{"id":149672,"date":"2025-12-31T05:49:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T10:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=149672"},"modified":"2025-12-31T05:49:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T10:49:34","slug":"iwgp-global-heavyweight-champion-yota-tsuji-delivers-verdict-on-aew-njpw-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/12\/31\/iwgp-global-heavyweight-champion-yota-tsuji-delivers-verdict-on-aew-njpw-partnership\/","title":{"rendered":"IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji Delivers Verdict on AEW\/NJPW Partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"

IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji is clearly not a fan of NJPW’s partnership with AEW. The two promotions started a collaboration in 2021, with both AEW and NJPW’s wrestlers appearing at each other’s events with great regularity. But Tsuji feels that the relationship is lopsided.<\/p>\n

The co-main event matches of Wrestle Kingdom 20<\/a> will feature two of AEW’s biggest talents. Firstly, Tsuji will face off against Konosuke Takeshita in a Winner-Takes-All match. Tsuji will put his Global Heavyweight title on the line, but he will have the chance to win Takeshita’s IWGP World Heavyweight Championship in a bid for double champion status. The other main event will see Hiroshi Tanahashi bring the curtain down on a glittering 25-year career. He will face AEW’s Kazuchika Okada in his final match.<\/p>\n

Yota Tsuji Criticizes Uneven Relationship between AEW and NJPW<\/h2>\n

The prevalence of AEW talent in those main event matches inevitably came up in conversation during Tsuji’s interview for NJPW<\/a> ahead of Wrestle Kingdom, the biggest event on the Japanese wrestling calendar. “I don’t want to lose to AEW. I don’t like AEW,” spat Tsuji. “In all honesty, with the relationship between us the way it is, I’d like us to cut ties with them.<\/p>\n

“What has being with AEW done for NJPW, really? If it were an even-handed relationship, that’s one thing, but it’s not. There’s certainly a difference in terms of the money behind each company, but I don’t see that as a reason to be so weak-willed. This is NJPW, dammit.”<\/p>\n

Tsuji went on to add that he felt that a current NJPW wrestler should’ve been chosen to retire Tanahashi. However, he did recognize that nobody on the current NJPW roster shares the same history with The Ace as Okada. Their rivalry was key to NJPW’s success in the 2010s, delivering one of the most acclaimed feuds in recent wrestling history.<\/p>\n

\"A
Photo Credit: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other big-name rivals of Tanahashi were entertained, such as Tetsuya Naito<\/a>, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Yuji Nagata. But in terms of politics and overall draw, Okada arguably made the most sense in the moment.<\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n

Header photo \u2013 NJPW \u2013 Stay tuned to the\u00a0\u00a0Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on Yota Tsuji 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<\/a>, The King of Sports Streaming.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji is clearly not a fan of NJPW’s partnership with AEW. The two promotions started a collaboration in 2021, with both AEW and NJPW’s wrestlers appearing at each other’s events with great regularity. But Tsuji feels that the relationship is lopsided. The co-main event matches of Wrestle Kingdom 20 will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5450,"featured_media":113029,"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":[13,12,14,2192],"tags":[4361],"class_list":["post-149672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-news","category-njpw","category-wrestling","tag-yota-tsuji"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149672","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\/5450"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149672"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149680,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149672\/revisions\/149680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}