Csonka’s NJPW New Beginning in Osaka 2020 Preview

WELCOME back to column time with Larry! Today, I am going to discuss and preview the NJPW New Beginning in Osaka 2020 event, which features double champion Tetsuya Naito vs. KENTA, US Champion Jon Moxley vs. Minoru Suzuki and much more. So today I will breakdown and preview the event. Feel free to make your picks in the comment section. Thanks for reading! It’s wrestling, we love it and will disagree. The only rules are “have a take, be respectful, and don’t be a dick.”

Manabu Nakanishi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima & Yuji Nagata vs. Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, Toa Henare & Ryusuke Taguchi: This is part of the collection of final matches for Manabu Nakanishi as we head towards his retirement later this month. I think we all saw it coming at the dome with his bow, and if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s time. He’s had a long career, he’s beat up, is showing his age and he’s making the right decision to call it a day. Hopefully this resembles the January 4th Liger and friends match, and it’s Nak and friends having a good time and fun match. I think Nak should take the pin here and that Henare should be the one to do it. WINNER: Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, Toa Henare & Ryusuke Taguchi

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions SHO & YOH defending against El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru: The revisit of this feud started back at Dash when Suzuki-gun pinned the champions in a rare four-way tag match. The junior tag division is still shallow, and I’m still all for an openweight tag division, but the good news is that these teams have worked well together in the past and have had great matches when it’s not filled with Suzuki-gun overbooking. Anyway, I have high hopes for the match and feel that it will deliver. It would feel too soon to change the titles and take them off of Roppongi 3K, UNLESS they are finally looking to split them but I don’t think hat they are. I’ll go with the champions retaining here in what has the potential to be a great match. WINNER: Champions Roppongi 3K

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Juice Robinson & David Finlay vs. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens: Originally, GOD came in as the former champions, but beat Juice & Finlay in the US to win the titles back, making the title change purely done to create a moment and give GOD back the tiles to inflate their list of accomplishments. The match has potential, Chase & Yujiro work hard, Juice & Finlay are a fun tag team, Tana & Ibushi are great, GOD can be good and most importantly we have no Fale here. I think that the babyfaces take the win here in order to continue to build to the potential Golden Aces title match or Fin-Juice rematch. WINNER: Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Juice Robinson & David Finlay

Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay vs. Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.: This is fallout from NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo night two, where Okada defeated Taichi and Zack defeated Will. Okada and Will have tagged in the past and are very good together, but Sabre & Taichi are a more regular tag team as the dangerous Tekkers. On the surface they have the advantage and in theory should win, and I won’t be surprised if they do. But I think that there is still more mileage in Zack vs. Will, and that Will picks up a win in the match to get him closer to a rematch with his kryptonite WINNER: Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay

SANADA vs. Jay White: This is more fallout from Dash where SANADA pinned Jay and that led to Bullet Club beating down Naito & SANADA, and Jay challenging SANADA. SANADA lost to Zack at the dome, while Jay went one and one, losing to Naito and beating Ibushi. As long as this isn’t horribly overbooked, the match certainly has the potential to deliver. If SANADA wins, it just keeps he and Jay at an even level with neither ready to move onto something more important. With that being the case, I think Jay takes this one especially because if SANADA stays the only LIJ member without gold, it opens up more storyline possibilities. Plus they’ve invested way more into Jay at this point. WINNER: Jay White

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi defending against Ryu Lee: While the rich history is here for this match on several levels (past clashes, Hiromu being injured by Lee) and I am sure they will deliver, I have also been on record in saying that I think that they are rushing to this match way too soon and that they really should have built up to it more. We know that Lee is great, and we also know that Hiromu is back and ready to go following his match with Ospreay at the dome, so it’s not that I think it won’t deliver, they will, but I really think that with their history of excellent matches, the real life injury, and fact that technically both are “Ingobernable,” that this is a rematch that should have been built to more, and ended up on a bigger show like a Dominion. But we’re here and I’m sure it will be a great match that I am looking forward to. And now we ask, who wins? Does Lee take back the championship, possibly with the story that Hiromu wasn’t ready for him and that Lee was in his head, ending Hiromu’s miracle return and win prematurely? Or does Hiromu continue to ride the wave of joy and retain? I think that you can make the argument either way; Hiromu winning continues the feel good story, while his loss opens up a deeper story for Hiromu. I think Hiromu should retain, but won’t be shocked if we get a title change. WINNER: Champion Hiromu Takahashi

IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley defending against Minoru Suzuki: When Moxley left WWE, I though he and Suzuki could be a cool match. And then Moxley had a great G1 run and I thought the match could be possible. After that, they had an epic confrontation in the dome, and it was at that point I needed that shit injected into my veins as soon as humanly possible. Moxley has been great in NJPW, he’s ran the yard like bad ass, won twice at WrestleKingdom took his title back and looked to have no equal… until the biggest bad ass in the room, the King Minoru Suzuki stepped to him. Again, Moxley has been great, Suzuki still has a lot of go in his game and this will certainly be a wild, stiff, and chaotic brawl that goes everywhere. Moxley has been a boost for the US Title, has delivered each time out. but the problem is this. He’s contracted to AEW, and will not be working any NJPW USA shows due to that, and that’s a place they hope to highlight the US title. He’s also likely to with the AEW title at February’s end, and so they really need to get the US Title off of him here. Suzuki is a good choice to win the championship, it shows a Japanese talent can and will hold the championship, Suzuki moves tickets in the US and there’s a story to be told with him winning the championship that fellow Suzuki-gun member Lance Archer held and lost to Moxley. The move to Suzuki just makes sense in this case, and I will be honestly shocked if Moxley retains here. WINNER: Minoru Suzuki

IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Champion Tetsuya Naito defending against KENTA: If felt as if it took forever, but at WrestleKingdom Tetsuya Naito did everything his fans had been waiting for. He won a WrestleKingdom main event, he won the IWGP championship and maybe even more importantly than that, he beat Kazuchika Okada to accomplish it all; exorcising the ghosts of past WrestleKingdom failures in the process. It all appeared perfect, like things went according to plan, but if you’ve followed the career arch of Naito, nothing ever comes that easy for him. Just as he got the moment and was about to have the big LIJ celebration, KENTA arrived and shit all over that moment with a beat down that some absolutely hated, but I loved because it fit the new KENTA, he got REAL heat for it and again, nothing comes easy for Naito. This is also more fallout from extremely well done New Year’s Dash event, where SANADA pinned Jay and that led to Bullet Club beating down Naito & SANADA, Jay challenging SANADA, and KENTA officially challenging Naito for his championships. I think this all came off so well, Naito got his huge win, KENTA shit all over it, got huge heat, and it perfectly gives Naito his first defense. Naito needs a first defense where there is enough of a threat, some real fan investment, and a sense of danger. While Naito is physically not what he used to be in many ways, we saw again at the Dome (and something I mentioned going in) that if you tape him up enough and put him in a big enough match, the man can still deliver the goods. KENTA has also shown he can still be great,. But that greatness comes when there is a distinct lack of Bullet Club bullshit. The second match with Ishii, the Goto match, some of his G1 work, all succeeded because he was allowed to be KENTA still and not a Bullet Club bitch relying on cliché heel bullshit. I know that asking for this to be a great professional wrestling match with no bullshit is asking for too much, I know we’re going to get ton of bullet Club bullshit, hopefully Naito’s LIJ pals aren’t dicks this time and actually help if they do. Bottom line, it could be great of not overbooked and taking the title off Naito is stupid. WINNER: Tetsuya Naito

MAKE SURE TO JOIN ME FOR MY LIVE COVERAGE AT 2AM ON FEBRUARY 9th

The 411 on Wrestling Podcast returns to the 411 Podcasting Network for episode 88. On the show, 411’s Larry Csonka & Steve Cook hit a quick news roundup, break down the latest between NXT & AEW, including Cody getting lashed and Charlotte returning to NXT, while Larry previews NJPW New Beginning in Osaka & ROH Free Enterprise. The show is approximately 130-minutes long.

* Intro
* Quick News Roundup (Goldberg, Kross, Thatcher, Thunder Rosa, Tiered Network Announcement, More): 7:15
* AEW Dynamite (2.05.20) Review: 28:15
* NXT (2.05.20) Review: 1:04:55
* The head to head comparison: 1:29:25
* Larry’s NJPW New Beginning in Osaka & ROH Free Enterprise Previews: 1:35:40

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– End scene.

– Thanks for reading.