NJPW’s annual World Tag League opened on Monday at Korakuen Hall with four tournament matches and the reveal of Yota Tsuji’s partner.
During the undercard, Yota Tsuji revealed that CMLL performer Zandokan Jr. will be his teammate in the World Tag League, who he kept referring to as “Z” instead of “X” prior to Monday, adding that the partner would not be a member of LIJ.
Tsuji, Zandokan Jr. & BUSHI were on the losing end of their six-man tag against SANADA, Yuya Uemura & Taichi.
The A Block kicked off Monday with the show headlined by Ren Narita & Shota Umino defeating United Empire’s HENARE & Great O-Khan in 24:00 after Umino pinned O-Khan after hitting the Death Rider.
Kaito Kiyomiya of NOAH & Ryohei Oiwa, EVIL & Yujiro, and TMDK’s Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls also picked up wins.
The card featured the debut of 20-year-old Shoma Kato, who was featured on Kazuchika Okada’s reality show “The Spirit”.
Here are the results:
*A BLOCK: Shota Umino & Ren Narita over Great O-Khan & HENARE in 24:00
*A BLOCK: Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa over Gabe Kidd & Alex Coughlin by count-out at 12:03
*A BLOCK: EVIL & Yujiro over Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano in 9:16
*A BLOCK: Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls over Gates of Agony at 10:52
*Hikuleo, El Phantasmo & Jado over Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & YOH in 10:02
*SANADA, Yuya Uemura & Taichi over Yota Tsuji, Zandokan Jr. & BUSHI
*Yuji Nagata, Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer & Alex Zayne over Bad Luck Fale, Jack Bonza, Taiji Ishimori & Gedo in 7:08
*Atlantis Jr. & Soberano Jr. over DOUKI & Taka Michinoku in 7:07
*Oskar Leube over Shoma Kato in 4:37
The World Tag League continues on Tuesday at Korakuen Hall.
