{"id":111883,"date":"2022-03-24T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=111883"},"modified":"2022-03-26T14:38:39","modified_gmt":"2022-03-26T18:38:39","slug":"new-japan-cup-3-26-22-3-27-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/03\/24\/new-japan-cup-3-26-22-3-27-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: NJPW — New Japan Cup Semi-Finals and Final (3\/26\/22 & 3\/27\/22)"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW<\/b>) has been finding its stride since the start of 2022, in large part due to the success of this year\u2019s <\/span>New Japan Cup<\/i><\/b>. The single-elimination tournament has led to some crazy outcomes, stellar moments, and phenomenal matches. It has left fans thinking of the days before COVID-19 when NJPW was as hot as ever and having countless \u201cmatch of the year\u201d candidates time and time again. <\/span><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s <\/span>New Japan Cup<\/span><\/i> is down to four with the reigning, defending IWGP World Heavyweight Champion <\/span>Kazuchika Okada<\/b> having as real a shot as any to win it. He will be facing <\/span>Tetsuya Naito<\/b> in a rematch from February\u2019s IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match at the <\/span>New Years Golden Series<\/i><\/b> where Okada successfully defended his championship. On the other side of the bracket will see <\/span>Shingo Takagi<\/b> try and earn his second trip in a row back to the finals against former Cup winner <\/span>Zack Sabre Jr.<\/b><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at the cards for both nights along with previews for the semi-final matches.<\/span><\/p>\n

New Japan Cup Semi-Finals Card (3\/26\/22)<\/b><\/h2>\n

\u2013 Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato vs. Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, Gedo, Taiji Ishimori & El Desperado
\n<\/span>\u2013 Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano, Togi Makabe vs. Taichi, Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
\n<\/span>\u2013 El Desperado, TAKA Michinoku & DOUKI vs. SHO, EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi
\n<\/span>\u2013 Hirooki Goto, Tomoaki Honma & Tiger Mask vs. CIMA, T-Hawk & El Lindaman
\n<\/span>\u2013 YOH & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb
\n<\/span>\u2013 Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. Will Ospreay & Aaron Henare
\n<\/span>\u2013 New Japan Cup Semi-Final: Shingo Takagi vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
\n<\/span>\u2013 New Japan Cup Semi-Final: Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito<\/p>\n

New Japan Cup Finals Card* (3\/27\/22)<\/b><\/h2>\n

\u2013 BUSHI vs. Kosei Fujita<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Bad Luck Fale, Chase owens, Gedo, Taiji Ishimori & El Desperado vs. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Jado, Ryusuke Taguchi, & Master Wato<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 YOH, Tomohiro Ishii, & Toru Yano vs. Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, & Yoshinobu Kanemaru<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 TAKA Michinoku & El Desperado vs. SHO & Yujiro Takahashi<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Will Ospreay, Great-O-Khan, Aaron Henare, & Jeff Cobb vs. Tomoaki Honma, Togi Makabe, YOSHI-HASHI, & Hirooki Goto<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi vs. EVIL & Dick Togo<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Satoshi Kojima, Tiger Mask, Hiroshi Tanahashi, & Kazuchika Okada vs. CIMA, El Lindaman, T-Hawk, and Tatsumi Fujinami\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 New Japan Cup Final: Tetsuya Naito vs. Zack Sabre Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n

New Japan Cup Semi-Final: Shingo Takagi vs. Zack Sabre Jr.<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"Shingo
All Photos Credit: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Out of the four competitors remaining in the <\/span>New Japan Cup<\/span><\/i>, Shingo Takagi is the only man to have never won it. Well, this could be his year to change that as he was seconds away from doing so last year before falling to<\/span> Will Ospreay<\/b> in the finals. Takagi\u2019s last 365 days have been nothing short of amazing with the<\/span> New Japan Cup<\/span><\/i> really being the launching pad for his eventual rise to the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. Takagi defeated <\/span>Tomohiro Ishii<\/b>, <\/span>Tanga Loa<\/b>, <\/span>Chase Owens<\/b>, and <\/span>Hiromu Takahashi<\/b> to earn his spot in the final four.<\/span><\/p>\n

Opposing him will be none other than the world\u2019s best technician, Zack Sabre Jr. He has been nothing short of crafty (as expected) throughout the tournament, using something new to take down his opponents each and every match. Sabre Jr. was able to defeat Takagi back in last year\u2019s <\/span>G1 Climax <\/i><\/b>but would fail when the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship was put on the line. Sabre Jr. defeated young lion <\/span>Ryohei Oiwa<\/b>, <\/span>DOUKI<\/b>, <\/span>Great-O-Khan<\/b>, and last year\u2019s winner Will Ospreay to get to this point in the<\/span> New Japan Cup<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

These two have faced one another three times in singles action with Takagi having the 2-1 lead in the series. Based on how this tournament has gone and how much damage each man has taken, it really does feel like a 50-50 battle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prediction: Zack Sabre Jr.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

New Japan Cup Semi-Final: Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito<\/b><\/h3>\n

\"Okada<\/p>\n

NJPW fans just saw this match a month ago but they will not complain about getting it for a second time. Kazuchika Okada and Tetsuya Naito delivered another classic encounter between them at <\/span>New Years Golden Series<\/span><\/i> as Naito pulled from the old bag of tricks, hitting a Stardust Press but was unable to pick up the win as \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d survived. It gave Okada the nod in their head-to-head series as six wins to five, making this matchup between the two NJPW greats that much more exciting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Okada has been unstoppable since the <\/span>G1 Climax began <\/span><\/i>last year as his only singles loss since was against <\/span>Tama Tonga<\/b>. He\u2019s defeated everyone else en route to being the IWGP World Champion. \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d is now trying to make more history by winning the<\/span> New Japan Cup<\/span><\/i> as the reigning champion, having gone through an interesting journey to get to this point. Okada defeated IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion<\/span> El Desperado <\/b>in the opening round, following it up with wins over <\/span>Master Wato<\/b>, <\/span>Taichi<\/b>, and <\/span>CIMA<\/b>. It was an unexpected road for the champion but one which leads him to another guaranteed war with Naito.<\/span><\/p>\n

Naito has survived this tournament. That\u2019s all he has done. Naito has yet to defeat anyone with the Destino but instead roll up pins to steal victories left and right. A win is a win and Naito, more than anyone, knows it. The Los Ingobernables de Japon leader has defeated former <\/span>NO LIMIT<\/b> partner<\/span> Yujiro Takahashi<\/b>, <\/span>Gedo<\/b>, <\/span>Hiroshi Tanahashi<\/b>, and <\/span>Jeff Cobb<\/b> to earn another shot at Okada.<\/span><\/p>\n

Will \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d continues his historic run in the <\/span>New Japan Cup<\/span><\/i>? Or will it be Naito tying up the head-to-head series and get payback for the loss last month? It should be another fantastic main event between these two.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prediction: Tetsuya Naito<\/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 rewatch all 2021 NJPW events and plenty more tremendous wrestling content from New Japan Pro-Wrestling on\u00a0NJPWWorld.com<\/a>; The King of Sports Streaming.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) has been finding its stride since the start of 2022, in large part due to the success of this year\u2019s New Japan Cup. The single-elimination tournament has led to some crazy outcomes, stellar moments, and phenomenal matches. It has left fans thinking of the days before COVID-19 when NJPW was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2921,"featured_media":110720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[501,617,2942,781,172],"class_list":["post-111883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-njpw","tag-kazuchika-okada","tag-new-japan-cup","tag-shingo-takagi","tag-tetsuya-naito","tag-zack-sabre-jr"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111883","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=111883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}