{"id":108629,"date":"2022-01-19T10:24:39","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T15:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=108629"},"modified":"2022-01-19T10:24:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T15:24:39","slug":"first-matches-njpw-strong-rivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/01\/19\/first-matches-njpw-strong-rivals\/","title":{"rendered":"First Matches Set For NJPW STRONG RIVALS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>NJPW STRONG<\/strong> has announced the first matches for the <strong>RIVALS<\/strong> event, which will take place on February 17th in Vermont in Hollywood.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">MASSIVE matches for RIVALS in Hollywood 2\/17!<\/p>\n<p>Buddy Matthews is back, to face Ren Narita!<\/p>\n<p>Gabriel Kidd vs Christopher Daniels!<\/p>\n<p>FinJuice vs JONAH &amp; Bad Dude Tito!<\/p>\n<p>The U-S-of-Jay Open Challenge continues!<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udc40<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zoJc5FBJcj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/zoJc5FBJcj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfab<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mLdQRumUtb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/mLdQRumUtb<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/njpwSTRONG?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#njpwSTRONG<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zAzvwpJ61n\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/zAzvwpJ61n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/njpwglobal\/status\/1483620320263421953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 19, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>NJPW STRONG RIVALS: First Matches Announced<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Ren Narita vs. Buddy Matthews<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Buddy Matthews<\/strong> debuted on STRONG by facing <strong>Kazuchika Okada<\/strong> at <em>Battle in the Valley<\/em> this past November. Now he returns to NJPW\u2019s blue ring as he faces young and hungry <strong>Ren Narita.<\/strong> After a good showing against The Rainmaker, Matthews wants to continue making his presence known by targeting Narita. The LA Dojo representative began 2022 by taking on his mentor, <strong>Katsuyori Shibata<\/strong> in the Tokyo Dome and is scheduled to meet former IWGP Heavyweight title challenger and MMA legend, <strong>Josh Barnett.<\/strong> Now Narita will take on all the different challenges presented by Matthews.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Gabriel Kidd vs. Christopher Daniels<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since his NJPW STRONG debut, Kidd has faced more experienced veterans of the square circle such as <strong>Jonathan Gresham, Eddie Kingston,<\/strong> and <strong>Fred Rosser.<\/strong> Now he will have an opportunity to test himself against <strong>Christopher Daniels,<\/strong> who has decades of experience under his belt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jay White\u2019s U-S-of-Jay Open Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Jay White<\/strong> continues to challenge anyone brave enough to step into the ring with him. Who will answer Jay White\u2019s challenge as he looks to take on America\u2019s greatest Pro Wrestlers?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bad Dude Tito &amp; JONAH vs. David Finlay &amp; Juice Robinson<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Bad Dude Tito<\/strong> will make his NJPW STRONG debut by teaming up with powerful <strong>JONAH,<\/strong> as they take on <strong>FinJuice.<\/strong> This will be the meeting of the experienced tag-team and unstoppable duo of menacing individuals. Will FinJuice come out victorious, or weight and power advantage of Tito and Jonah be too big to overcome?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>More From Last Word On Sports<\/h2>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this 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. MLW FUSION airs every Wednesday on fubo Sports Network and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/majorleaguewrestling\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a> at 7 PM EST and every Saturday on beIN SPORTS at 10 PM EST.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NJPW STRONG has announced the first matches for the RIVALS event, which will take place on February 17th in Vermont in Hollywood.\u00a0 MASSIVE matches for RIVALS in Hollywood 2\/17! Buddy Matthews is back, to face Ren Narita! Gabriel Kidd vs Christopher Daniels! FinJuice vs JONAH &amp; Bad Dude Tito! The U-S-of-Jay Open Challenge continues! \ud83d\udc40https:\/\/t.co\/zoJc5FBJcj [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4054,"featured_media":108642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12,14,6],"tags":[6981,8047,236,1699,5921,3608,181,5915,625,1907],"class_list":["post-108629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-news","category-njpw","category-north-america","tag-bad-dude-tito","tag-buddy-matthews","tag-christopher-daniels","tag-david-finlay","tag-finjuice","tag-gabriel-kidd","tag-jay-white","tag-jonah","tag-juice-robinson","tag-ren-narita"],"modified_by":"Dominic Padula","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4054"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}