The match order for Tuesday’s card at Nippon Budokan has been released by New Japan Pro Wrestling with the final set of round-robin contests.
Tuesday, August 16th at 5 a.m. ET:
*Will Ospreay vs. Juice Robinson (opening match)
*Shingo Takagi vs. El Phantasmo
*Hirooki Goto vs. EVIL
*Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tetsuya Naito
*SANADA vs. Tomohiro Ishii
*Jay White vs. Tama Tonga
*JONAH vs. Bad Luck Fale
*Kazuchika Okada vs. Lance Archer (main event)
The first of three consecutive nights at the famous arena will be headlined by Kazuchika Okada and Lance Archer and will be preceded by JONAH vs. Bad Luck Fale. Only Okada and Archer are eligible to win the A Block and advance to the semi-finals. If Okada wins or draws, he wins the block. If Archer beats Okada, he wins the block. Even if JONAH wins and Archer wins, they would all have 4-2 records but Archer would have wins over both Okada and JONAH, therefore, Archer wins the tiebreaker.
The B Block sees Jay White against Tama Tonga and it’s a simple case of the winner advancing. White is undefeated at 5-0 while Tonga is 4-1 but if Tonga beats White, they’ll have identical records and Tonga would advance due to the tiebreaker.
The C Block is a three-person race between Zack Sabre Jr., Tetsuya Naito, and Hirooki Goto. Sabre and Naito will square off on Tuesday. If Sabre wins or draws, he wins the block. If Naito wins, Goto needs to lose or draw for Naito to advance. If Naito and Goto win, it’s a three-way tie with Sabre and would be settled with some type of playoff match on Wednesday.
The D Block has the potential of having a seven-way tie with everyone in the block finishing with 3-3 records and six points each. Shingo Takagi faces El Phantasmo and Will Ospreay meets Juice Robinson. If Takagi wins, he wins the block regardless of how Ospreay does. If Takagi loses and Ospreay wins, Ospreay advances. If both Takagi and Ospreay lose, it’s a seven-way tie.
The semi-finals take place on Wednesday with the A Block vs. B Block winner and the C Block vs. D Block winner squaring off and the finals take place on Thursday.
POST Wrestling will have coverage this week with three podcasts over the next three days for POST Wrestling Café members and written reports on the site.
