{"id":26139,"date":"2018-09-17T14:45:58","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T18:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=26139"},"modified":"2018-09-26T00:27:05","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T04:27:05","slug":"andnew-taichi-wins-never-openweight-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/09\/17\/andnew-taichi-wins-never-openweight-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"#AndNEW: Taichi wins NEVER Openweight Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an Openweight title, right? It should be mine. So I can make it interesting\u201d are the words from <strong>Taichi<\/strong> this Summer and he achieved his goal by defeating <strong>Hirooki<\/strong> <strong>Goto<\/strong> for the <strong>NEVER<\/strong> <strong>Openweight<\/strong> <strong>Championship<\/strong> at <em><strong>NJPW<\/strong> <strong>New<\/strong> <strong>Destruction<\/strong> <strong>In<\/strong> <strong>Beppu<\/strong><\/em>. Hirooki Goto had been a fighting champion all year, trading the NEVER Openweight Championship with <strong>Michael<\/strong> <strong>Elgin<\/strong> but regaining it at <strong>New<\/strong> <strong>Japan<\/strong> <strong>Pro<\/strong> <strong>Wrestling<\/strong> (NJPW) <em><strong>Kizuna<\/strong> <strong>Road<\/strong><\/em>. Taichi, one of the most hated rulebreakers from the <strong>Suzuki<\/strong>&#8211;<strong>Gun<\/strong> faction, pinned Hirooki Goto with an Air Raid Crash at the same event headlined by <strong>Tetsuya<\/strong> <strong>Naito<\/strong> vs <strong>Minoru<\/strong> <strong>Suzuki<\/strong>. This is the first singles championship win in the career of Taichi in NJPW, Taichi&#8217;s valet <strong>Miho<\/strong> <strong>Abe<\/strong> celebrated after the match with Taichi as she was left in tears of joy.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/MrLARIATO\/status\/1041649708949798912<\/p>\n<h1>Taichi wins NEVER Openweight Championship<\/h1>\n<p>Since the creation of the NEVER Openweight Championship in NJPW in 2010, there have rarely been Openweight matches featuring Junior Heavyweights or Young Lions against Heavyweight veterans but that could all change with Taichi as the new champion. The championship was invented to establish young and hungry talent but it quickly became a secondary title in NJPW, much like the IWGP Intercontinental championship. For years now, brawlers like <strong>Tomohiro<\/strong> <strong>Ishii<\/strong> have chased after the NEVER Openweight Championship. The title was conceived though with talent outside of NJPW also in mind, so perhaps Taichi will defend his title against outsiders in the very near future. The idea of Junior Heavyweights like <strong>Will<\/strong> <strong>Ospreay<\/strong> battling for the NEVER Openweight Championship is a very intriguing concept, especially considering men like <strong>KUSHIDA<\/strong> have been in the Junior division comfort zone for too long and they have voiced their concerns about getting the chance to mix it up with the Heavyweight division.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/taichi0319?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@taichi0319<\/a> &quot;Taichi-style Last Ride&quot;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NJPWWorld?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NJPWWorld<\/a> Watch now\u25b6\ufe0e<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Tj7UBJ4PjP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/Tj7UBJ4PjP<\/a>   <br \/>9.17 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/njpw?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#njpw<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/njdest?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#njdest<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OILLsVV9Q4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/OILLsVV9Q4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NJPW WORLD (@njpwworld) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/njpwworld\/status\/1041658251090128896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 17, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>2002 was the debut year of Taichi in pro wrestling, trained by legends <strong>Toshiaki<\/strong> <strong>Kawada<\/strong> and <strong>Hiroshi<\/strong> <strong>Hase<\/strong>. Taichi has won the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship for <strong>Pro<\/strong> <strong>Wrestling<\/strong> <strong>NOAH<\/strong>, the <strong>CMLL<\/strong> Trios championship and the IWGP Junior tag team championships in his career but this win over Goto is the biggest victory of Taichi&#8217;s career. There was a lot of speculation that Taichi would be entered into this year\u2019s <em><strong>G1<\/strong> <strong>Climax<\/strong> <strong>28<\/strong><\/em> tournament, that wasn\u2019t to be. Taichi in the G1 Climax tournament a sure thing next year now that Taichi has become a champion in NJPW.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/judekilgour\/status\/1041730886654414848<\/p>\n<p>It was at this year\u2019s <em><strong>New<\/strong> <strong>Japan<\/strong> <strong>Cup<\/strong><\/em> tournament that Taichi broke out of the confines of the Junior division for Heavyweight competition. <strong>Hiroshi<\/strong> <strong>Tanahashi<\/strong> brought out the best of Taichi in that tournament and \u201cThe Ace\u201d even suffered one of the most dangerous moves in all of pro wrestling, the Gonzo Bomb. <strong>Tetsuya<\/strong> <strong>Naito<\/strong> feuded with Taichi next and the microphone stand that Taichi uses was even broken over Taichi\u2019s head at the <em><strong>NJPW<\/strong> <strong>46th<\/strong> <strong>Anniversary<\/strong><\/em>. Those major losses put a big chip on the shoulder of Taichi, all of that frustration was taken out on Goto. We can be guaranteed lots of fresh matches with Taichi as the new champion and the true spirit of the Openweight origins of the NEVER Openweight Championship can be explored in 2018 and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an Openweight title, right? It should be mine. So I can make it interesting\u201d are the words from Taichi this Summer and he achieved his goal by defeating Hirooki Goto for the NEVER Openweight Championship at NJPW New Destruction In Beppu. Hirooki Goto had been a fighting champion all year, trading the NEVER Openweight [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2001,"featured_media":26162,"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":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,14],"tags":[676,2869,1030,3458,1029,3455,190,339,3459,620,2621,3454,617,385,188,3456,677,483,1866,781,628,3457,101],"class_list":["post-26139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international","category-njpw","tag-cmll","tag-g1-climax-28","tag-hirooki-goto","tag-hiroshi-hase","tag-hiroshi-tanahashi","tag-kizuna-road","tag-kushida","tag-michael-elgin","tag-miho-abe","tag-minoru-suzuki","tag-never-openweight-championship","tag-new-beginning-in-beppu","tag-new-japan-cup","tag-new-japan-pro-wrestling","tag-njpw","tag-njpw-46th-anniversary","tag-pro-wrestling-noah","tag-suzuki-gun","tag-taichi","tag-tetsuya-naito","tag-tomohiro-ishii","tag-toshiaki-kawada","tag-will-ospreay"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26139","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\/2001"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}