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

WELCOME back to column time with Larry! Today, I am going to discuss and preview the NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo 2020 (Night Two) event, which features Zack Sabre Jr. defending against Will Ospreay, Kazuchika Okada vs. Taichi, 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.”

Toa Henare vs. Yota Tsuji: I have talked about this many times, Henare is in this odd limbo space; he’s no longer a young lion, he graduated, but he’s not a main roster member in terms of push. He’s the college student that graduated and still lives at the frat house two years later. I think he’s really good and want to see him get some form of push in 2020. Yota Tsuji is one of the more experience lions left as the others are on excursion, has shown good growth as a performer, has size and intensity and I think they could have a good hard-hitting hoss style fight here in a match Henare should win. WINNER: Henare

Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma & Yuya Uemura vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Manabu Nakanishi & Tiger Mask: This is part of the Nakanishi retirement tour, working his usual undercard dads match. There’s really not much to this one, it should be at least ok and feels like a match he could be on the winning team for as Uemura is there to take a beating and eat a pin or submission. WINNER: Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Manabu Nakanishi & Tiger Mask

El Phantasmo vs. Gabriel Kidd: Gabriel Kidd is a 22-year old junior from the UK, who has entered into the NJPW dojo system, which means it’s time to start learning and eating pins. Phantasmo is the established star here, is a great asshole heel and will surely be in prime Phantasmo form here. He should easily take this one and I hope that he does it simply being the better wrestler here, as he shouldn’t need the dick punches Andover the top heel shtick here to do so. I’m interested to see what Kidd brings to the table as I’ve heard some good things about him. WINNER: El Phantasmo

Hirooki Goto, Big Tom Ishii, & Robbie Eagles vs. Shingo Takagi, EVIL, & BUSHI: This will be fallout from the Goto vs. Shingo & Big Tom vs. EVIL matches on night one, and also features the Never Openweight Trios champions in LIJ, so if CHAOS can pick up the win they will earn a title shot. There’s a ton of talent in this match and it’s also filled with guys that have great chemistry so at the very least I see this one being very good. I like everyone involved and am really looking forward to this one, and see CHAOS picking up the win. WINNER: Hirooki Goto, Big Tom Ishii, & Robbie Eagles

Jon Moxley, SHO, YOH & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI: This is part of the build for Mox vs. Suzuki and 3k vs. Despy & Kanemaru, but more importantly than that, Mox gets to interact with CHOAS again and we will see how well he plays with others; that fascinates me. I expect a wild, Suzuki-gun flavored brawl here with lots of Mox vs. Suzuki on the floor, while the rest work the majority of the bones of the match. It should be good and fun, but Suzuki-gun are the heels and upcoming challengers, so I think they take the win here with Taguchi taking the loss in this one. WINNER: Suzuki-gun

Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & Hiromu Takahashi vs. KENTA, Jay White & Taiji Ishimori: This is part of the lead up to White vs. SANADA & KENTA vs. Naito. It’s a fun set up match, and with a week until the big matches. they’ll more than likely go more top effort here and this should be good as we’ll get a lot of White vs. SANADA & KENTA vs. Naito pairing off to hammer home the pairings and future matches coming up. This had the chance to be really good and feels like an LIJ win, unless they flip the script and have Ishimori pick up a surprise win on Hiromu to set up a title match, but I really think that Ishimori is here to take the pin. WINNER: LIJ

RevPro British Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Jr. defending against Will Ospreay: From everything I can see, this will be their eighth singles match since 2015, all of which have garnered very positive reviews. I am all about this match, it’s a fresh one for NJPW, Zack is obviously great, and in my opinion, Will is coming off of an all-time great 2019. I expect an absolutely great match here, in what will be a pleasant clash of styles from the usual match you would expect from these two. Zack will pressure Will to the ground so he can dominate with his grappling game, while Will will be pressuring Zack to up his pacing and intensity. The thing some people seem to forget is that Will has some grappling and mat chops. I love that this will be a different match for each man, and that they do have history to play off of. In all honesty, if this isn’t great, I will be both surprised and disappointed. Part of me really wants Will to win and get some shine with a championship, but at the same time, I’m not really felling a title change here, although I wouldn’t rule it out. If all goes to plan, I see this one as the match of the night. WINNER: Zack Sabre Jr.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Taichi: Back at New Year’s Dash. Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, Robbie Eagles, & YOSHI-HASHI defeated Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer, Zack Sabre Jr, & Taichi @ 15:40 via DQ when Taichi busted out Iizuka’s old iron fingers, attacking Okada and setting the stage for this big singles match. We all know that Okada is an all-time great, but that doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed a great match here. Taichi is a tale of two wrestlers, on one side we have bullshit heel Taichi that stalls a ton, uses all the bullshit and generally feels disinterested and like he’s not trying; that’s bad Taichi and I have no time for him, that Taichi has never had good matches, that Taichi needs to stay away. And then, then there’s the other Taichi. The Taichi that wants to fight, that’s looking to prove himself worthy. The Taichi that kicks ass and has had great matches with Ishii, the Taichi lovingly referred to as Dangerous T. Dangerous T is the real Taichi, Dangerous T is the Taichi worth your time, Dangerous T is the only Taichi I want and I pray to God that Dangerous T is who shows up in this match, because if we get Dangerous T, this could be great. But beyond the “what Taichi will we get” discussion, we now have to consider who will win this match. Is this simply a one match detour and Okada picks up the rebound win to get back into the mix, or is this the start of a short-term feud between the two, where Taichi wins, picks up some credibility and Okada does something fresh and actually has some undercard feuds as he rebuilds his confidence before going back after the championship? With the Naito win and way they booked Osaka Jo-Hall (without Okada, Tanahashi, Ibushi, or Ospreay singles matches) it feels as if NJPW is looking to mix things up and take some risks, so as out of the box as it may sound, I’m going to go Taichi here. WINNER: Taichi

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 1 AM ON FEBRUARY 2ND

– End scene.

– Thanks for reading.