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So we get a short tour before G1 and this is probably where we will see G1 participants and matches announced. This could easily go into G1 thread, but I figure we could use a separate one since it has some other interesting bits as well. In total we will have 4 streamed shows on 5th, 6th, 9th and 11th. 11th show has announced NEVER trios title rematch of Goto/Yoshi/Ishii vs Okada/Yano/Sho. Their first match was good so I expect this one to be good as well. Next we have Jr. tag titles tournament to determine new champs since Yoh is not coming back for a while. Announced teams are: Taguchi/Wato, Hiromu/Bushi, Desperado/Kanemaru and Ishimori/Gedo. It is a round robin tournament with two top scoring teams facing off on 11th show. I feel like any of the first three teams can win this and Ishimori/Gedo is here to set up some defence for Ishimori. And since only two matches (trios titles match and Jr. tournament finals) have been announced for last show it is theoretically possibly that we might get something else set up during this tour.

Nope. Anyway, coolest shit ever:

I think it would be very weird if Hiromu in the same year got a torch from Liger and became a heavyweight. I'd like to think that they are simply building up Ishimori since Dragon Lee can't be on these shows so Hiromu/Ishimori rivalry is next best thing. And honestly I loved both of their matches and I can't say same about all Hiromu/Dragon Lee matches so it might even be for the better.

I guess the moral of the story is that LiJ just can't be all happy. You take some and you lose a lot.

Weren't those NJPW numbers available some time ago? Unless I'm mixing something up I think that explanation at the time was that NJPW invested more into USA market and that they had that Bushiroad's kickboxing thing grouped with them that was later added to Stardom and later sold entirely, I think?

I vaguely remember someone mentioning Marquez somewhere in relation to these shows so you might be right there.

I think it was mostly the result of marketing, people knew that Marty was in power so they were more likely to give it a shot.

RevPro are going to run first post-shutdown show with Ospreay on it so thats pretty good indication on what NJPW thinks about those allegations.

Nagata and Tenzan had their last G1s already so would be weird if they returned, not that anyone wants to see 9 Tenzan singles matches in 2020. I could maybe see them doing "last G1" for Makabe and Kojima to give some additional angles? If Fale manages to return then I think Henare should also be back, no?

They also announced that there won't be undercard tags, so each show will probably have only 5 matches?

Tag titles match and Kawato/Kanemaru has been added to the main card so we now have 6 "featured" matches, thats probably enough and we might get 1 or 2 multimans to round it up. 26th Korakuen has 4 first round matches for KOPW: Okada/Yujiro, Sanada/Sho, Yano/Bushi and Kojima/Desperado. I could see Desperado beating Kojima, but other than that it will probably be Okada, Sanada and Yano. And if Okada is staying out of HW title picture then to me it looks like this is just a set up for more Okada/Sanada matches. Maybe Sanada wins here and Okada wins at the dome? 27th Korakuen has Hiromu/Naito vs Ishimori/Evil main event.

Its not like they'd run every Korakuen show in that new place since it would have ~1200 more seats. I mean, I'm sure that they aren't doing random things and have figured it out, I just find it rather surprising. Anyway, NEVER trios titles tournament concluded and it had a great finish.

I have no idea how much stuff costs in Tokyo, but I'd imagine that building a 3000 people arena there should cost a fortune. It would probably be used for other Bushiroad projects as well, but still, are they doing that well? When its not even clear when we'll be able to get full crowds again.

Is Yoshida now working any bigger promotion?

Some thoughts and spoilers: KENTA, Cobb, Finlay and Tonga won their matches. Not surprising results, but I was a bit surprised about how definitive KENTA/Fredericks was. At first I thought that these shows are about establishing Karl, but now he lost two big matches and I'm not so sure anymore, are they doing a long build here? Or are they not as high on him as everyone thinks? Question with Moxley remains. This tournament concludes in two weeks, are they going to really hold that title shot till 2021? Or have they worked out something here with him and AEW? Another option is that he vacates again, but then winner of this tournament would just face someone else who didn't win the tournament... this would make entire tournament pointless. I don't, it can get really messy here.

Figures we could use a separate thread for these shows since it kinda does look like we'll get them for a while and this might be how, obvious with Covid changing things here and there, NJPW USA expansion is going to go. It started with 4 LION'S BREAK COLLISION that basically showcased bunch of LA Dojo guys and some guys that NJPW is (or might be) interested. It concluded with Karl Fredericks vs Cobb match. And now we have NJPW Strong that starts with NJPW Cup USA 2020 tournament: Winner is going to get a title shot for USA title at a later date.

Okada/Sho/Yano vs Yujiro/Gedo/Jado was a match. And Okada suggested 1vs3 handicap match for KoPW first round match against Yujiro. So yeah, thats going to be another match. On a more pleasant note I thought that the main event was really good and we basically got Shingo/Suzuki confirmed for Jingu show.

Announcement made it sound, at least to me, that it is long term thing and not only few shows for this tournament, so maybe one thread for all of these "NJPW tries to do American expansion in the middle of pandemic" shows? Anyway, since we all love tournament NJPW announced another one, for NEVER trios belts that will take on next 4 Korakuens. August 6th: Okada/Yano/Sho vs Yujiro/Gedo/Jado Suzuki/Desperado/Douki vs Shingo/Bushi/Sanada August 7th: Tanahashi/Ibushi/Wato vs ZSJ/Taichi/Kanemaru Goto/Ishii/Yoshi vs Makabe/Honma/Taguchi August 8th semi-finals and 9th finals. So Suzuki pins Shingo to set up NEVER title match at Jingu? That Chaos vs BC match will probably be in the running for worst match in 2020. Is this going to be first title win for Yoshi-Hashi? On paper their team is rather strong and neither guy has any matches going into Jingu show so could get their first defence at that show as well.

They probably didn't like that "start a partnership with Impact or you are off our TV station" thing that Anthem did either.

Naito can say whatever he wants and company will continue booking double title matches.

People have been saying about Evil winning and KoPW title announcement that oh well, pandemic so NJPW has to adjust. But it all fits in rather nice and I'd think that if they were panic moves then it wouldn't fit in at all. You know, kinda like Impact completely changes each year and you see that it certainly was not what they were planning to do. Obviously if pandemic wasn't a thing I'm 100% sure that Okada currently wouldn't be feuding against Yujiro, Nagata/Suzuki likely wouldn't have an extended feud and so on. Possibly whatever was supposed to happen (and still could happen) during Anniversary-Dominion period was compressed into NJ Cup and Dominion. But broad strokes? They fit to me too well to be random things. Jericho recently on his podcast said that 18 months ago Gedo told him that he was going to give Evil a run with heavyweight title. Obviously Jericho might be making shit up so he now sounds like he had some inside information or maybe Gedo just lied to him. And obviously Gedo didn't plan for Covid so if he had plans then they probably were different to what actually happened. But then, why would Evil be only non big 4 wrestler to face Jericho? Surely they could have used in that spot someone else. And there is that big win over Okada in G1. And while last year there was lots of focus on Sanada its not like Evil was doing nothing, he was in semi-mains of Dontaku and KoPW shows. So even if he wasn't the focus he was still there to remind us about himself. And he lost a lot of big matches that perfectly played into his heel turn. So you know, maybe if White and other BC guys were around Evil wouldn't have joined Bullet Club, but had formed his own stable? I mean, it is fairly obvious that if/when rest of BC returns we are going to have another civil war that leads to some kind of a split. Shingo/Sho was teased before pandemic and I think likely would have happened either way, only that Sho would have likely pinned Shingo during tag team match. Kawato likely was going to return for BotSJ and had some highlights so now instead he is having a non-title feud against other juniors, this usually does not happen, but in the end is going to serve same purpose. And same now for this gimmick tournament. Assume that Okada is not in the title picture this year, well then, creating a new thing for him to win and dominate sounds like an obvious direction when you think about it. And if it was random idea then they probably wouldn't have presented it as being yearly thing.

July 31st show will have Nagata/Suzuki singles as main event. Their match at NJ Cup ruled so this should be great as well. My guess would be that winner challenges Shingo at Jingu show. As for this new Okada thing, yeah, nobody probably saw that coming. I don't know, sure it is a good thing that they are trying to spice up things and Destruction-KoPW period was often a bit underwhelming so if in following years it is going to happen on those shows then maybe it is a good idea. Then again, I'm not a fan of gimmick matches and I can see how this could end up being really, really stupid.

Are they really? Brand split has always been more of a gimmick to make it look like Smackdown, and now NXT, matters.

I don't entirely understand how having 4 different promotions is supposed to work exactly so to me this feels like first step in trying to integrate these promotions. Almost as if NOAH does not really exist anymore and its now about what Takagi wants.

So next tour is Summer Struggle that is going to end with big show at Jingu Stadium 29th of August. It looks like so far we have: Evil vs Naito for double titles Tanahashi/Ibushi vs Taichi/ZSJ for tag titles Hiromu vs Ishimori for Jr. title Shingo/Suzuki for NEVER title 4-way for KOPW 2020 title Kawato/Kanemaru I'll update this post as more matches get announced/teased. We also have 8000 Road to shows, but looking at the cards of first two it looks like they are not going to have big or interesting matches. Their main purpose is probably to "let" fans see their favourite wrestlers live since they can fit only few hundred people now on these shows, so you know, 4 shows instead of 1. Another reason might be that they have a contract with Korakuen Hall that says that NJPW is going to run X amount of shows in 2020 there so they are "catching up" with what they missed during the time they weren't running shows.