#might not have been a bosj 31 announcement but man this is cool too.

[rennarita]

Mustafa Ali announced for the cover of PWI magazine

[wrestlingisfake]

Best of the Super Jr. finals preview

This show features the New Japan debut of Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose, so everybody is expecting a lot of first-time NJPW viewers to watch.  The show airs live on NJPW World at 5:30am Eastern time Wednesday morning.  If you can’t stay up that late or wake up that early, you can always catch it on-demand like you would on WWE Network.  (If you need help, ask around.  New Japan Tumblr has been pretty active about offering help for newbies.)

Shingo Takagi vs. Will Ospreay - This is the final match in the Best of the Super Jr. tournament, between the winner of A Block (Shingo) and the winner of B Block (Ospreay).  There is no time limit; there must be a winner.  The victor wins the tournament, a cool trophy, and the right to challenge IWGP junior heavyweight champion Dragon Lee at Dominion on June 9.

Shingo debuted in New Japan back in October, filling the void in the LIJ stable when Hiromu Takahashi was injured.  Since then he has never lost a fall.  Admittedly, for much of his run he’s been in tag matches with BUSHI, who could get pinned or tap out when they needed to lose.  But then he entered this tournament--the pinnacle of singles competition for New Japan junior heavyweights--and went on an impressive 9-0 streak.  Someone has probably advanced to the finals of this type of tournament without losing even one match, but it’s rare enough that it’d take some work to find out.  If Takagi wins this match, and closes the entire tournament at 10-0, he’ll be a frigging legend.

One year ago, as Ospreay was preparing to defend the junior heavyweight title against the 2018 BOSJ winner Hiromu Takahashi, he discussed some chilling comments from Dave Meltzer about his high-risk style.  Shortly thereafter, Ospreay began adjusting to a more grounded style, adding muscle and entering openweight competition.  The changes have paid off with a NEVER openweight title reign and big wins over Taichi, Kota Ibushi, Bad Luck Fale, and Lance Archer.  It looked as if his ex-buddy El Phantasmo was going to overshadow him in B Block, but ELP collapsed near the end to allow Ospreay to win the block with a 7-2 record.

What should make this interesting is that Shingo is controversially on the edge of the weight limit, giving him a size and strength advantage, but Ospreay’s openweight run proved he can beat far bigger men.  It’s as if Ospreay’s shift in tactics has been designed to find the solution for Shingo where luchadors, technicians, and cheaters could not.

A win for Shingo here will probably lead to a long title run and extend the “who will beat him?” angle for months.  If Ospreay snaps the streak here and now, it’s already been built up enough that I think it signals big things for Will.  I could easily see Ospreay winning the junior title from Dragon Lee and taking it into the G1 Climax heavyweight tournament, to fulfill his goal of competing in both weight classes.  But for any of that to happen, he has to beat Shingo, and no one has in New Japan.  I just can’t pick a winner.

Juice Robinson vs. Jon Moxley - Robinson, best known to WWE fans as CJ Parker from NXT, is defending the IWGP United States championship.  Back on May 3, Juice was celebrating a victory when the lights went out and a video package appeared on the big screen.  The video showed a man carving an hourglass shape while watching Juice wrestle, ending with the messages “Time’s up” and “June 5.”  The “Time’s Up” videos continued to follow Juice to every show he appeared on, until Jon Moxley tweeted a version revealing that the hourglass symbol represents “MOX.”

Moxley, who once held the WWE world championship as Dean Ambrose, left WWE in April and dramatically debuted for AEW on May 25.  He’s all over the place lately and this will be his first post-WWE match.  It hasn’t yet been explained why he would target Juice, and I don’t buy Juice’s narrative that Moxley expects Juice to still be the rookie he knew in FCW years ago.  We probably won’t learn Moxley’s agenda in New Japan until his post-match interview.

This should be a wild brawl.  Juice is primarily known for his striking and big impact moves, not for technical finesse or flips.  And Mox is Mox.  They both lead with their hearts, although Juice’s heart is pure and dedicated to Shin Nihon Puroresu, and Moxley’s heart is filled with whiskey and cigarettes.

Everybody’s counting on Moxley to straight up murder Juice, and that’s a safe bet.  But listening to Juice talk about this match, I sure want him to prove himself to all the people who are gonna wonder who this goofy weirdo is.  The one thing that puzzles me is why this match was made for this show, and not Dominion four days later.  That makes me think they want to quickly get the US title on Moxley to move him onto something else for the #2 show of the year...but what could it be?

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White - This is a rematch from February 11, where Tana lost the IWGP heavyweight title to White.  Later, at the Madison Square Garden show on April 6, Tana wrestled his last match before taking time off for elbow surgery, while White lost the championship in the main event.  Then on May 4, Tanahashi announced he’d be returning at this show to start pursuing the title again, but White didn’t like the sound of that and attacked him.  So both guys are trying to recover from their big title losses earlier this year, and they have to go through one another.

Tanahashi is basically the John Cena of New Japan, the biggest/winningest babyface in the promotion, who carried the company on his back for years, but now he’s getting older and seeing new stars slowly overtake him and talk about putting him out to pasture.  White was a jobber three years ago, but a huge push in 2018 elevated him to be the top heel and leader of Bullet Club.  You hate White for getting too much too soon, and then you realize he’s talented enough to thrive at that level and you hate him even more.  He’s really great.

There is a strong chance the winner of this match will receive an IWGP heavyweight title shot later this year, but it’s not clear when.  New Japan has big shows in Melbourne on June 29 and in London on August 31, so those are likely candidates.  I’m kinda thinking Tanahashi needs the win, but I can’t really imagine them hotshotting Okada vs. Tanahashi for one of those shows.  (Then again, Okada might lose the title beforehand, but I wouldn’t count on that.)  So my guess is that White beats Tana again to renew his unstoppable mega-push.

Kazuchika Okada & Rocky Romero vs. Marty Scurll & Brody King - Okada is the IWGP heavyweight champion and Rocky is his little buddy.  Scurll is the last guy left from The Elite following their exodus to AEW; he has since recruited King and PCO to form Villain Enterprises, which currently holds the ROH trios title.  The BOSJ tournament has been Brody’s first tour with New Japan, but since he’s a heavyweight this will be his first significant match on the tour.  This will be a good chance for King to turn some heads and leave a good impression, so that NJPW will want to bring him back soon.  But Okada has a big title match in a few days, and I expect he’ll win this one.

Kota Ibushi & Togi Makabe & Toa Henare & Tomoaki Honma vs. Tetsuya Naito & EVIL & SANDA & BUSHI - Naito’s team represents Los Ingobernables de Japon, the Japanese offshoot of the famous Mexican stable.  Naito will be challenging Ibushi for the IWGP intercontinental title on June 9, as part of his quest to hold both that title and the heavyweight championship.  Ibushi’s team features three of the midcard babyfaces--former top guy and current minor mainstream celebrity Makabe, up-and-coming rookie Henare, and recent neck injury survivor Honma.  LIJ is putting up a much stronger lineup for this one, so I expect them to win and for Naito to taunt Ibushi heading into their match.

Minoru Suzuki & Taichi & Zack Sabre, Jr. & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Jushin Thunder Liger & YOSHI-HASHI & Toru Yano & Tiger Mask - Suzuki’s team represents Suzuki-gun, and they’re basically the assholes too cruel and unlikable for Bullet Club.  Taichi has a title defense scheduled against Ishii on June 9, and there are Suzuki vs. Liger and Sabre vs. Yoshi feuds that may get settled at that show as well.  Interestingly, Douki is not a member of Suzuki-gun, having been brought in as a substitute for the injured El Desperado; the ending of this match could help us learn if he’ll be officially added to the group or turfed out once they have no further use for him.  Douki’s score in the BOSJ tournament was disappointing to say the least, and it’s fairly clear New Japan wanted to tell a story about an outsider being outclassed by the talent they have under contract.  With that in mind, I think he’ll lose the fall in this match.

SHO & YOH & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori & Robbie Eagles - Sho and Yoh are Roppongi 3K, the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team champions.  Normally Rocky Romero would team with them as their coach, but Romero and Taguchi have both been doing the coach gimmick and recently agreed to share those “duties” among the babyfaces.  Phantasmo’s team represents Bullet Club, and if they can score a fall over either Yoh or Sho that would set up a fresh junior tag title program, which would be very overdue.  There’s been a slow burning story with Eagles questioning his allegiance to Bullet Club, particularly as it relates to ELP, so I’m betting on Eagles getting the win here and Eagles/ELP pursuing the title shot.

Dragon Lee & Titan & Shota Umino vs. Bandido & Jonathan Gresham & Ren Narita - Lee is the IWGP junior heavyweight champion, so it’s a little odd that he’s in the opener when the main event is to determine his next challenger.  Lee and Titan are imports from Mexico’s CMLL, while Gresham and Bandido are imports from ROH in the US.  Umino and Narita are two of the “young lions” in New Japan’s developmental system, which means they they’re here to learn and do jobs.  I’d think Dragon Lee’s team should get the win here.