Csonka’s NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo 2020 (Night One) Preview

WELCOME back to column time with Larry! Today, I am going to discuss and preview the NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo 2020 (Night One) event, which features NEVER Openweight Champion Hirooki Goto defending against Shingo, EVIL vs. Big Tom Ishii, 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.”

Tiger Mask IV & Yuya Uemura vs. Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo: There will be a lot of people that hand wave and sleep on this one, and those people are wrong. Tiger Mask IV & Yuya Uemura were a good and entertaining team in the junior tag tournament, as Uemura started t show some real growth as a performer with Tiger Mask playing his veteran role well. Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo are the former champions and have had great matches since their pairing and generally don’t disappoint. Since they lost at Dash and are out of the title picture for now, this well be their rebound opportunity and they win here to get back on track and into the title picture again. WINNER: Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo

Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Manabu Nakanishi & Yota Tsuji: This is the usual dads take your kids to work undercard match and part of Nakanishi’s final run as he heads to retirement after 27-years. It was speculated after his bow at the dome that the end was near and it’s finally coming. These are usually fun and sometimes fun. and I hope that Nakanishi goes out like Liger, putting people over. With that in mind, I have team Nakanishi losing and hopefully Henare picking up that important win over Nakanishi. WINNER: Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare

Will Ospreay, SHO, YOH, & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Zack Sabre Jr., El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, & DOUKI: Now we start getting into the business portion of the card as this match is set up for Will vs. Zack and Roppongi 3k vs. Despy & Kanemaru, which are both title matches. There’s a lot of talent in here so this one should be good with the mentioned pairings being featured throughout the match. It’s a real coin flip as both sides are looking for momentum, and also have guys in Taguchi & DOUKI that can easily eat the loss here. While I can see it going either way, I will go with the heels in Suzuki-gun picking up the win here. WINNER: Zack Sabre Jr., El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI

Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. Ryu Lee & Robbie Eagles: This is the big preview for Hiromu vs. Lee, which I feel they are moving onto way too soon, despite the history and miscommunication at WrestleKingdom. It’s also interesting as Hiromu& Lee are lightly aligned through the vast array of Ingobernoble stables. You also have to factor in the fact that on the road to the dome shows, Robbie pinned Hiromu, which should be factored in later for a title shot. This match has all kinds of potential to deliver as BUSHI is good, especially in tags, Robbie is really good and also thrives in tags, while Lee & Hiromu are amazing; it has show stealing potential to be sure. I think that Lee & Robbie win, first of all to keep Robbie viable as a challenger, second to give Lee momentum and thirdly, because BUSHI is here and prime to take a loss. WINNER: Ryu Lee & Robbie Eagles

Tetsuya Naito & SANADA vs. KENTA & Jay White: This is a rematch from Dash, where LIJ picked up the in and then got laid out by Bullet Club. This is following SANADA pinning Zack at Dash and KENTA shitting on Naito’s WrestleKingdom moment. It’s also setting up singles clashes later on the tour. The Dash match was good, but they weren’t working at full speed following the taxing two day WrestleKingdom spectacular. I think that this one will be better as they will have had some time off and will also be hitting that final build hard. So this should deliver and I think Bullet Club gets their revenge here to make them look stronger heading into the singles matches. WINNER: KENTA & Jay White

Kazuchika Okada & Jon Moxley vs. Taichi & Minoru Suzuki: This one is really interesting as Kazuchika Okada & Jon Moxley are a really fun and interesting first time team, while Taichi & Minoru Suzuki are no strangers in tagging together. We’re building to Okada vs. Taichi as well as Suzuki vs. Moxley here. I think we’ll see a lot of Taichi vs. Okada on top of wild brawling from Mox & Suzuki. This one has the potential to be a ton of fun, and I think Okada & Mox pickup the win here… via DQ when either Suzuki snaps or Taichi busts the iron fingers once again. WINNER: Kazuchika Okada & Jon Moxley via DQ

EVIL vs. Big Tom Ishii: These two faced off at last year’s NJPW Wrestling Dontaku event, in an excellent match that Big Tom won. But even after that, the interactions continued in the occasional multi-man tags where they naturally paired off. I love a good, hard-hitting hoss fight and at Dash, these two rekindled the past fire of their feud and it fucking ruled. EVIL steps up when he gets the chance in big matches and has great chemistry with Ishii. Big Tom is a banger machine, always delivering as these two know each other well and won’t try to reinvent the wheel here. They’re going to get 15-20 minutes they are going to kick the shit out of each other, and it will rule. There have been a lot of rumors that EVIL will be seeing more of a singles push/spotlight in 2020, and this will likely be its launching point as he faces a familiar foe he has history with and wants revenge over. WINNER: EVIL

NEVER Openweight Champion Hirooki Goto defending against Shingo: On day eighteen of the G1 Climax 29, Shingo defeated Hirooki Goto in a great match (****¼). Then, on the NJPW Destruction In Kobe, Hirooki Goto defeated Shingo in another great match (****), setting them at 1-1. They renewed hostilities at Dash, where Shingo & EVIL defeated Big Tom Ishii & Hirooki Goto in a great tag match (****¼) that saw Shingo pin Goto and challenge him to this match. History tells us this should be great, but what’s the play, because I am legit torn on it. If you have Goto lose the title, again in short fashion, you just continue to pigeonhole him as a fucking geek (although a more full time tag team with Ishii could massively help the tag ranks). But a Shingo wins really appeals to me, it gives him his first real singles push, more singles matches, he always delivers and while he’s a heavyweight. He’s sort of in that middle ground between divisions, which could open up the NEVER division to be more of a real OPENWEIGHT division, where guys like Sho can step to him to renew their rivalry. I really want Shingo to win and have along run filled with bangers with tons of different opponents as that really appeals to me. BUT… I think they go with Goto here to give him somewhat of a longer run than usual. WINNER: Hirooki Goto

The 411 on Wrestling Podcast returns to the 411 Podcasting Network for episode 86. On the show, 411’s Larry Csonka & Steve Cook breakdown and review the latest between NXT & AEW, and then discuss the latest news on Edge’s return, Andrade’s suspension, Lance Archer possibly heading to AEW, while Larry previews NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo. The show is approximately 106-minutes long.

* Intro
* News Roundup (Andrade, Archer, Cage, Rumble, Scurll, More): 2:00
* AEW Dynamite (1.29.20) Review: 41:25
* NXT (1.29.20) Review: 1:01:45
* The Head to Head Comparison: 1:18:25
* Larry’s NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo Previews: 1:22:25

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MAKE SURE TO JOIN ME FOR MY LIVE COVERAGE AT 4 AM ON FEBRUARY 1ST

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– Thanks for reading.