The New Japan Cup tournament is down to four going into its final weekend.
The quarter-finals wrapped up on Monday in Nagaoka, Niigata with Shingo Takagi and Zack Sabre Jr. advancing to join Kazuchika Okada and Tetsuya Naito in the final four.
Monday’s card featured LIJ stablemates Takagi and Hiromu Takahashi meeting for the first time in a singles situation.
Takahashi’s run of upsets came to an end, losing to Takagi after being hit by Last of the Dragon; eliminating the junior heavyweight.
Takahashi had defeated SHO, Minoru Suzuki, and EVIL prior to Monday’s elimination.
Takagi’s opponent in the semi-finals will be Zack Sabre Jr., who submitted Will Ospreay in a terrific match with a unique ending.
After a tremendous series of counters, ZSJ tied up Ospreay’s leg and applied a rear-naked choke for the submission, though Ospreay protested the finish and claimed he did not tap. The submission is being identified as “Selected Technical Works Vol. 2”.
While the two have had many singles matches in other promotions, this was their third meeting inside of a New Japan ring. ZSJ defeated Ospreay in February 2020 at New Beginning in Sapporo while Ospreay eliminated him from last year’s New Japan Cup.
On Saturday, Kazuchika Okada defeated CIMA and Tetsuya Naito pinned Jeff Cobb to set up their semi-final match.
Both semi-final matches take place this Saturday at Osaka-jo Hall with the finals scheduled for Sunday in the same venue.
Below are the results from Aore Nagoka on Monday in front of 1,450 (Courtesy: Purolove.com):
*New Japan Cup: Zack Sabre Jr. over Will Ospreay in 23:04
*New Japan Cup: Shingo Takagi over Hiromu Takahashi in 23:43
*Kazuchika Okada & YOH over Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI in 10:08
*Jeff Cobb, Aaron Henare & Great O-Khan over Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Tomoaki Honma in 10:45
*EVIL, SHO & Yujiro over El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taka Michinoku in 10:39
*Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, Taiji Ishimori, El Phantasmo & Gedo over Guerrillas of Destiny, Ryusuke Taguchi, Master Wato & Jado in 9:39
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano over Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & DOUKI in 10:27
*Satoshi Kojima, Tiger Mask & Yuto Nakashima over Togi Makabe, Ryohei Oiwa & Kosei Fujita in 7:15
