New Japan Pro Wrestling held its third straight card at Korakuen Hall on Friday featuring two title matches as the IWGP tag titles and NEVER six-man titles were defended.
In the main event, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi defeated the Guerrillas of Destiny to win the IWGP tag titles ending the G.O.D’s sixth reign after twenty days.
The Guerrillas had just won the titles back from Juice Robinson & David Finlay on the New Beginning USA tour where they won the belts on February 1st in Atlanta, Georgia.
It’s Tanahashi’s third time winning the tag titles with previous partners Yutaka Yoshie in June 2003 and Shinsuke Nakamura in December 2004. His last reign with the titles ended in October 2005 when Tanahashi and Nakamura dropped them to Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Masahiro Chono.
The show ended with the new champions being attacked by Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi. It theoretically, sets Zack Sabre Jr. to challenge for both the IWGP tag titles and the IWGP United States title after attacking Jon Moxley at the New Beginning in Osaka card.
The NEVER six-man tag champions Shingo Takagi, EVIL & Bushi retained the titles against Ryusuke Taguchi, Colt Cabana & Toru Yano when Bushi pinned Taguchi.
Here are the results from Friday’s card with an announced attendance of 1,500:
*Tiger Mask & Gabriel Kidd over Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura
*Roppongi 3K, Juice Robinson & David Finlay over Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
*Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi over Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare
*Manabu Nakanishi, Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Yuji Nagata over Jay White, Bad Luck Fale, Gedo & Jado – Nakanishi pinned Gedo in his second-to-last match
*Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi & Sanada over Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay & Rocky Romero
*Shingo Takagi, EVIL & Bushi over Ryusuke Taguchi, Colt Cabana & Toru Yano to retain the NEVER six-man tag titles
*Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi over Guerrillas of Destiny to win the IWGP tag titles
New Japan’s run of Korakuen Hall shows this week wraps on Saturday with Manabu Nakanishi’s retirement.
