In the wake of the New Japan Cup final, here’s a quick look at some of the most recent news in New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

Sakura Genesis and “Junior Genesis” cards announced

NJPW has announced the full card for Sakura Genesis, which will take place on April 4, 2026, at Ryogoku Sumo Hall in Tokyo.

1. KUSHIDA & Masatora Yasuda vs. Tatsuya Matsumoto & Taisei Nakahara
2. Togi Makabe & Tiger Mask vs. Hartley Jackson & Kosei Fujita [TMDK]
3. Shingo Takagi, Taiji Ishimori & Robbie X [Unbound Co.] vs. Jake Lee, Francesco Akira & Jakob Austin Young [United Empire]
4. Aaron Wolf, YOH, Toru Yano & Master Wato vs. Don Fale, DOUKI, SHO & Yoshinobu Kanemaru [House of Torture]
5. NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship: Boltin Oleg & Bishimon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) (c) vs. Ren Narita, Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens [House of Torture]
6. NJPW World TV Championship: Konosuke Takeshita (c) vs. Shota Umino
7. IWGP Tag Team Championship: Knockout Brothers (Yuto-Ice & OSKAR) [Unbound Co.] (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa [TMDK]
8. IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Yota Tsuji [Unbound Co.] (c) vs. Callum Newman [United Empire]

There are maybe a couple more preview/fallout(?) tags than I’d like on a major show, but it feels like something might have fallen through due to injuries, since the trios title program leading up to this show seemed to involve the Taichi/Kojima subfaction, perhaps with the hope that Ishii would be ready for this show; however, with Kojima now also injured, it seems it was not meant to be. Regardless, the top three matches on this show should be great.

Two days before Sakura Genesis, NJPW will hold “Junior Genesis” (officially Road to Sakura Genesis, Night 4) at Korakuen Hall.

1. Shota Umino & Tiger Mask vs. KUSHIDA & Masatora Yasuda
2. Konosuke Takeshita vs. Tetsuya Matsumoto
3. Yuya Uemura, Taichi & El Desperado vs. GBH (Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma) & Master Wato
4. Boltin Oleg, Bishimon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI), Aaron Wolf & Toru Yano vs. Ren Narita, Yujiro Takahashi, Chase Owens, Don Fale & Yoshinobu Kanemaru [House of Torture]
5. Knockout Brothers (Yuto-Ice & OSKAR) & Gedo [Unbound Co.] vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Ryohei Oiwa & Hartley Jackson [TMDK]
6. Yota Tsuji, Shingo Takagi & Daiki Nagai [Unbound Co.] vs. Callum Newman, Jake Lee & Zane Jay [United Empire]
7. IWGP Junior Tag Team Championship: Taiji Ishimori & Robbie X [Unbound Co.] (c) vs. Francesco Akira & Jakob Austin Young [United Empire]
8. IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: DOUKI [House of Torture] (c) vs. YOH

So, yeah – a standard “Road to” show aside from the top two matches. The tag title match should be pretty good, but I don’t have high hopes for the main event. I do like that they’re giving the juniors a chance to shine, albeit on a smaller stage – this is preferable to them getting less time lower on the Sakura Genesis card. Now, if they’d just get the title off DOUKI so we can have good title matches again, that would be great.

Best of the Super Juniors entrants to be announced starting Saturday

The field for this year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament will be announced starting on Saturday, March 28; three wrestlers will be announced each day until the following Saturday at Sakura Genesis, when the final two wrestlers and the block assignments will be announced. It’s probably going to be a tiny bit anticlimactic, as these things always are – after all, most of the field is pretty obvious – but I have to admit that I do love the announcement videos. The voiceover guy’s boundless enthusiasm for the babyfaces and grave misgivings about the heels pop me every time.

Rumor roundup

Despite the fact that most of the BOSJ field is obvious, the last few entries could provide some intrigue – Voices of Wrestling (VOW) is reporting that NJPW has signed two new juniors to full-time deals. One of them is Dragon Dia, which is really only surprising insomuch as it means he’s leaving Dragongate, which has been his home promotion for his entire career up to this point; however, by some accounts, there’s growing discontent between the wrestlers and management in Dragongate, so someone like Dia leaving isn’t quite as far-fetched as it would have seemed in the past. Dia is familiar to NJPW fans, as he has participated in both the Best of the Super Juniors and the Super Junior Tag League each of the past two years, so the transition likely will not be difficult. Dia is only 27, is very good in the ring, and has gotten over in NJPW every time he’s appeared there, even though he only had middling success in his tournament appearances thus far, so this signing makes a lot of sense.

The other wrestler VOW is reporting has signed is KUUKAI, who first appeared in NJPW last October and has been El Desperado’s regular tag team partner ever since. He is a Michinoku Pro trainee and worked a lot in Mexico from 2023 to 2025. He’s 32, so he’s not a spring chicken, and his pedigree is not exactly the kind that would suggest he’ll find a great deal of success in NJPW, but you could have said the same thing about DOUKI when he came to NJPW (although DOUKI was much younger than KUUKAI is). Still, bringing in new faces is a good thing, and the junior division has needed some for a while.

VOW also reports that NJPW is actively recruiting, with a focus on Japanese freelancers. This makes perfect sense – it’s become clear that wrestlers who live in the West are no longer reliable long-term for NJPW (for the most part – we’ll have to see what happens with Callum Newman, but I’m not sure I’d count on him being around for the long haul), so instead of continuing to bang its head against that wall, and instead of continuing to depend on its achingly slow developmental process, NJPW is apparently hoping to bring in some people who they can depend on. This is a step in the right direction and a way NJPW can make the company healthier in the long run. Also, as I mentioned before, it’s good to have new faces come in from time to time.

Finally, Fightful reports that both EVIL and Hiromu Takahashi are expected to sign with WWE. This was obviously EVIL’s destination – he is in a long-term relationship with WWE’s Iyo Sky, and it makes sense that they’d want to live in the same hemisphere; also, AEW’s Tony Khan has made it pretty clear that he’s not a fan of EVIL’s work, so if EVIL is moving to the U.S., it’s WWE or bust if he wants to work for a decent-sized wrestling promotion. Takahashi’s destination was not as obvious, but he and EVIL have been close friends since the dojo, so it makes a certain amount of sense that they’d be a package deal, especially when moving to a foreign country, albeit one where both guys have lived in the past. They’re expected to start in NXT (good luck), and if they can escape from that particular vortex, which doesn’t often give up guys who are in their mid- to late 30s, then WWE is supposedly considering putting them in a faction led by Shinsuke Nakamura; I can hardly imagine that a faction led by a Japanese man in his mid 40s who hasn’t been pushed as a real threat since 2018 is going to shoot them to the top, but whatever. I like both guys, and I hope they get what they want out of this experience.