NJPW hosts its 49th Anniversary Show this Thursday from Budokan Hall and will feature the final defense of the IWGP Heavyweight and IWGP Intercontinental titles before they are merged.
The two championships will be unified after Thursday’s match with the winner of the main event between Kota Ibushi and El Desperado becoming the first IWGP World Heavyweight Champion.
The match comes after El Desperado won the vacant IWGP junior heavyweight title this past weekend and challenged Ibushi at the end of the second night of Castle Attack in Osaka.
Below is the full card for Thursday’s show at Budokan Hall and streaming at 3 am ET on New Japan World:
*Double Championship Match: Kota Ibushi (champion) vs. El Desperado
*New Japan Cup First Round: Tetsuya Naito vs. The Great O-Khan
*New Japan Cup First Round: Jeff Cobb vs. Satoshi Kojima
*Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii & SHO vs. Shingo Takagi, SANADA & BUSHI
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, Juice Robinson, David Finlay, Toa Henare & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. EVIL, KENTA, Jay White, Chase Owens & Taiji Ishimori
*Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr., Taichi & DOUKI vs. Hirooki Goto, Tomoaki Honma, Gabriel Kidd & Master Wato
