As is often the case, NJPW dropped a lot of news the day after its major event; here’s a quick rundown of what’s been announced.

The New Beginning USA card finalized

Prior to The New Beginning, a few matches had been announced for The New Beginning USA, which takes place in Trenton, New Jersey, on February 27. A few more were made at The New Beginning, and now a handful of prelim matches have been added to complete the show. Here’s the match order.

1. David Finlay [Unbound Co.] vs. Fred Rosser
2. STRONG Openweight Championship: Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. Boltin Oleg
3. AEW National Championship: Ricochet (c) vs. Taiji Ishimori [Unbound Co.]
4. KUSHIDA & El Desperado vs. Alec Price & Jordan Oliver
5. NJPW World TV Championship: El Phantasmo (c) vs. Konosuke Takeshita [Don Callis Family]
6. IWGP Tag Team Championship: Knockout Brothers (OSKAR & Yuto-Ice) (c) [Unbound Co.] vs. Gates of Agony (Bishop Kaun & Toa Liona)
7. IWGP Women’s Championship: Syuri (c) vs. Athena
8. IWGP Global Championship: Yota Tsuji (c) [Unbound Co.] vs. Andrade el Idolo [United Empire]

This looks like a very good show, perhaps the strongest (no pun intended) American show from top to bottom since before the pandemic. Andrade has been on a real heater lately, so I have high hopes for his match with Tsuji. The Knockout Brothers have been awesome since their return, and Gates of Agony seems like a team with whom they could have a really fun, hard-hitting match. I love the idea of Ishii and Boltin and hope they get the time they need to have a slapper, and Syuri and Athena have a chance to steal the show. Finally, I presume this will be Finlay’s final NJPW match, so it will likely be an emotional moment for him.

New Japan Cup field announced

There are no real surprises in the New Japan Cup field this year (there usually aren’t, for what it’s worth), and while there’s a certain lack of depth in the heavyweight division due to the departures of the past year, the only bottom-of-the-field guys who are in this year and weren’t last year are Hartley Jackson, who’s been elevated from job guy to competitive job guy, and Yujiro Takahashi.

The most notable absence is Gabe Kidd, although this isn’t necessarily a reflection of his status with NJPW, but rather that he’s involved in a program on AEW TV that will likely culminate at the Revolution pay-per-view, which takes place in the middle of this tour on March 15. Still, it’s pretty clear that NJPW is no longer his only, or even his primary focus. Coming just over a year after he defended NJPW in the unforgettable match with Kenny Omega at Wrestle Dynasty (which won the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Match of the Year award this week), that’s a bit of a tough pill to swallow.

As for predictions, it’s obviously noticeable that Shota Umino and Yuya Uemura are on opposite sides of the bracket, and that Umino, in particular, appears to have a cakewalk to the quarterfinals. Personally, I’d like to see literally anyone who’s in that section of the bracket below him advance over him (frankly, I don’t want either Yuto or Oiwa to lose that first-round match), but I don’t expect I’ll get my wish.

Junior title matches announced for Anniversary Event

Finally, NJPW announced that both junior titles will be defended at the 54th Anniversary Event, which this year is also the third show of the New Japan Cup tour on March 6. Those matches are:

• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: DOUKI (c) [House of Torture] vs. Master Wato
• IWGP Junior Tag Team Championship: Ichiban Sweet Boys (Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita) (c) [TMDK] vs. Taiji Ishimori & Robbie X [Unbound Co.]

I don’t have high hopes for the junior title match, given the House of Torture-ness of it all, but the tag match should be fun if it gets some time. I’d expect Tsuji to have a singles match on the show, as well, as the champion typically does at the Anniversary Event; however, since this show is in the middle of the tournament, and the junior champ already has a match – prior to last year, the Anniversary Event main event was traditionally the heavyweight champ versus the junior champ in a non-title match – his list of potential opponents within the company is pretty narrow, basically just the dads and, I guess, the juniors who don’t have anything else to do. Maybe you give it to Tiger Mask on his way out, although I’m not sure about his ability to have a main event-caliber match at this point. We’ll see, I suppose.