An angle ran on tonight’s NJPW G1 Climax 30 card that saw Will Ospreay turn on fellow CHAOS stablemate Kazuchika Okada, aligning himself with the returning Tomoyuki Oka.
Towards the finish of the match between Ospreay and Okada, Okada had Ospreay in his money clip submission. It was then that Bea Priestley, Ospreay’s girlfriend, jumped on the apron and distracted the referee. This allowed Oka to run in and lay out Okada with a claw slam. Ospreay followed with the stormbreaker for the win.
After the match, Ospreay seemed confused by what had just transpired. After talking to Priestley, Ospreay returned to the ring and laid out Okada with the hidden blade, turning on him. He threw a number of expletives at Okada and said that Okada had held him back. He, Priestley, and Oka then left together as Okada was being tended to.
Oka had been on excursion since 2018 in the United Kingdom, working for Rev Pro under the name Great-O-Khan.
The sixth edition of the Lion’s Gate Project took place this morning at Shinjuku Face. Let’s take a look at the young lions New Japan currently has on their roster, along with a smattering of other young talent from other promotions.
El Desperado defeated Tetsuhiro Yagi
Yagi is the latest New Japan young lion, making his debut on May 9th on the last Lion’s Gate show. He worked a lot during both the Best of the Super Juniors and Dominion tours and looked pretty solid in what he did, improving each time I saw him.
If he bulked up a bit more, he could be a heavyweight, something that until recently New Japan was lacking as far as young talent went. He looked green in this match, but definitely has improved in the last month. Desperado won with his new submission finish, the stretch muffler.
Jado & Gedo defeated Shota Umino & Hirai Kawato
Kawato has been wrestling for about a year and a half, making his debut last January. He’s always struck me as the one who personifies the “fighting spirit” aspect of what New Japan expects in their young lions — he’s always confrontational and does everything in his power to win. He’s progressed very well in the last year and could be a standout junior heavyweight wrestler in a few years.
Umino is the son of Red Shoes, aka Hirooki Unno, a referee for NJPW. He started back in April, and has also shown advancement in the couple months he’s been wrestling. Not a total standout yet, but he has plenty of time to improve. He took the fall in this match, submitting to Jado’s crossface in a decent bout.
Dinosaur Takuma has been wrestling for Kaientai Dojo since 2015. His gimmick, as you may notice by the name, is coming to the ring with a dinosaur tail and carrying a bone with him. Wrestlers usually do spots with him like grabbing his tail to get heat.
Nomura is a wrestler from Big Japan Pro Wrestling and has wrestled in various promotions such as All Japan and Zero One since his debut last April.
Takuma lost the match for his team, submitting to Tenzan’s Anaconda Vice. I think Takuma has a gimmick that could work pretty well wherever he goes. I’ve heard good things about Nomura, but here he just seemed like a guy who has very good basics.
Manabu Nakanishi defeated Katsuya Kitamura
Kitamura is an accomplished amateur wrestler who made his debut back in March. He immediately stands out as being one of the bigger young lions in some time; at 6’0 and 265 pounds it’s very clear he’s a heavyweight, and one with potential future star power. With an impressive tan and jacked to the gills, once his young lion tenure is over there’s no doubt he’ll be fast tracked into a main event-level position.
Nakanishi has been a mentor to him, so it made sense for them to have a match here. The match wasn’t that great, though — Nakanishi moved slower than usual and just didn’t look good. Kitamura looked fine enough. Nakanishi picked up the submission win with the torture rack.
YOSHI-HASHI defeated Yuma Aoyagi
Aoyagi has been wrestling for All Japan since 2014. He also represented them in the Super J-Cup last year. He looked good then, and looked better here today. He’s someone to watch outside of New Japan as he’s really good, at least a standout here on a show with relatively green workers.
He sold a ton for YOSHI-HASHI, enough that the crowd got into the match. YH put him in a lot of submissions and Aoyagi refused to tap, each time making it to the ropes. Aoyagi finally made a quick comeback, but YOSHI-HASHI cut him off with a clothesline and then sunk in the butterfly lock for the submission win.
One of the All Japan young lions had words with YOSHI-HASHI after the match.
Ayato Yoshida & Satoshi Kojima defeated Tomoyuki Oka & Yuji Nagata
I don’t know much about Yoshida other than he’s been wrestling since 2015 and was representing Kaientai Dojo here tonight. He’s been on other Lion’s Gate shows before.
Oka is an accomplished amateur wrestler that Nagata is really high on, bringing him into the dojo and and teaming with him off and on during tours. He doesn’t have a physique like Kitamura’s, but he’s still tall and is currently pegged for big things in his future.
Yoshida looked good in the time he was in here. Oka as well — since his official debut in February he’s turned into a pretty good worker. He has a big chance to break out as well because while he does not have Kitamura’s body, he still has the size to make it far.
After a solid back-and-forth affair, Kojima and Oka were in the ring and traded some good action with one another until Kojima hit the lariat for the win. Yoshida got in Nagata’s face after the match as he attacked him. Nagata no sold it and laid him out with some slaps, sending him on his way.
Here are results from this morning’s Lion’s Gate Project 5 show, a collaboration between New Japan and other promotions held at Shinjuku Face:
Hirai Kawato defeated Tetsuhiro Yagi
Yagi is another New Japan young lion making his debut here. There seem to be a lot of new lions coming out of the system lately. For his first match, he looked perfectly fine. It was a short match overall, and fine for what it was. Kawato submitted Yagi with the Boston crab.
El Desperado defeated Syota Umino
This felt pretty long and plodding. Desperado worked a lot of the match. He’s not a bad worker, but he’s not someone I would call special. He eventually won with the Guitarra de Angel.
Takumura is from Kaientai Dojo, with his gimmick being an actual dinosaur, complete with tail. Sugiura is from FREEDOMS and currently holds the King of FREEDOM tag titles with Mammoth Sasaki. Tenzan submitted Takumura while Sugiura kept Tiger Mask busy on the outside in a pretty solid match.
YOSHI-HASHI defeated Daisuke Kanehira
This was fine. YOSHI-HASHI dominated a lot of the match early on, but Kanehira (who is from HEAT UP) made a comeback. This was another solid match overall, with YOSHI-HASHI gaining the submission win with the butterfly lock.
Satoshi Kojima defeated Ayato Yoshida
Yoshida is also from Kaientai Dojo. They had another solid match, like many others on this card. It felt just kind of there crowd-wise.
Lo and behold, this too was just a solid match, nothing more, nothing less. All of the matches tonight were pretty basic, though nothing was terrible. Oka and Kitamura looked good here and could totally be stars in a few year’s time if given the right direction. Both are really green, but it’s easy to see their potential, even beyond the impressive size.
I attended last night’s New Japan Pro Wrestling Fan Festival to promote Wrestle Kingdom 11 and here are some various thoughts.
– I haven’t been to a WWE Axcess yet so I can’t compare the two but this was well organized. There were plenty of long lines for talent doing autographs and pictures, especially for Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada. Due to those lines, time was very short for people to spend with them, leading to a very quick in and out situation. Nobody seemed disappointed or upset however.
– Gedo beating Kazuchika Okada at Tekken following the official reveal of the NJPW content in the upcoming Tekken 7 game was a sight to behold. Many popped when he won while some playfully booed.
– Cody received a pretty big ovation when he made his entrance and cut a promo on Juice Robinson.
– All three matches held featured veterans against young lions which included the anticipated debut of Tomoyuki Oka:
> Yuji Nagata defeated Tomoyuki Oka via submission with a crossface
I thought this was a great debut for Oka. He has plenty of room for improvement but he showed great poise and looked comfortable as could be out there. Nagata took him down right away but he countered into an armlock which got an audible gasp from the crowd. Oka kept attempting a kimura which Nagata prevented with stiff slaps to the face, laying them in any chance he got. Oka tried standing with him only to be lit up with kicks everywhere imaginable.
Midway through, Oka won the crowd over and you could see Kidani going nuts over him as he watched from the floor. Oka hit a belly to belly suplex and locked in the young lion’s crab. Crowd went crazy thinking he would actually pull off the upset. A mid-ring exchange of forearms saw Oka drop Nagata for a close nearfall. Eventually, Nagata powered up and gained a nearfall with vicious body kicks. Nagata delivered an Xploder transitioned into the crossface and Oka was forced to submit.
> Manabu Nakanishi defeated Henare
This was a battle of World Tag League partners. Just from the tournament to this match, Henare showed nice improvement. Manabu was in molasses mode but they still had a decent match.
Story was Nakanishi being too powerful for Henare to get an advantage on. He hit a shoulder tackle out of the gate and beat Henare down with headbutts and chops galore. Henare took over when Nakanishi missed a kneedrop following a corner clothesline. Henare went after the knee with several kicks but Nakanishi refused to go down.
After several failed attempts, Henare finally suplexed Nakanishi to a good pop. A shoulder block was followed by the crab but Nakanishi powered out. Henare escaped the Torture Rack and got a nearfall off a rollup. Nakanishi delivered an ax handle that was nicely executed. He followed up with the Hercules Cutter out of the Rack for the pinfall.
> Jushin Liger and Tiger Mask IV defeated Hirai Kawato and Rysuke Taguchi
Solid match as Liger and Tiger were great as the grizzled, cranky vets that Kawato annoyed and gave many fits. Kawato worked the majority of the match and is still very, very green. I was more impressed with him here though than his World Tag League tour outings. Kawato worked over Liger in the corner until Jushin had enough and nearly caved in his face with a palm strike.
Taguchi tagged in as did Tiger and they had a nice series. Taguchi went into ass attack mode but Tiger avoided it and delivered a backbreaker. Liger threw Taguchi onto the floor, hit a baseball slide, and then locked in the Romero Special.
Liger worked on the neck and tagged in Tiger. They worked Taguchi over but he mounted a comeback in full ass attack mode. Kawato tagged back in but was immediately drilled with kicks from Tiger. Liger tossed him outside and threw him into a barricade. Just to show how grumpy he was, Liger then wacked Kawato with a chair a few times.
Kawato rallied as he and Taguchi dispatched Liger with an ass attack/dropkick combination. Kawato slammed Tiger for a nearfall. Liger broke up the young lion’s crab on Tiger and the action broke down.
Kawato hit a missile dropkick on Tiger for a nearfall. He went for another dropkick but Tiger moved and he nailed Taguchi. Kawato survived the Tiger Driver but a Tiger Suplex put him away for the pinfall.
The final few minutes of this were excellent. Another match where the crowd bought into the rookie upset win.
