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As Mr Ares told us in the latest of his always informative New Japan previews in The Feed, the first night of New Japan’s annual big spring* event, Wrestling Dontaku, took place Sunday (May 3) in Fukuoka.
Several AEW, or joint AEW/New Japan, stars were in action on the card. Will Ospreay and Konosuke Takeshita warmed up for their title matches on Monday’s Night Two (Ospreay with the same two United Empire OGs he teamed with on Night One, this time going after the NEVER 6-Man belts, Takeshita defending his NJPW TV title against Chase Owens).
The main event was Andrade El Ídolo’s second shot at Yota Tsuji’s IWGP Global title. Tsuji defeated Andrade at February’s The New Beginning in USA, but he couldn’t do it a second time.
Now familiar with one another, Tsuji and Andrade didn’t waste any time going at one another… including with dueling “Tranquilo” poses. Each man controlled the action at various stretches and got multiple nearfalls in the closing portion of the match. Tsuji came closest to victory with a Boston Crab, but Andrade got to the ropes and evaded a follow-up to send the homegrown rising star into the ring post with a DDT. El Ídolo’s DM finisher gave us the title change.
It’s the second IWGP belt Tsuji’s dropped in a month; he lost the World title to Callum Newman in another shocker at Sakura Genesis on April 4.
The new champ was saying how both AEW and NJPW are in his blood when he confronted by both Shota Umino and Drilla Maloney. They both wanted the first shot of Andrade’s reign and, being hardcore, he said he’d take them both on.
We’ve yet to learn when that match will happen, but the señoritas should know that El Ídolo did it.
Here all the results from Night One:
- Toru Yano, YOH & Master Wato def. Tiger Mask, Ryusuke Taguchi & Taisei Nakahara
- OSKAR & Yuto-Ice def. Tomoaki Honma & Masatora Yasuda
- Yuya Uemura, Taichi, El Desperado & Místico def. Ryohei Oiwa, Hartley Jackson, Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita
- Will Ospreay, HENARE & Great-O-Khan def. Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Tatsuya Matsumoto
- Konosuke Takeshita & Shota Umino def. Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi
- Shingo Takagi, Drilla Moloney, Taiji Ishimori, Robbie X & Daiki Nagai def. Callum Newman, Jake Lee, Francesco Akira, Jakob Austin Young & Zane Jay
- Aaron Wolf def. Don Fale
- NEVER Openweight Championship: Ren Narita (c) def. Oleg Boltin
- IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship: Andrade El Idolo def. Yota Tsuji (c)
Thoughts on Andrade’s big win, how he’s rebounded from a bad second WWE run, Tsuji’s latest big loss, or anything else related to NJPW and Wrestling Dontaku in the comments below!
* Wrestling Dontaku takes place every year during Japan’s “Golden Week”, which contains four public holidays and is often used by the Japanese for vacation travel. It’s also known by it’s much more descriptive name, Haru no Ōgata Renkyū (春の大型連休), which translates to “long spring holiday series”.
