{"id":109507,"date":"2022-02-18T15:16:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T20:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=109507"},"modified":"2022-02-18T15:16:06","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T20:16:06","slug":"preview-njpw-new-years-golden-series-2-20-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/02\/18\/preview-njpw-new-years-golden-series-2-20-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: NJPW — New Years Golden Series (2\/20\/22)"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) <\/b>will finish up their first tour of the year Sunday night as it is the final event of the <\/span>New Years Golden Series<\/i><\/b>. The match that everyone has been waiting for main events as<\/span> Kazuchika Okada<\/b> defends the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship against <\/span>Tetsuya Naito<\/b>. Here\u2019s a look at the card, featuring an in-depth preview for the main event.<\/span><\/p>\n

NJPW New Years Golden Series Card:<\/b><\/h2>\n

\u2013 Robbie Eagles, Tiger Mask & Kosei Fujita vs. Taiji Ishimori, El Phantasmo & Jado
\n<\/span>\u2013 Ryohei Oiwa & Tomohiro Ishii vs. DOUKI & Taichi
\n\u2013 Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato vs. El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
\n<\/span>\u2013 Satoshi Kojima vs. Great-O-Khan
\n<\/span>\u2013 Tomoaki Honma, Yuji Nagata, Togi Makabe & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi & SANADA
\n<\/span>\u2013 KOPW 2022 Championship: Minoru Suzuki (c)\u00a0 vs. Toru Yano
\n<\/span>\u2013 NEVER Six-Man Tag Team Championship: YOH, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto (c) vs. SHO, Yujiro Takahashi & EVIL
\n<\/span>\u2013 IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito<\/span><\/p>\n

NJPW New Years Golden Series Match Preview<\/b><\/h2>\n

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito<\/b><\/h3>\n

\"Okada<\/p>\n

There may not be anything better in the current NJPW than a classic matchup. With Kazuchika Okada back on top of the company as the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, he will pave the way and begin that against Tetsuya Naito. Yes, Okada already defeated <\/span>Will Ospreay<\/b> in his first defense on night two of <\/span>Wrestle Kingdom 16<\/i><\/b> but this feels like the first true defense for \u201cThe Rainmaker.\u201d The last time these two faced one another for the top title in NJPW saw Naito walk out as the double champion at <\/span>Wrestle Kingdom 14<\/i><\/b>. He has the last laugh and this will be Naito\u2019s first time challenging since losing those double titles at <\/span>Wrestle Kingdom 15<\/i><\/b>. The leader of Los Ingobernables de Japon has said he isn\u2019t necessarily at the part of his career where he needs to chase gold anymore but there\u2019s something about taking on Okada that drives him to do so here.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s something magical about these two when they face off. It\u2019s bold to say they don\u2019t miss, but Okada and Naito have one of the best series in NJPW and pro wrestling history. Okada feels back more than ever before. Naito still has the greatness in him despite all the injuries. Nobody knows how many more times we will get to see Okada and Naito face off so let\u2019s appreciate this one in the moment. However, \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d isn\u2019t going down as champion this early.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prediction: Kazuchika Okada<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

More from LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Stay tuned to the\u00a0Last 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.\u00a0 You can re-watch all 2021 NJPW events and plenty more tremendous wrestling content from New Japan Pro-Wrestling on\u00a0NJPWWorld.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) will finish up their first tour of the year Sunday night as it is the final event of the New Years Golden Series. The match that everyone has been waiting for main events as Kazuchika Okada defends the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship against Tetsuya Naito. Here\u2019s a look at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2921,"featured_media":110229,"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":[13,14],"tags":[501,8257,781],"class_list":["post-109507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-njpw","tag-kazuchika-okada","tag-new-years-golden-series","tag-tetsuya-naito"],"modified_by":"Scott Edwards","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109507","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\/2921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}