Pantoja’s NJPW New Japan Soul Review 7.4.25

NJPW New Japan Soul

July 4^th, 2025 | Tokyo Budokan in Tokyo, Japan | Attendance: 1,377

I’d typically ignore a New Japan show of this level but we’ve got some G1 qualifiers and a big main event. Of note, I didn’t see the previous G1 qualifiers but Callum Newman and Drilla Moloney got in over Taichi and Tomohiro Ishii. I’d have had Taichi and Ishii in, then put Drilla over one of the people in the matches today but I digress.

Dick Togo, DOUKI, EVIL, SANADA and Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Shota Umino, Taichi, Tiger Mask IV, Tomohiro Ishii and Yuji Nagata

Do I live in a world where Taichi and Ishii are kind of the new breed of New Japan Dads? I’m old. The House of Torture sucks so much that adding a good wrestler like DOUKI doesn’t help them. Instead, it brings DOUKI down. Commentary tried to suggest that people join the group because they’re making more money but like…how? They don’t win all that much more than the rest of the roster. Anyway, this was kind of a typical match for them. The faces actually did the early attack as it was Taichi going after DOUKI for some revenge. The heels did cheap tactics throughout until Shota caught Dick Togo in an STF to win in 7:37. It was decent enough. [**]

Callum Newman, The Great-O-Khan and Jakob Austin Young vs. Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi and Yota Tsuji

I don’t get Gedo’s obsession with Callum Newman and putting him in another G1. Then again, I don’t get a lot of what Gedo does. Hilariously goofy to still have LIJ members teaming up but not keeping the name and such. Especially when you STILL are doing the Bullet Club after more than a decade for no reason. As always, the LIJ guys work so smoothly together. That stable had it down when it came to multi-man tags. Some good back and forth here with  handful of pairings, including Shingo against O-Khan. I may not like every O-Khan match but I appreciate that he’s a lot different from most of the roster. Shingo put down Young with Made in Japan after 10:05, winning a good little multi-man match. Can’t ask for much more in this spot. [***]

Boltin Oleg, El Desperado and Yuya Uemura vs. Hartley Jackson, Kosei Fujita and Zack Sabre Jr.

A lot of the focus here was on Desperado against Fujita, since that’s what we’re lining up to get after Kosei’s BOSJ win. I really skipped over that tournament but I’m glad he won. He and Desperado chopped the hell out of each other for a bit here and it was great. They’re about to have a banger for the title. The rest of the action was solid and I haven’t seen much of Hartley before this but I liked what we got here. Just a big dude doing fun shit. I also popped for the Oleg/ZSJ interactions. I feel like they’d have a good match together. In the end, Yuya caught Hartley with a rana to seal the win in 8:39. Another fun little match here. [***]

G1 Climax Play-in: Ryohei Oiwa vs. Satoshi Kojima

Originally, this was meant to be Fale against Oiwa but he’s hurt so we got Kojima instead. I’ll always love Kojima even if he’s nowhere near what he was even six years ago. I wish it was prime Kojima but it’s not so what we got here was pretty basic. The veteran held serve and had Oiwa on his heels, so the young upstart had to fight through it and rally. Kojima still got his signature shit in like the corner chops and the Koji Cutter, yet he couldn’t withstand when Oiwa went on a run and used his speed to his advantage. I did like the finish though as Oiwa blocked a big lariat and hit a discus lariat of his own in 9:44. This was alright. [**½]

G1 Climax Play-in: Chase Owens vs. YOSHI-HASHI

Stuff like this makes me question, once again, why Gedo is still the booker. This is just…not good. Two guys who don’t have a chance at winning the tournament and at best, you’ll get like three good matches out of YOSHI-HASHI usually. If you could lay out a match between these two, this is exactly what it would look like. After a generic star, Owens took control with his plodding, dull offense that HASHI had to sell for a bit. Then he made the underdog rally that he’s made a thousand times, except Chase isn’t an interesting opponent so it mostly fell flat. A running knee and piledriver got Chase his closest near falls before HASHI won with Karma in 12:03. Yay, I guess. Neither choice was exciting but I’ll take HASHI over Chase. [**]

NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championship: Ren Narita, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi [c] vs. Master Wato, Toru Yano & YOH

I always forget these titles even exist. Guess what? The House of Torture attacked the challengers during their entrance since there’s really not a single original thing that group is ever allowed to do. Once they got the ring, this was more of the same from the House of Torture. I said before that I wasn’t going to waste much time on them until they did something worth spending time on. This wasn’t that. A Kanemaru run-in backfired, they threw a bag over Yujiro’s head and Yano rolled him up to win the meaningless titles in 12:06. [*]

IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship: Gabe Kidd [c] vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

Finally, something to sink our teeth into. This got off to a methodical start as they were feeling each other out and working the mat. Gabe changed that by shouting at Tanahashi and then delivering a right hand that turned this into a more aggressive fight. That turned Tanahashi up too, even hitting a point where he busted out a High Fly Flow to the outside. That’s wild to do considering his age and the wear and tear on his body over the years. This turned into an all-out war and I love when a match feels that way without needing weapons or any of the gimmicky stuff. Gabe made a key mistake by trying High Fly Flow as he missed and that opened the door for Tanahashi. Tanahashi hit one of his own for two but missed his second. From there, Gabe started hitting his big offense but Tanahashi refused to stay down. Gabe even yelled at him, “YOU HAVE TO STOP.” Tanahashi had one final spurt after that but when he came off the top, Gabe slapped him out of midair and then won with the Piledriver in 23:58. You could see Gabe embrace Tanahashi after the bell, likely thanking him. A hell of a match. Tanahashi can still turn it up with the right opponent and Gabe is that kind of guy right now. [****¼]

Post-match, Gabe cut an emotional promo with both men crying, talking about how Tana Facetimed with him for an hour or so each day in 2022 when he was going through a lot of mental stuff and said that he might not be alive today if it wasn’t for Tanahashi.

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Mostly a nothing show that gets saved by an awesome main event.