NJPW’s New Japan Soul 2025 tour culminated at Korakuen Hall with a bang. The Junior Heavyweight Champions kept their titles, and the final spot in the G1 Climax 35 was decided. In case you missed it, here are the results of the show.
New Japan Soul Results & Recap
- IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship: El Desperado (c) def. Kosei Fujita
- IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: SHO & DOUKI (c) def. YOH & Master Wato
- G1 Climax 35 Last Chance Play-In Gauntlet: Taichi def. Chase Owens, Satoshi Kojima, & Tomohiro Ishii
- Hiroshi Tanahashi Final Road & Tiger Mask 30th Anniversary: Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Tiger Mask
- Six Man Tag Team Match: Hiromu Takahashi, Yota Tsuji, & Shingo Takagi def. Zack Sabre Jr., Ryohei Oiwa, & Hartley Jackson
- 10 Man Tag Team Match: EVIL, Sanada, Ren Narita, Yujiro Takahashi, & Yoshinobu Kanemaru def. Ryusuke Taguchi, Tomoaki Honma, Boltin Oleg, Yuya Uemura, & Shota Umino
- Kick-off match 2: Katsuya Murashima & Daiki Nagai def. Masatora Yasuda & Shoma Kato
- Kick-off match 1: Zane Jay vs. Tatsuya Matsumoto ~ time limit draw
El Desperado Retains for the Seventh Time
IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion El Desperado submitted Best of the Super Jr. 32 winner Kosei Fujita to remain champion in the main event. This marks Desperado’s seventh successful title defense in his fifth reign as champion. Furthermore, he also beat Fujita for the fourth consecutive time in singles competition.
Fujita got the advantage early on in the match, but Desperado battled back and started inflicting damage on the challenger’s right knee. Their fierce battle ended with the champion locking in Numero Dos and tying up both of Fujita’s arms with his legs to force a verbal tapout.
SHO & DOUKI Pull Out A New “Trick”
SHO & DOUKI prevailed over YOH & Master Wato to keep the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight titles with the House of Torture. They earned their first successful title defense as a tag team, but as is everything with the House, they did it with underhanded tactics.
Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yujiro Takahashi came out to interfere after SHO pushed YOH into referee Marty Asami to break up a pinfall. Fortunately for the challengers, their NEVER Openweight Six-Man tag partner Toru Yano came in for the save and got rid of the two. But the challengers were blindsided when SHO used a metal square sheet to hit both YOH & Wato after the second referee got hit as well to assist DOUKI in picking up the victory.
Taichi Becomes the Final Entrant of G1 Climax 35
One half of the reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions, Taichi, won the Last Chance Gauntlet to take the final spot in the G1 Climax 35. He will compete in the tournament again after two years, after failing to secure a spot via the play-in last year. This year, he won his spot by beating his tag team partner Tomohiro Ishii, replacing Hirooki Goto in the A Block, who had to back out due to an elbow injury.
It came down to the tag team champions after Chase Owens dispatched Satoshi Kojima in the first match and Taichi pinned Owens in their encounter. Ishii had to come out a bit earlier than scheduled to help Taichi because Sanada interfered on behalf of his fellow House of Torture member.
The partners would engage in a hard-hitting match, with Ishii even using Taichi’s signature Black Mephisto. But Taichi showed immense grit and pulled through to get the win over the Stone Pitbull.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – NJPW – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on NJPW New Japan Soul, and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can rewatch all NJPW events and plenty more tremendous wrestling content from New Japan Pro-Wrestling on NJPWWorld.com; The King of Sports Streaming.
