{"id":137519,"date":"2025-07-04T04:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T08:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=137519"},"modified":"2025-07-04T10:09:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T14:09:01","slug":"njpw-new-japan-soul-2025-preview-7-4-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/07\/04\/njpw-new-japan-soul-2025-preview-7-4-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"NJPW New Japan Soul 2025 Preview (7\/4\/2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The penultimate show of NJPW\u2019s New Japan Soul 2025 tour takes place at the Tokyo Budokan this Friday, July 4 at 6:30 p.m. JST\/5:30 a.m. ET. It will be aired live on <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/watch.njpwworld.com\/live-event\/58498\/details?playlist_id=23\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NJPW World<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The card is bannered by two title matches and the last two play-in matches to fill the last two spots in the G1 Climax 35.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 664px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.njpw.co.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/20250704_NJS_004.jpg\" alt=\"NJPW New Japan Soul preview graphic featuring Hiroshi Tanahashi and Gabe Kidd\" width=\"664\" height=\"374\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NJPW New Japan Soul preview graphic featuring Hiroshi Tanahashi and Gabe Kidd Credit: New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Full New Japan Soul Match Card<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship: Gabe Kidd (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championship: SHO &amp; Yujiro Takahashi &amp; Ren Narita (c) vs. Toru Yano &amp; YOH &amp; Master Wato<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">G1 Climax 35 B-Block Play-in: YOSHI-HASHI vs. Chase Owens<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">G1 Climax 35 A-Block Play-in: Satoshi Kojima vs. Ryohei Oiwa<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Six Man Tag Team Match: Boltin Oleg &amp; Yuya Uemura &amp; El Desperado vs. Zack Sabre Jr. &amp; Kosei Fujita &amp; Hartley Jackson<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Six Man Tag Team Match: Hiromu Takahashi &amp; Yota Tsuji &amp; Shingo Takagi vs. Jakob Austin Young &amp; Callum Newman &amp; Great O-Khan<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10 Man Tag Team Match: Tiger Mask &amp; Yuji Nagata &amp; Taichi &amp; Tomohiro Ishii &amp; Shota Umino vs. Dick Togo &amp; Yoshinobu Kanemaru &amp; DOUKI &amp; Sanada &amp; EVIL<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kick off match 2: Masatora Yasuda &amp; Shoma Kato vs. Daiki Nagai &amp; Katsuya Murashima<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kick off match 1: Tatsuya Matsumoto vs. Zane Jay<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Clash of Generations Between Kojima and Oiwa<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The last spot on the A Block for G1 Climax 35 will be contested between two different generations of New Japan. On the one hand is the living legend Satoshi Kojima, who is looking to compete in the tournament for the 17th time. On the other side is Ryohei Oiwa, who is looking to enter it for the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kojima won the G1 back in 2010, when Oiwa was just about to turn 12 years old. Although Oiwa is the younger wrestler, he will still have to defeat a very motivated Kojima, who has proven that he still has a lot left in the tank by winning titles in NOAH and MLW in the past three years.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>YOSHI-HASHI and Chase Owens Meet Again<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both YOSHI-HASHI and Chase Owens were in the qualifying tournament for G1 Climax 34 last year. They faced each other in the first round, and YOSHI-HASHI emerged victorious. This year, they will be fighting again, but in a win-or-go-home situation for the last B Block spot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">YOSHI-HASHI looks to enter the G1 for only the fourth time, something he hasn\u2019t done since 2023. Standing in his way is one of House of Torture\u2019s newest members, who is seeking to make his G1 debut.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>NEVER Six-Man Battle<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Speaking of House of Torture, they will defend the NEVER Six-Man Tag Team Championship against familiar foes. Toru Yano, YOH, &amp; Master Wato will challenge the champions for their second defense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This match serves as a prelude to the Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship rematch on Sunday between SHO &amp; DOUKI and former champs YOH &amp; Master Wato. DOUKI shocked everyone when he returned from injury at Dominion to join HoT and then win the Jr. tag titles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Expect HoT to not only focus on defending the Six-Man tag titles, but also to exploit a weakness that can give the Junior Tag Team champions an advantage on Sunday. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, Yano is presented with an opportunity for revenge because he was part of the team that lost the titles to HoT. Aside from that, he\u2019s also looking to become a seven-time holder of the Six-Man titles.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The Ace Looks to Add Another Accolade<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the main event, Bullet Club\u2019s Gabe Kidd will defend the Global Championship for the first time against Hiroshi Tanahashi. The challenger has won every IWGP singles title, the NEVER Openweight title, and the TV Championship. The only one left to collect is the Global Championship, which was introduced at Wrestle Kingdom last year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gabe Kidd is on a mission to stamp his mark in the cerulean blue ring\u2019s history, and he knows that he has to beat Tanahashi to do that, so he challenged him after beating Yota Tsuji at Dominion. Can the new champion continue to shine in the spotlight, or did the War Dog bite more than he can chew?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><span class=\"s1\">Header photo \u2013 NJPW \u2013 Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> 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.\u00a0 You can rewatch all NJPW events and plenty more tremendous wrestling content from New Japan Pro-Wrestling on <a href=\"http:\/\/njpwworld.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NJPWWorld.com<\/a>; The King of Sports Streaming.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The penultimate show of NJPW\u2019s New Japan Soul 2025 tour takes place at the Tokyo Budokan this Friday, July 4 at 6:30 p.m. JST\/5:30 a.m. ET. It will be aired live on NJPW World. The card is bannered by two title matches and the last two play-in matches to fill the last two spots in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5576,"featured_media":137533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[14,2192],"tags":[8965,1029,9441],"class_list":["post-137519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-njpw","category-wrestling","tag-gabe-kidd","tag-hiroshi-tanahashi","tag-new-japan-soul"],"modified_by":"Chinyere Okafor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137519","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\/5576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137519"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137548,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137519\/revisions\/137548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}