News
NJPW 2018 New Japan Cup Brackets Revealed
NJPW announced the bracket for their 16-man, single elimination New Japan Cup 2018 Tournament. It will take place between March 9 and March 21 and all of the events will air live on NJPW World. Half of them will include English Commentary the rest will be in Japanese. The winner will receive a shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
The video below is the New Japan Cup 2018 Press Conference featuring Hiroshi Tanahashi, for (somewhat rough) English subtitles click “CC”, Settings, Subtitles/CC, Auto-Translate, English.
Below are the first round match-ups:
Top Bracket
- Michael Elgin vs. Tomohiro Ishii
- Juice Robinson vs. Yujiro Takahashi
- Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Taichi
- Bad Luck Fale vs. Lance Archer
Bottom Bracket
- YOSHI-HASHI vs. Kota Ibushi
- Tetsuya Naito vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
- Toru Yano vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr.
- Chuckie T. vs. SANADA
In the 2017 tournament, Katsuyori Shibata defeated Bad Luck Fale in the finals however would then lose to IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada at Sakura Genesis 2017.
The first New Japan Cup 2018 matches will air on March 9 at 4:30am ET / 1:30am PT.
My Thoughts:
The names alone even for a “non-NJPW” fan are impressive. I’m personally always fan of a tournament and this is something I would like to see WWE do, well they did with King of the Ring. As far as predictions go there are two James that jump out in, Tanahashi and Ibushi. Watching Cody and Ibushi earlier in the year I think Ibushi has a great chance to get the victory. I think an Ibushi and Okada match would be fantastic and is something I would go out of my way to watch.
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Did your picks win points?
The AEW Continental Classic is underway, with almost everyone competing. Check in here if you haven’t seen the winners and losers of week 1!
Here are your Gold League standings!
- Jon Moxley: 1-0, 3 points
- Swerve Strickland: 1-0, 3 points
- Jay White: 1-0, 3 points
- Rush: 0-1, 0 points
- Mark Briscoe: 0-1, 0 points.
- Jay Lethal: 0-1, 0 points
Here are your Blue League standings!
- Brody King: 1-0, 3 points
- Claudio Castagnoli: 1-0, 3 points
- Daniel Garcia: 0-1, 0 points
- Eddie Kingston: 0-1, 0 points
- Bryan Danielson: Yet to Compete
- Andrade El Idolo: Yet to Compete
My Thoughts:
Nothing too crazy, nothing too wild, this tournament only just got started. The only disappointing point is that they could not get Bryan “cleared to compete” Saturday night. Not sure how much of that is shoot given the bad eye, but this was kinda the problem of wanting him in the tournament over tons of other choices. Bryan wants to face Okada for WrestleKingdom 18, how is Bryan supposed to do that at his best if he’s also gonna be in a round robin, doing five top level matches in about as many weeks? And it takes away from Andrade being able to do something. Also a little surprised we didn’t even hear from Andrade on Saturday.
Now as we heard on Saturday, round two’s matches are set. Gold League will see Mark Briscoe VS Rush, White VS Swerve, and of course, Moxley VS Lethal. Nice variety there, a couple 0-1 guys facing off, as well as two 1-0 guys, and then 1-0 VS 0-1. No offense to Lethal, but he feels like an 0-2 going up against Moxley. Hard to call the other ones but that’s the fun of it. Meanwhile, Blue League sees Brody VS Claudio in a showdown to be 2-0, then Bryan and Andrade finally jump in, Bryan against Eddie and Andrade against Garcia. Sadly, feels like Eddie and Garcia are going 0-2, no way Tony Khan is booking Bryan and Andrade to lose their first shots.
In fact, that could be half the reason they did wait on those two, that’s almost too good for just a first round opener. But I still would’ve done it, same as NJPW does stuff like that for round robins, which this is all modeled after anyway.
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Tony Khan Reveals the Blue and Gold “Leagues!”
Originally livestreamed, Tony Khan and Tony Schiavone officially announced the twelve total entrants and divided them into the two round robin blocks known as the “Blue League” and “Gold League.” If you don’t feel like sifting through the almost 30 minute video, the groups are:
Blue League
- Bryan Danielson
- Andrade El Idolo
- Brody King
- Claudio Castagnoli
- Daniel Garcia
- Eddie Kingston
Gold League
- Jon Moxley
- Swerve Strickland
- Rush
- Mark Briscoe
- Jay Lethal
- Jay White
Tony Khan also explains the rules for the Continental Classic:
- Every match has a 20 minute time limit
- The winner of each match earns 3 points, losers earn 0, 1 point for a draw
- EVERYONE ELSE is banned from ringside for true 1v1 action
Eddie Kingston also joined the selection special as his “life’s work” is on the line in this tournament, both the ROH World Championship and NJPW Strong Openweight Championship on the line as part of the modern day North American Triple Crown Eddie, Tony Khan, AEW, ROH and NJPW are looking to create together. Gold League competes tonight on Dynamite while Blue League will have their start this Saturday on Collision. Look for more articles like this one to keep up with the Continental Classic standings over the next six weeks of tournament action!
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