Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/02/new-beginning-in-sapporo-night-two-okada-vs-taichi-zsj-vs-ospreay/
New Japan Pro Wrestling held its second New Beginning in Sapporo show on Sunday featuring a main event between Kazuchika Okada and Taichi, who was wrestling in his hometown.
Wai Ting and I will have a bonus show reviewing both New Beginning cards tonight on the POST Wrestling Café.
The main event lasted over thirty-minutes with Okada finally putting Taichi down after catching him with a tombstone and the Rainmaker.
The story was Taichi believing he should have had the success Okada enjoyed with the two on similar paths and going on excursions at the same time – Okada to TNA and Taichi to Mexico.
Taichi was presented as a worthy challenge to Okada with several big near falls but it was a long match even with Okada involved and I don’t know how many accept Taichi in this high a position on the card. Okada did acknowledge Taichi by the end with the two showing a sign of respect before Taichi made his exit.
The card also featured Zack Sabre Jr. defending the British heavyweight title against Will Ospreay and the two had a spectacular match.
Ospreay wrestled Zack’s style and incorporated his own blend of high-flying that Zack had scouted. In addition, the analysis from Chris Charlton added a lot to the match with his comparisons of ZSJ and Ospreay to Tanahashi and Okada with what the former did to lift up the British scene and the latter helping New Japan out of its slump.
Zack won the match securing the cobra twist and sending Ospreay down to the mat as a callback to Zack’s win at the G1. Zack wrenched back on the injured arm of Ospreay that had been focused on earlier and the referee stopped the match at 27:04.
There was also a mid-show announcement of a July tour of Hokkaido with six dates revealed. They will run throughout the Prefecture on July 11th in Hakodate, July 12th in Tomakomai, July 14th in Obihiro, July 15th in Kitami, July 16th in Kushiro, and July 17th and 18th in Sapporo.
Here are the complete results from Sunday’s show:
*Toa Henare over Yota Tsuji
*Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Manabu Nakanishi & Tiger Mask over Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Yuya Uemura
*El Phantasmo over Gabriel Kidd
*Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii & Robbie Eagles over Shingo Takagi, EVIL & Bushi
*Jon Moxley, Roppongi 3K & Ryusuke Taguchi over Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Douki
*Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi & Sanada over KENTA, Jay White & Taiji Ishimori
*Zack Sabre Jr. over Will Ospreay to retain the British heavyweight title
*Kazuchika Okada over Taichi
New Japan returns with three ‘Road to New Beginning’ cards at Korakuen Hall from Tuesday through Thursday this week and then big show in New Beginning in Osaka next Sunday with Tetsuya Naito vs. KENTA for the Double championship, Jon Moxley vs. Minoru Suzuki for the IWGP United States title, and Hiromu Takahashi vs. Ryu Lee for the IWGP junior heavyweight title on top.