New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced the lineups for their three New Beginning cards. The shows will consist of back-to-back nights in Sapporo later this month and culminate with the third show at the Edion Arena in Osaka on February 10th.
Kenny Omega will be working the Sapporo shows but is not listed for the Osaka event, which is the biggest show of the three.
Chris Jericho is not coming back for any of the New Beginning shows as FOZZY is beginning a big tour later this month and made it virtually impossible that he could do any of these three shows.
Following the Osaka event, the New Japan crew will go to Australia the following weekend for four dates. We will have all the details of the Australian tour in our Tuesday news update.
Below are the cards for all three New Beginning events:
NEW BEGINNING IN SAPPORO NIGHT 1 (Saturday, January 27th at 4 am Eastern)
*Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki for the Intercontinental title
*Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks vs. Jay White and Roppongi 3K
*Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto and Gedo vs. EVIL, Sanada and Bushi
*Will Ospreay and Yoshi-Hashi vs. Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi
*Kota Ibushi, Juice Robinson and David Finlay vs. Cody, Marty Scurll and Hangman Page
*Bad Luck Fale and The Guerillas of Destiny vs. Togi Makabe, Ryusuke Taguchi and Henare for the NEVER six-man tag titles
*Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano vs. Yujiro and Chase Owens
*KUSHIDA, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, Jushin Thunder Liger and Tiger Mask vs. El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taka Michinoku, Taichi and Takashi Iizuka
*Michael Elgin vs. Katsuya Kitamura – Match #2 of Kitamura’s Proving Series
NEW BEGINNING IN SAPPORO NIGHT 2 (Sunday, January 28th at 1 am Eastern)
*Kenny Omega vs. Jay White for the IWGP U.S title
*The Young Bucks vs. Roppongi 3K for the IWGP junior heavyweight tag titles
*Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, Will Ospreay, Yoshi-Hashi and Gedo vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, Sanada, Hiromu Takahashi and Bushi
*Kota Ibushi, KUSHIDA and David Finlay vs. Cody, Marty Scurll and Hangman Page
*Hiroshi Tanahashi and Michael Elgin vs. Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka
*Guerillas of Destiny, Bad Luck Fale and Chase Owens vs. Togi Makabe, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima and Henare
*Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano vs. Yujiro and Leo Tonga
*Jushin Thunder Liger, Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask and Shota Umino vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru, El Desperado, Taichi and Taka Michinoku
*Juice Robinson vs. Katsuya Kitamura – Match #3 of Kitamura’s Proving Series
NEW BEGINNING IN OSAKA (Saturday, February 10th at 3 am Eastern)
*Kazuchika Okada vs. Sanada for the IWGP heavyweight title
*Hirooki Goto vs. EVIL for the NEVER Openweight title
*Will Ospreay vs. Hiromu Takahashi for the IWGP junior heavyweight title
*Tetsuya Naito vs. Yoshi-Hashi
*Bushi vs. Gedo
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA, Togi Makabe, Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Takashi Iizuka and Taka Michinoku
*Tomohiro Ishii, Jay White and Toru Yano vs. Michael Elgin, Juice Robinson and David Finlay
*Roppongi 3K vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru and El Desperado
*Yuji Nagata vs. Katsuya Kitamura – Match #6 in Kitamura’s Proving Series
