A new champion is going to be crowned at Resurgence.
Long Beach, California is playing host to New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s Resurgence event. Among the matches on the card, there is going to be the crowning of the first-ever NJPW STRONG Women’s Champion.
Mercedes Moné, Stephanie Vaquer , Momo Kohgo and Willow Nightingale are competing in a one-night tournament to determine the champion.
To promote the upcoming event, Rocky Romero returned to Wrestling Observer Live and reiterated that there has always been a plan to incorporate a women’s division into NJPW STRONG. Rocky added that when Moné dropped the IWGP Women’s Championship, he and others within NJPW figured it was probably a great time to launch the division.
You know, since New Japan STRONG started, there’s always been a plan for a women’s division. So, when we stopped taping STRONG and doing the taping style shows, it was like, well when are we going to pull the trigger? And with Mercedes (Moné) coming up short and losing the IWGP Women’s Championship, it was like, well, now would be probably a great time. So, definitely want to have participation from all our different partners so obviously, Stephanie Vaquer who Mercedes is wrestling in the first round from CMLL, who’s an amazing talent. People don’t really know her in the States yet, but I think after this match with Mercedes, she’ll definitely be a name that people will be looking out for. Having Momo Kohgo, who’s a young upstart in STARDOM. Not too much experience but, recently her work with Mercedes in STARDOM has been kind of noteworthy and they’ve kind of taken a liking to each other it seems like so, I thought it’d be a great opportunity to also have some new blood in there, and finally, yeah, Willow Nightingale, she’s a star in ROH, she’s a star in AEW. Another wrestler that, you know, obviously this is a huge opportunity for her, a huge chance and yeah, we’ll see who ends up in the final but, I think all four women bring something different to the table and it’s super, super exciting to see and I just saw a picture of the belt the other day and the belt looks really, really amazing so I think people are gonna really dig it.
The tournament to determine the next challenger to the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Championship is continuing at Resurgence. It’ll be Will Ospreay versus Hiroshi Tanahashi with the winner moving on to NJPW Dominion to face Lance Archer.
The winner of the Dominion bout is going to be next in line to challenge the champion Kenny Omega.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Wrestling Observer Live with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
