NJPW presented its annual New Year Dash event on Friday with multiple angles and programs set up for the future.
The show was announced as a sell-out in front of 2,910 at the Sumida City Gymnasium featuring the tradition of no matches being advertised in advance.
RESULTS:
*Zack Sabre Jr., Shane Haste, Mikey Nicholls & Kosei Fujita over Kazuchika Okada, Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson & Tomohiro Ishii in 13:50
*KOPW 2024, Scramble Match: Taiji Ishimori over Great O-Khan, YOH & Toru Yano in 10:00
*SANADA, Taichi, Yuya Uemura, DOUKI & Taka Michinoku over Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi, Yota Tsuji & BUSHI in 8:47
*Will Ospreay, HENARE, Jeff Cobb & Catch 2/2 vs. David Finlay, Gabe Kidd, Alex Coughlin, Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney ended in a no-contest in 5:30
*Tama Tonga, Shota Umino, El Desperado, Master Wato, Tomoaki Honma & Togi Makabe over EVIL, SHO, Ren Narita, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Yujiro & Dick Togo in 9:02
*El Phantasmo & Hikuleo over Yuto Nakashima & Oskar Leube in 8:06
*Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI over Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa in 7:40
*NJPW Television Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi © over Ryusuke Taguchi in 5:40
The main event was an eight-man tag including Blackpool Combat Club’s Jon Moxley & Bryan Danielson teaming with Kazuchika Okada & Tomihiro Ishii against TMDK’s Zack Sabre Jr., Shane Haste, Mikey Nicholls & Kosei Fujita.
The match included stretches involving Danielson and ZSJ rekindling their feud and TMDK attacking Okada’s injured arm from the previous night.
Haste & Nicholls executed the Tank Buster and pinned Ishii.
Afterward, ZSJ issued a challenge for a rematch with Danielson citing the fact that Danielson failed to tap him out at WrestleDream back in October. Backstage, Danielson accepted and stated that ZSJ has never been able to tap out Okada while he did it in his first attempt and that Zack lacks fighting spirit. Zack indicated the match would be in Japan when telling Danielson, “Get your ass back to Japan”.
Taiji Ishimori became the KOPW 2024 Provisional Champion outlasting Great O-Khan, YOH & Toru Yano in a ten-minute scramble match where the last one to score a pinfall would be ruled the winner once the time expired. Ishimori scored the final fall and ran away from O-Khan to run out the clock and secure the title.
Just Five Guys took on LIJ in a ten-man tag with SANADA, Taichi, Yuya Uemura, DOUKI & Taka Michinoku beating Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi, Yota Tsuji & BUSHI after Michinoku used a Michinoku Driver and pinned BUSHI.
SANADA requested a rematch with Naito for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. At the same time, Uemura and Tsuji continued their feud with the two going face-to-face and Uemura pie-facing his Wrestle Kingdom 18 opponent.
There was a significant angle involving EVIL cutting the hair of Tama Tonga after House of Torture was defeated in a 12-man tag. Tonga was hit with Everything is Evil after the match and handcuffed when EVIL cut a portion of his hair, held up the NEVER Openweight Championship, and should set up a title match.
Yoshinobu Kanemaru nailed El Desperado with the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship amid the post-match attacks and was another direction set up on the show.
In a tag match, the outgoing Oskar Leube & Yuto Nakashima lost to double champions El Phantasmo & Hikuelo after ELP’s Thunderkiss ’86 off his partner’s shoulders.
Leube & Nakashima are leaving on an excursion and bowed to the audience as the champions raised their arms.
This led to Chase Owens attacking the tag champions issuing a challenge for the belts and stating he would challenge for the titles with KENTA.
KENTA has not wrestled in Japan since last August.
The opening match featured an impromptu NJPW Television Championship match with Hiroshi Tanahashi accepting the challenge from Ryusuke Taguchi and pinning Taguchi after a reversal of a sunset flip roll-up. The post-match featured the announcement of Matt Riddle coming to NJPW and issuing a challenge to the Television Champion.
NJPW returns with Battle in the Valley on January 13 and New Beginning cards on January 20 in Nagoya and February 11 in Osaka.
