New beginnings and a handful of ends at EDION Arena

It may seem a bit strange that a show that comes only a month or so after Wrestle Kingdom is legitimately one of the most noteworthy NJPW shows of the year, but that’s the way it is, typically, with The New Beginning. Important stuff happens at The New Beginning. Since the event was established in 2011, the IWGP Championship (and variations thereof) has changed hands four times there, including the “Rainmaker shock” in 2012, A.J. Styles’ second title win in 2015 and, most recently, Hirooki Goto’s spectacular win over Zack Sabre Jr. last year.

However, there are also years when a new champion is given a mid-table challenger to beat in order to get his title reign off on the right foot, and that’s what’s going on this year in the main event, with new IWGP Champion, Yota Tsuji, going against Jake Lee. In a perfect world, Lee would be considered a legitimate contender, as he’s held world titles in both NOAH and AJPW and is currently the only wrestler who’s not well into his dotage who could complete the hat trick of winning titles in the top three Japanese heavyweight promotions. However, Lee has failed to impress since arriving in NJPW in August 2024, with the major caveat that he missed nearly 16 months with a severe knee injury in that time.

Also, as has unfortunately become something of a tradition, the state of NJPW as a whole is a significant issue that is looming over this show. As we’ll get to when discussing the matches, this is a time of transition for the promotion, and while it does have a few legitimately hot acts and better booking as of late, it’s troubling that the future for NJPW will, certainly in one case and likely in others, not include a few of their more established and popular performers.

With all that said, let’s run down the show, which took place at the SOLD OUT EDION Arena.

Pre-show: Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato vs. Toru Yano & Togi Makabe

This was end #1, although it was a positive one – it was Murashima’s final match as a Young Lion before going on his overseas excursion. It was also Kato’s last match on a major show before his excursion to CMLL, but the spotlight in this one was solely on Murashima. The match was about what you’d expect – Yano did his comedy stuff with Kato, and then they got out of the way and let Murashima and Makabe go at it. Makabe gave a little more than you might expect to Murashima, but Makabe ultimately won with the King Kong knee drop. Afterward, Murashima said farewell to the crowd.

The pre-show concluded with a 10-bell salute to Tadao Yasuda, who passed away yesterday at 62. Yasuda was a former IWGP champion who is a controversial figure in NJPW history, not due to his personality, but rather because he came to personify an era of NJPW that most would like to forget. He was a former sumo who transitioned to pro wrestling in 1994 and was, with all due respect, a pretty terrible pro wrestler. However, he impressed Antonio Inoki in 2001 by winning a couple of MMA fights and was subsequently elevated to a position in NJPW where he, frankly, did not belong. He won the IWGP title by defeating Yuji Nagata in February 2002 – the title was vacant at the time because of an injury to the previous champion, Kazuyuki Fujita, an MMA fighter whose 2000 victory over Mark Kerr was recently portrayed on the big screen in The Smashing Machine – but then lost the title to Nagata in April and lost an MMA bout to Fujita in August, and that was more or less the end of his time in the spotlight. He left NJPW in 2004 and retired in 2011.

The show proper began with a (mostly) solemn video tribute to Hiromu Takahashi, setting up end #2, as Takahashi is leaving the promotion after this event.

Francesco Akira & Jakob Austin Young [United Empire] vs. Hirumo Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori [Unbound Co.]

Takahashi was more fired up than he has been for a while, and the match was a fun sprint, although it was too short to be anything special. It ended with Ishimori submitting Young, but while Ishimori and Takahashi were celebrating, Takahashi was jumped by Akira and set up for a neckbreaker spot. Ishimori’s regular partner, Robbie X, ran in for the save, and Takahashi took his final bow (for now) in NJPW.

HENARE & Great-O-Khan [United Empire] vs. War Dragons (Shingo Takagi & Drilla Moloney) [Unbound Co.]

Moloney is working through a legit triceps injury and Takagi is working through a (probably) fake rib injury, so the United Empire members working over those body parts was the story of the match. It was a good, though short slobberknocker, and the War Dragons won, with Moloney pinning HENARE after the War Dragon. (It’s kind of strange to me that they’d have HENARE take the pin here, since I think he’s got a lot more upside than Great-O-Khan, but I suppose I can see NJPW wanting to take it slow with HENARE due to his just coming back from missing a year with a broken kneecap.)

After the match, Moloney announced that he has re-signed with NJPW, so end #3 is avoided (for now); he also announced that he is entering the New Japan Cup tournament.

NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Championship: Bishimon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) & Boltin Oleg (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Ryohei Oiwa & Hartley Jackson [TMDK]

This obviously didn’t get as much time as the excellent match between these two teams at Korakuen Hall last month, but it was very good while it lasted. The sequences with Jackson against Oleg and Oiwa against Goto were both excellent – Oiwa going toe-to-toe with Goto again suggests that he’ll be elevated sometime in the near future, especially since the crowd seems to really be getting behind him. The champions retained when YOSHI-HASHI pinned Jackson after their goofy triple-team splash move.

Andrade el Idolo [United Empire] vs. Gabe Kidd [Unbound Co.]

The winner of this match faces Yota Tsuji for the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship at The New Beginning USA in Trenton, New Jersey, on February 27. As you’d expect, this match was very good and very physical, if a bit short, and Andrade won with his new move, the DM. Kidd is another wrestler whose future with NJPW is uncertain, especially since he’s already a regular in AEW, but he didn’t give any indication that he was staying or going after the match; the result may suggest a direction, though.

Callum Newman [United Empire] vs. David Finlay [Unbound Co.]

Newman has new music in pseudo-symphonic metal style that isn’t very good, but his babyface theme wasn’t going to work with him being a heel, so oh well. Finlay took the first half of the match, but Newman turned it around and won in dominating fashion in the end. The match was physical and more or less accomplished what it set out to do, which is to make Newman look like a top guy, but it wasn’t spectacular.

After the match, Finlay bowed to crowd, indicating that he’s leaving the promotion after more than a decade and bringing us to end #3. He also went over to Takahashi, who was on Japanese commentary, and “apologized” for how he treated him during their tag run. Presumably this means he’s going to WWE, where his father and brother already work. Aside from the intrinsic grossness of working for WWE in the year of our Lord 2026, it’s difficult to begrudge him this, though I do hope he thinks of NJPW fondly when he’s playing second fiddle to Brian Pillman Jr. in a faction that also includes the children of Santino Marella and Bull Buchanan.

Hiroshi Tanahashi comes to the ring, still walking like Cotton Hill and looking very strange with a semi-normal haircut. He announces that Dominion, on June 14, will be on terrestrial TV in Japan, and implores the Osaka crowd to sell out Osaka-jo Hall, a much larger venue than this one.

NEVER Openweight Championship: Aaron Wolf (c) vs. Ren Narita [House of Torture]

In the video package before the match, Wolf shouts out the Ishii/Shibata NEVER title match that took place at this event 10 years ago, demonstrating that he has excellent taste. Wolf gets jumped during his entrance by DOUKI, SHO and Yujiro Takahashi, during which he hits the ringpost EXTREMELY hard. Wolf fights off the House single-handedly for a while, but he ultimately gets choked out by Dick Togo, after which Nagata won with the Hell’s guillotine in two minutes. At least it was short. Eventually – VERY eventually – Hontai comes out to run off the House, but, as is always the case with House matches, it begs the question of why he came out by himself in the first place, like an idiot. This was not good. I hope for NJPW’s sake that it doesn’t hurt Wolf in the long run.

IWGP Tag Team Championship: Knockout Brothers (OSKAR & Yuto-Ice) (c) [Unbound Co.] vs. Yuya Uemura & Shota Umino

They got off to a quick start, with Yuto going after Uemura, of course. The Yuto/Uemura business in this match was red hot – these two are so good together, and it is very easy to imagine these two fighting over the world title someday in the not-too-distant future. Umino is still getting booed, even though he’s clearly raised his game in these matches. The Knockout Brothers won an awesome match with the KOB, with OSKAR pinning Uemura. The degree to which the Knockout Brothers have raised the bar of the tag division cannot be overstated. These guys are the highlight of every show they’re on.

After the match, AEW’s The Demand appears on the screen – Ricochet announced that he’ll face Taiji Ishimori at New Beginning USA for the AEW National Championship, while Gates of Agony challenged the Knockout Brothers for the IWGP Tag Team Championship. Both those matches should be great.

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Yota Tsuji (c) [Unbound Co.] vs. Jake Lee [United Empire]

The segment starts with Tanahashi reading the title match proclamation and presenting the belt. I like it. I think one of the things NJPW has been missing in recent years has been the pageantry around its title matches.

Now, listen – I know this is a hot take, but Jake Lee isn’t bad. In fact, I would say that he did damn well here for having not wrestled a singles match in nearly a year and a half. By the end, they did get the crowd, to a degree, but despite Lee getting all his stuff in and then some, I wouldn’t say the outcome was ever in doubt. Tsuji won with the Gene Blaster in a match that actually got pretty good by the end.

After the match, Tsuji made the rather bold choice to call out NJPW’s owner, Bushiroad, presumably for not paying NJPW’s workers enough. He then called Unbound Co. into the ring (minus Finlay and Kidd, notably) for a farewell to Hiromu. The Knockout Brothers did not seem into it at first, but, in a cute moment, it was later revealed that Yuto was sobbing. Hiromu cut a promo to end the show, indicating that this was not “farewell,” but rather “see you later.” I presume Hiromu is going to WWE with EVIL and Nakamura (which, you know, whatever), but I’d be pleasantly surprised if he showed up in AEW instead.