{"id":32724,"date":"2018-12-30T11:59:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-30T16:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=32724"},"modified":"2019-01-11T16:55:50","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T21:55:50","slug":"newjapanweek-gang-warfare-18-los-ingobernables-de-japon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/12\/30\/newjapanweek-gang-warfare-18-los-ingobernables-de-japon\/","title":{"rendered":"#NewJapanWeek: Gang Warfare ’18: Los Ingobernables De Japon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coming into 2018,it looked like the popular\u00a0Los Ingobernables De Japon\u00a0<\/strong>would take over Japan.\u00a0 Leader\u00a0Tetsuya Naito\u00a0<\/strong>was heavily favored to end\u00a0Kazuchika Okada’s\u00a0<\/strong>legendary title run,\u00a0Hiromu Takahashi\u00a0<\/strong>was the most popular Junior heavyweight in the company and breakout years were predicted\u00a0for\u00a0EVIL\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0SANADA<\/strong>.\u00a0 The year of LIJ did not pan out as expected but the group still had highlights and a strong focus throughout the year.<\/p>\n

Tetsuya Naito<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Photo: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the biggest night of his career, Naito could not get the job done, having finally made it to the main event of Wrestle Kingdom he failed to beat Okada as he let the emotion of the moment get to him.\u00a0 The very next night at\u00a0New Year Dash\u00a0<\/strong>he was on the receiving end of an attack from\u00a0Chris Jericho<\/strong>, a grudge that will be settled on January 4th at the Tokyo Dome.\u00a0 A loss to\u00a0Zack Sabre Junior\u00a0<\/strong>in the New Japan Cup left the popular star relatively aimless heading into\u00a0Sakura Genesis,<\/strong> one of the big 4 NJPW shows, it was here that the feud with\u00a0Suzuki Gun\u00a0<\/strong>began as Naito, EVIL and SANADA faced Minoru Suzuki and KillerElite Squad (Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Lance Archer)<\/strong>.\u00a0 After the match, Naito challenged Suzuki to a match for the\u00a0IWGP Intercontinental Championship<\/strong>.\u00a0 At the Hinokuni<\/strong> event in April Naito defeated Suzuki to win the Intercontinental title, a belt he hates and loathes in a match that was met with harsh criticism\u00a0by fans and reviewers.\u00a0 After months with little direction, Naito was thrust into the spotlight when Jericho came back to challenge Naito to an IC title match at\u00a0Dominion 6.9<\/strong>, NJPW’s second biggest event of the year.<\/p>\n

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Photo: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a surprising move, Jericho won the title leaving Naito with one clear path to greatness, win the\u00a0G1 Climax.\u00a0<\/strong>Despite the months of aimlessness,\u00a0fans made it clear who they wanted to see win the tournament.\u00a0 In a disappointing move, Naito finished fourth in the B Block, once again losing to Sabre, and losing to\u00a0Kota Ibushi\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Kenny Omega\u00a0<\/strong>in high profile matches.\u00a0 Since then it has been back to fighting Suzuki Gun as he defeated Suzuki again during the\u00a0Destruction\u00a0<\/strong>tour and finally managed to defeat ZSJ at\u00a0Power Struggle.\u00a0<\/strong>Since the G1 Naito has won two high profile singles matches as NJPW are firing him up for his Wrestle Kingdom rematch with Jericho when the two collide for the Intercontinental Championship.\u00a0 Overall, this has been a poor year for Naito and many LIJ fans have been left frustrated with his treatment but he still\u00a0has a big match at the Tokyo Dome and is still the hottest act in the company.\u00a0 2018 wasn’t what we expected but 2019 could be his year!<\/p>\n

Hiromu Takahashi<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Photo: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Takahashi came into this year as the most popular Junior heavyweight on the roster, and it wasn’t even close, despite failing to win the title at Wrestle Kingdom and New Beginnings, both matches were won by\u00a0Will Ospreay<\/strong> fans were still clamoring to see the Ticking Time Bomb reclaim his title.\u00a0 He spent a few months teaming with\u00a0BUSHI\u00a0<\/strong>chasing the\u00a0IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships<\/strong>.\u00a0 Again he failed to emerge victoriously\u00a0but hope was high heading into the\u00a0Best Of The Super Juniors<\/strong>.\u00a0 Takahashi had amazing matches as he won B Block ahead of\u00a0Marty Scurll, KUSHIDA, Dragon Lee<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Ryusuke Taguchi<\/strong>.\u00a0 In the final against\u00a0Taiji Ishimori\u00a0<\/strong>Takahashi delivered a Match Of The Year Contender and won the prestigious BOSJ tournament.\u00a0 At Dominion 6.9 Takahashi once again tore the house down with Will Ospreay as he finally reclaimed his beloved belt-san.\u00a0 Takahashi’s year had an unfortunate end after a botched Phoenix Plex from his arch-rival\u00a0Dragon Lee.\u00a0<\/strong>The exact injury suffered by Takahashi is still unknown but we have not seen him in a ring since.\u00a0 A sad end to the year for Takahashi who had been on a Wrestler Of The Year level run and was close to surpassing Naito in terms of popularity.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/justinenriquez_\/status\/1016072962670129152<\/p>\n

Shingo Takagi<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Photo: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With Takahashi out injured LIJ was in need of another Junior heavyweight member.\u00a0 On October 1st, Naito announced they would be adding a new “pareja” and that LIJ would move forward without Hiromu.\u00a0 On October 8th “The Dragon” Shingo Takagi debuted as the new member of Los Ingobernables De Japon.\u00a0 Since his debut, Takagi has been a great addition as he has made an immediate impact in the Junior Heavyweight division.\u00a0 He teamed with Bushi for the Super Jr tag league as the team finished tied for first before losing the final.\u00a0 Takagi has picked up the majority of the wins for the team and is a hot property heading into Wrestle Kingdom and his match for the Jr. Heavyweight tag team titles.\u00a0 A dynamic power junior that has made an impact for LIJ<\/p>\n

EVIL<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Photo: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

EVIL started the year on a high.\u00a0 In 2018 he was the first man to defeat\u00a0Kazuchika Okada\u00a0<\/strong>in one on one competition, he had a good run in the G1 and a high profile title match with Okada leaving many to believe 2019 would be a big year for EVIL.\u00a0 EVIL started it all right as he captured the IWGP tag team championships at Wrestle Kingdom with SANADA.\u00a0 In February he had a good match with\u00a0Hirooki Goto\u00a0<\/strong>for the NEVER Openweight championship as he continued to be put in big positions.\u00a0 EVIL and SANADA would hold the titles until June when they lost to The Young Bucks at Dominion.\u00a0 EVIL was in Block A in this years G1 and after last year’s upset against Okada it was going to be interesting to see how he would do this time around.\u00a0 His biggest win of the tournament came against\u00a0Jay White\u00a0<\/strong>on the last day of block action, A Block went mostly ignored by fans as B Block was full of exciting names meaning EVIL’s G1 failed to capture the attention of most fans.\u00a0 On the Destruction tour EVIL started a feud with Zack Sabre Junior which lead to Chris Jericho attacking EVIL before his match with Sabre could begin.\u00a0 EVIL got a high profile IC title match against a big name like Chris Jericho, which shows they are still high on EVIL, as they main evented Power Struggle.\u00a0 To close out his year EVIL won NJPW World Tag League with SANADA as he continues to be an Upper Midcard guy that can slot into a big spot when needed.\u00a0 It wasn’t the rocket strapped year some people were expecting but there are little signs that NJPW is still high on EVIL.<\/p>\n

SANADA<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Photo: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SANADA started his year by winning the tag titles with EVIL.\u00a0 At New Beginnings he got the chance to challenge Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship as they main evented in Osaka and drew a good crowd.\u00a0 Feuding with CHAOS was the mission for a few months as SANADA got a rare singles match at NJPW’s 46th-anniversary show against\u00a0YOSHI-HASHI.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>SANADA made it to the Semi-Final of the\u00a0New Japan Cup<\/strong> as he fell to Zack Sabre Junior, who should be nicknamed the LIJ killer.\u00a0 After this SANADA feuded with Suzuki Gun in multi-man matches until June when he lost the Tag championships to The Young Bucks in a really good match.\u00a0 Put into B Block SANADA was put into a stacked and hyped block for G1 meaning the spotlight would be on him, SANADA beat ZSJ and Ibushi but lost to Kenny Omega and LIJ leader Naito as he finished with 8 points in sixth place in the block.\u00a0 Unlike his fellow stablemates, SANADA did not have a marquee singles match to end the year but he was the MVP of tag league, picking up a lot of wins to keep him looking strong as he won the tag league with EVIL.<\/p>\n

BUSHI<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Photo: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The masked Junior heavyweight spent much of the year in the Junior heavyweight tag team division.\u00a0 First, alongside Hiromu Takahashi he was unsuccessful when challenging for the titles in three straight matches against Suzuki-gun<\/strong>.\u00a0 He had a respectable Best Of The Super Juniors finishing Block A with 6 points and claiming the scalp of beating Will Ospreay.\u00a0 With Takahashi injured he needed started to team with Shingo Takagi and the two instantly gelled.\u00a0 They had a very good run in the Super Junior Tag league making it into the finals.\u00a0 Going into 2019 he has a renewed purpose alongside Takagi and the often maligned BUSHI may be on the verge of a good year teaming with the powerful Junior star.<\/p>\n

Los Ingobernables De Japon had a down year, injuries, mishandling and a lot of high profile losses left LIJ fans extremely frustrated.\u00a0 The signs are there for a big 2019 for the group as Takahashi nears his return, Naito looks to get redemption and defeat Jericho, EVIL and SANADA are still in New Japan’s good books and Shingo Takagi looks like an absolute star.\u00a0 2018 for LIJ might not have been perfect, but stay t<\/em>ranquilo<\/em> – 2019 could be the year that LIJ and Naito finally reach the pinnacle of New Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming into 2018,it looked like the popular\u00a0Los Ingobernables De Japon\u00a0would take over Japan.\u00a0 Leader\u00a0Tetsuya Naito\u00a0was heavily favored to end\u00a0Kazuchika Okada’s\u00a0legendary title run,\u00a0Hiromu Takahashi\u00a0was the most popular Junior heavyweight in the company and breakout years were predicted\u00a0for\u00a0EVIL\u00a0and\u00a0SANADA.\u00a0 The year of LIJ did not pan out as expected but the group still had highlights and a strong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2013,"featured_media":33903,"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":[2,13,14],"tags":[1032,504,422],"class_list":["post-32724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-international","category-njpw","tag-los-ingobernables-de-japon","tag-new-japan","tag-wrestle-kingdom"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32724","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\/2013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}