NJPW: The New Beginning Sapporo Review

Hi guys,

So it's been more than a month since Wrestle Kingdom and time has seemed to fly by with Fantastica Mania and now the New Beginning's tour (obviously with the Road to shows as well). There's been a lot of matches on this tour that have been being built up since New Year's Dash and my mouth was watering just thinking about them like Taiji Ishimori v Taguchi for the IWGP Jr Heavyweight title and of course Switcblade Jay White challenging for the IWGP Heavyweight title against the champ Hiroshi Tanahashi. But, because the tour's been so big and so many things have happened, I'm going to have a look solely at the New Beginning Sapporo leg of the tour and then look at the Osaka leg in the next post. So, I hope you enjoy my look at The New Beginning tour from the 'Road To' tour to the main shows in Sapporo.

The New Beginning (Sapporo)

The Road to New Beginnings Tour, which led up to The New Beginning in Sapporo on the 2nd and 3rd of February, was a great set of shows with an elimination match, amazing tag matches, riveting singles matches and a shocking championship match. We've had some great matches leading up to 3rd Feb between Suzuki Gun and Los Ingobernables de Japon, including a singles match between Bushi and El Desperado which led to both guys losing their matches, Evil losing out to ZSJ again and Suzuki beating the hell out of Sanada. I also can't forget some of the funniest things on the tour which had to be Tama Tonga's attempt to be a good guy (which involved saying sorry a lot of times to Yano and shrieking like a little girl), Taguchi's attempt to psych out Ishimori by bringing up his past and the sailor boys and Tanga Loa getting angry at his older brother. Even though it was a ton of laughts, it all culminated with Taguchi Japan winning the NEVER tag belts off the BC in amazing match where Taguchi submitted Ishimori. This makes the prospect of the IWGP Jr Heavyweight title match even more exciting with Taguchi having the upper hand! We then had the lead up to Jay's title match against Tanahashi and Okada's match against Bad Luck Fale where we saw them tagging with each other, Yoshi Hashi trying and failing to get some momentum and Jay White hurting a lot of Young Lions (which made me mega sad). Jay really seems to have all the momentum going into Osaka.

I also can't forget about Kushida's final match against Hiroshi Tanahashi which made me so sad. It's weird how emotional I got during that match because, even though it was surprisingly brutal and mat based with both guys having body parts targeted, you could see that respect between the two of them and how much they put into this match. Even with Jay coming out and hitting Tanahashi's leg with a chair, it didn't ruin the special moment Kushida had with the fans at the end and the fact he said see you later not goodbye, makes me hopeful! I think I'm still in denial that I won't be seeing the Time Splitter in BOSJ or any of the future tours!



By the main The New Beginning Sapporo on the 2nd and 3rd Feb, I was so excited for the matches and the two night's lived up to the high expectations. We had a sort of warm up card on Saturday with big singles matches between Evil and ZSJ and Suzuki and Sanada as well as the big tag team match with Okada and Tanahashi teaming up against Jay and Bad Luck Fale. This night alone gave us shocks with Evil finally beating ZSJ clean (which was a miracle in itself, because Zack has beat Evil too many times to keep count) and then we had Jay White tapping out Tanahashi with the T.T.O (Tanahashi Tapped out). It was all so crazy and the perfect way to lead into the New Beginning show on Sunday! We had our usual first matches where the Young Lions brought it to the veterans, Tama Tonga really pissed off his brother and Jay White gained ever more momentum (even by submitting Yoshi Hashi with the Y.T.O - you know, Yoshi Hashi Tapped Out).

However, they were just preludes to the crazy Suzuki Gun v LIJ title matches. We started with probably my favourite match of the night and it was Shingo Takagi and Bushi defending their IWGP Jr Heavyweight championship against El Desperado and Kanemaru. The build up to this match had been intense with Kanemaru going after Shingo's knee and Despy and Bushi going to any lengths to rip each other's masks off. Like Kevin Kelly said, this was unlike any other Jr match in the sense that it was a lot more violent! It started off strong from the get go and we saw that intense, personal hatred between El Desperado and Bushi, but also both Despy and Kanemaru going after Takagi's knee again, which he sold perfectly from the start of the match right to the end. We also had Kanemaru attempting to spit whiskey, El Desperado using a chair against everyone and Bushi hitting Kanemaru with his green mist. In the end, Bushi and Takagi hit their finisher for the 1, 2, 3 but this match really showed how amazing all four athletes are, especially Kanemaru who is so underrated. After the match, Bushi ripped that mask off El Desperado again and who know, we might be getting a Mask v Mask match in the future (#TeamDespy).



It seemed like both Evil/ Sanada and ZSJ/ Suzuki both had crazy momentum going into the match and it was an amazing match. We had Suzuki and ZSJ proving why they are submission masters and Evil and Sanada using their strength and agility to counter the sadistic duo who are a tag team made in heaven! I really hoped ZSJ and Suzuki would've got the win and gone on this tyrant reign submitting everyone in their pathways (like at Rev Pro in the UK), but, with the help of 2 Magic Killers and a moonsault, the LIJ boys got the win and everything stayed Evil... all of it! Then we got to the main event which seriously gave me such a stressful time. I mean Naito came out and then got hit by Iizka with a small ladder and Taichi hit him with a Black Memphista, which basically knocked Naito out (which I seriously freaked out about because it didn't seem like a work). However, after Sugabayashi almost called the match off, Naito came crawling out and it was honestly a match with was so brutal that it hurt. We had belts flying, microphone stands stabbing and nether regions being kicked left, right and centre. I was on the edge of the table (I mean I was sat on my small table glued to the TV), because it almost seemed like Taichi was going to win and #AnyoneButTaichi.

Phew, that was a jam packed tour and it's not even finished yet! Throughout the last few shows, we've had build ups for the Osaka shows (like Taguchi v Ishimori, Fale v Okada and Jay v Tanahashi) and we've also got upcoming stories for the other shows like El Desperado v Bushi, Evil and Sanada going after ZSJ's and Suzuki's Rev Pro titles and if Tanga Loa is going to kill his Good Guy brother Tama Tonga. So, that's it for this week and I hope you enjoyed this post, so let me know in the comments what you think about the young lions and who you see as NJPW's future star by commenting below, tweet/ follow me at @Full_Time_Nerd and @Wrestling_Chat, watch for updates on my IG WrestlingChatter96 or even talk to me on the Facebook page Wrestling Chatter. See you next week for The New Beginning in Osaka!

So, until Next Time

Bye!