New Japan Releases Lineups for New Beginning Events in Sapporo and Osaka

General
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Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2018/01/09/new-japan-releases-lineups-for-new-beginning-events-in-sapporo-and-osaka/

New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced the lineups for their three New Beginning cards. The shows will consist of back-to-back nights in Sapporo later this month and culminate with the third show at the Edion Arena in Osaka on February 10th.

Kenny Omega will be working the Sapporo shows but is not listed for the Osaka event, which is the biggest show of the three.

Chris Jericho is not coming back for any of the New Beginning shows as FOZZY is beginning a big tour later this month and made it virtually impossible that he could do any of these three shows.

Following the Osaka event, the New Japan crew will go to Australia the following weekend for four dates. We will have all the details of the Australian tour in our Tuesday news update.

Below are the cards for all three New Beginning events:

NEW BEGINNING IN SAPPORO NIGHT 1 (Saturday, January 27th at 4 am Eastern)
*Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki for the Intercontinental title
*Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks vs. Jay White and Roppongi 3K
*Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto and Gedo vs. EVIL, Sanada and Bushi
*Will Ospreay and Yoshi-Hashi vs. Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi
*Kota Ibushi, Juice Robinson and David Finlay vs. Cody, Marty Scurll and Hangman Page
*Bad Luck Fale and The Guerillas of Destiny vs. Togi Makabe, Ryusuke Taguchi and Henare for the NEVER six-man tag titles
*Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano vs. Yujiro and Chase Owens
*KUSHIDA, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, Jushin Thunder Liger and Tiger Mask vs. El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taka Michinoku, Taichi and Takashi Iizuka
*Michael Elgin vs. Katsuya Kitamura – Match #2 of Kitamura’s Proving Series

NEW BEGINNING IN SAPPORO NIGHT 2 (Sunday, January 28th at 1 am Eastern)
*Kenny Omega vs. Jay White for the IWGP U.S title
*The Young Bucks vs. Roppongi 3K for the IWGP junior heavyweight tag titles
*Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, Will Ospreay, Yoshi-Hashi and Gedo vs. Tetsuya Naito, EVIL, Sanada, Hiromu Takahashi and Bushi
*Kota Ibushi, KUSHIDA and David Finlay vs. Cody, Marty Scurll and Hangman Page
*Hiroshi Tanahashi and Michael Elgin vs. Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka
*Guerillas of Destiny, Bad Luck Fale and Chase Owens vs. Togi Makabe, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima and Henare
*Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano vs. Yujiro and Leo Tonga
*Jushin Thunder Liger, Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask and Shota Umino vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru, El Desperado, Taichi and Taka Michinoku
*Juice Robinson vs. Katsuya Kitamura – Match #3 of Kitamura’s Proving Series

NEW BEGINNING IN OSAKA (Saturday, February 10th at 3 am Eastern)
*Kazuchika Okada vs. Sanada for the IWGP heavyweight title
*Hirooki Goto vs. EVIL for the NEVER Openweight title
*Will Ospreay vs. Hiromu Takahashi for the IWGP junior heavyweight title
*Tetsuya Naito vs. Yoshi-Hashi
*Bushi vs. Gedo
*Hiroshi Tanahashi, KUSHIDA, Togi Makabe, Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Takashi Iizuka and Taka Michinoku
*Tomohiro Ishii, Jay White and Toru Yano vs. Michael Elgin, Juice Robinson and David Finlay
*Roppongi 3K vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru and El Desperado
*Yuji Nagata vs. Katsuya Kitamura – Match #6 in Kitamura’s Proving Series

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I feel like I will probably get up at 4am to watch night 1, it looks like it will be a fun card. Tanahashi vs Suzuki will probably be a very good match to make me want to watch it live.

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Elgin still getting booked I see.

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Still feel cringe-y about the Jay White in CHAOS thing, seeing all these tag team scenarios that don’t seem to fit his new character at all. Switchblade meet Roppongi 3K…alright. I guess the important thing is White VS Omega, should be excellent.

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That Osaka card is so intriguing. They never have that many singles matches. I think it’ll rule, though. Goto vs EVIL is probably the singles match of all three nights that I’m looking forward to the most, except for maybe Ospreay vs Takahashi. Kitamura trial series is really cool. I’m with @mondocurry about Jay White being totally miscast. Switch Blade hopping onto the CHAOS ship seems like a strange fit. I’m still not sold on this literal babyfaced Jay White having this killer persona. Having him be in the same faction as Toru Yano and Rocky Romero doesn’t help. Going to be a really good string of shows with some great matches, though!

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I can’t argue about that, personally thought his heel-ish nature of someone called “Swichblade” would have suited Suziki-gun way better.

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I take it Omega has re-signed. Unless he’s dropping the US IWGP Championship to White in Sapporo.

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Definitely looking forward to that Osaka card most for the Ospreay/Takahashi match. I’m a Sanada fan too so I’m interested to see if he can elevate his game and start showing some growth at that top level. He’s got the physical tools to be a top guy in a year or two. Just needs to show some more personality.

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Man that Osaka card is interesting. 6 singles match but no “super” match. My guess is we will get several 12-15 minute singles matches which should make for a overall very enjoyable show. I wonder if they had hoped they might get jericho but due to his tour with Fozzy had to slot in Yoshi Hashi and they will do the Jericho vs Naito match on one of the bigger shows. (Dominion perhaps).

Also of note that there is no omega or bucks on the February card. Not that I’m saying its indicative of anything, but I wouldn’t say its a impossibility yet that they are leaving. It is odd that neither Omega nor the bucks are on there but it would be a huge shock if they left and if they are leaving, It would be almost certainly to the WWE. I think its just Omega taking a short break is more likely. Maybe to do some dates with ROH.

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I believe Goto and EVIL had a program or at least a match before that was great, definite chemistry. It’s pretty amazing EVIL and SANADA have the tag team belts and are now both scheduled to wrestle for the NEVER and Heavyweight straps at New Beginning shows. Expecting huge things this year for them and LIJ this year.

Could definitely see that look being a great fit for Suzuki-gun if not Bullet Club. Maybe cold feet about the character already.

It would be nice to see cast of CHAOS have some kind of focused look or image. I guess like the name says, whatever anything goes.

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Agreed.

Especially since it would be good to have another international guy in this stable besides ZSJ. He seems a bit lost there.

And why should Okada let Jay White be part of his stable, when he’s going to screw him eventually ffs. It’s not like CHAOS has some sort of crisis where they need White to get back on track and have to make a deal with the devil.

Gedo needs to book Jay White very smart or his gimmick becomes a flop sooner than later.

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Omega isn’t going anywhere.

And yes, I am preprared to eat my hat over that situation.

These do look like fun cards though. I’ll be nitpicking the singles matches and skipping through all the multiman stuff though.

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Jay White feels cringey in general