was probably the best way for him to standout in his debut match with NJPW. Juice seemed to be very up for the challenge as well, and he didn’t shy away from taking some nasty bumps. Both men went through a table at various points during the match, and Juice ended the match bleeding from the forehead. Juice is a great babyface and spent a lot of this match fighting from underneath, with the crowd willing him on every step of the way. Ultimately it wasn’t enough however, and Moxley hit a double-arm DDT followed by a double-arm brainbuster to put Juice down for the three count and become the new US Champion. The result wasn’t surprising, but it will be interesting to see how New Japan books the US Title going forward given that Moxley isn’t a full time wrestler in the company.

The third big singles match on this show featured the Hiroshi Tanahashi making his return from a bicep injury that had kept him out of action since the New Japan Cup. His opponent was Jay White, who had interrupted Tanahashi’s promo at Wrestling Dontaku to inform him that White was next in line for an IWGP Heavyweight Title shot. Both White and Tanahashi had been absent from the Best of the Super Juniors tour, and it was interesting to see that White has started growing facial hair that makes him look even more like a slimy heel than he did before. This match was my favourite of the Tanahashi-White series that they’ve been having since Jay’s return from excursion, especially since they cut down on a lot of the more outrageous reversal sequences this time around. I fully expected Tanahashi to win here, not least because the last match they had was when White beat him for the IWGP Heavyweight Title. It looked like he might do it as well, until White won with a quick rollup following a series of low-blows between the two when Red Shoes was distracted by Gedo. Neither man hit their finisher in this match, so the Blade Runner is still heavily protected, and it’s interesting to see Tanahashi lose his return match. White is clearly still going to be in the main event scene going forward.

The undercard for this show was the usual set of tag team matches, but they were enjoyable overall and set up some interesting future storylines. El Phantasmo pinned SHO in the Bullet Club vs. Taguchi 3K six-man tag match, and post-match ELP and Ishimori laid out a challenge to R3K. The Suzuki-gun vs. CHAOS tag match furthered the feud between Taichi and Ishii, and Suzuki and Liger, as well as seemingly setting up a British Heavyweight Title match between ZSJ and YOSHI-HASHI. And Chris Jericho appeared in another on screen promo following Okada and Rocky Romero’s win over Villain Enterprises, to hype his IWGP Title match at Dominion on June 9^th.

Overall, this was another strong show from New Japan. The Best of the Super Juniors tour was very good, especially the shows at Korakuen Hall, and this was a fitting ending for all the participants. Hopefully this gives NJPW the confidence to run shows headlined by the junior division in the future. The decision to give Ospreay his second BOSJ win – which brings him level with people like Jyushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask IV, and Prince Devitt – was somewhat surprising to me, especially since there is a sense that he is on his way out of the junior division. Maybe the plan is to give him a final run with the title, and then have him lose to Hiromu Takahashi when he is cleared to return to action. Ospreay and Hiromu have lots of history together, so it would be a good story to tell. It’s also worth noting that when Prince Devitt appeared in both BOSJ and the G1 Climax in 2010 he also won BOSJ and the Jr. Heavyweight Title that year. It would not surprise me if Ospreay does the same this year. Jon Moxley’s NJPW debut was exciting and his victory means that New Japan have the chance to try and redeem the US Title now. Juice is a good wrestler but they did not book him well as champion. It will be interesting to see what happens surrounding Moxley and the G1 this year – now that he’s the US Champion it’s quite possible that he will be in the tournament. Even without a formal working arrangement with AEW two of their biggest stars will have appeared for New Japan this year (and Kenny before he joined them of course). This show was a good lead in to Dominion on June 9^th, and hopefully this summer’s G1 will be able to match the level of BOSJ 26.