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NJPW News: Lineups For Road To The New Beginning Events Revealed
NJPW reveals the lineups for each Road To The New Beginning event!
Now that we’ve put the New Year behind us, many wrestling promotions have a lot on the horizon, including New Japan Pro Wrestling who just wrapped up Wrestle Kingdom 13 and New Year Dash!! this past weekend.
Coming up next will be the eight-date Fantastica Mania 2019 will CMLL, three New Beginning In USA shows, New Beginning In Sapporo and Osaka, plus much more to follow. Today, NJPW has revealed the match cards for Road To The New Beginning, which begins on January 26th in Saitama, gets broken up by New Beginning In USA and then resumes before finishing in Osaka on February 9th. Among the action will be KUSHIDA’s farewell match on January 29th, as he will take on IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi:
January 26th – Saitama
Jay White, Bad Luck Fale, Gedo & Taiji Ishimori vs.
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, KUSHIDA & Ryusuke Taguchi
BUSHI, EVIL, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito vs.
El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr.
Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Togi Makabe & Toru Yano
The Guerrillas Of Destiny vs. Tomoaki Honma & YOSHI-HASHI
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Manabu Nakanishi vs. Ayato Yoshida & Shota Umino
Ren Narita vs. Toa Henare
Yota Tsuji vs. Yuya Uemura
January 28th – Tokyo
Elimination Match
BUSHI, EVIL, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito vs.
El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr.
Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA vs. Gedo & Jay White
Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI
Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, Ryusuke Taguchi & Toru Yano vs.
The Guerrillas Of Destiny, Chase Owens & Taiji Ishimori
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Toa Henare vs. Ayato Yoshida & Shota Umino
Manabu Nakanishi & Ren Narita vs. Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura
January 29th – Tokyo
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. KUSHIDA
BUSHI, EVIL, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito vs.
El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr.
Bad Luck Fale & Jay White vs. Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI
Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Toru Yano vs. The Guerrillas Of Destiny & Chase Owens
Ryusuke Taguchi & Toa Henare vs. Taiji Ishimori & Yujiro Takahashi
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Manabu Nakanishi vs. Ayato Yoshida & Shota Umino
Ren Narita vs. Yuya Uemura
January 30th – Miyagi
NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship
(C) The Guerrillas Of Destiny & Taiji Ishimori vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, Tomoaki Honma & Toru Yano
EVIL, SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs. Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.
Jay White, Chase Owens, Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi vs.
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, Tomoaki Honma & YOSHI-HASHI
BUSHI vs. El Desperado
Shingo Takagi vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru
Manabu Nakanishi & Tiger Mask vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Ren Narita
Ayato Yoshida & Shota Umino vs. Toa Henare & Yota Tsuji
February 6th – Nagano
Jay White, Bad Luck Fale & Gedo vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI
BUSHI, EVIL, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito vs.
El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & TAKA Michinoku
The Guerrillas Of Destiny & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Toa Henare, Togi Makabe & Toru Yano
Ryusuke Taguchi & Tomoaki Honma vs. Chase Owens & Taiji Ishimori
Manabu Nakanishi & Tiger Mask vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Ren Narita
Yota Tsuji vs. Ayato Yoshida
Shota Umino vs. Yuya Uemura
February 7th – Aichi
Jay White, Bad Luck Fale & Gedo vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI
BUSHI, EVIL, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito vs.
El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & TAKA Michinoku
The Guerrillas Of Destiny & Chase Owens vs. Toa Henare, Togi Makabe & Toru Yano
Ryusuke Taguchi & Tomoaki Honma vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori
Manabu Nakanishi & Tiger Mask vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Shota Umino
Yuya Uemura vs. Ayato Yoshida
Yota Tsuji vs. Ren Narita
February 8th – Mie
Jay White, Bad Luck Fale & Gedo vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI
BUSHI, EVIL, SANADA, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito vs.
El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & TAKA Michinoku
The Guerrillas Of Destiny & Chase Owens vs. Tomoaki Honma, Togi Makabe & Toru Yano
Ryusuke Taguchi & Toa Henare vs. Yujiro Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori
Manabu Nakanishi & Tiger Mask vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Ayato Yoshida
Yuya Uemura vs. Ren Narita
Yota Tsuji vs. Shota Umino
February 9th – Osaka
Elimination Match
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, Togi Makabe, Ryusuke Taguchi & Toru Yano vs.
Jay White, The Guerrillas Of Destiny, Bad Luck Fale & Taiji Ishimori
Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito vs. Taichi & TAKA Michinoku
BUSHI, EVIL & SANADA vs. El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Toa Henare & Tomoaki Honma
YOSHI-HASHI vs. Ren Narita
Ayato Yoshida & Shota Umino vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Yota Tsuji
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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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