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NJPW 2020 NJ Cup


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Random thoughts:

Upper left bracket looks kinda weak. I hope that Ishii wins it.

Lower left bracket has some interesting stuff. White beating Okada here would make sense if they want to postpone Naito/Okada rematch, but that match is happening at Okada's home so it sounds very unlikely that he'd lose there. I feel like Nagata getting a win over Suzuki here is plausible considering that Okada/Suzuki is kinda done to death, Suzuki/White doesn't make much sense, while Nagata would be fresh and interesting match for both of them. From another side we got Juice as clear favourite. White/Juice probably makes more sense than Okada/Juice.

Upper right bracket looks stacked.  I feel like first two matches are here only to set up a tag title match and neither of the guys will advance far. It probably comes down to Sanada/Ospreay and winner of that likely wins the entire thing.

Lower right bracket I think is for KENTA to take. He'll get some heat back by beating Karl, Yoshi and Goto (I think he beats Evil) before putting over Sanada or Ospreay in a heated match. But since it is happening at Sanada's hometown I'd think that Sanada/KENTA is more likely, crowd will likely go nuclear for all the bullshit and KENTA's stalling.

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That’s a great looking bracket.  Ishii and KENTA definitely look like locks for the final 4.  And I do like Sanada to come out of that stacked block after the Golden Aces/Suzuki-gun sort each other out.  

Pretty obvious that the winner of Okada/White takes that bracket, but I’m really uncertain how that plays out.  A White win would seem to guarantee another awful White/Sanada match in the finals, which....woof.

I would go freaking nuts if Ishii won and finally got another title shot.  If you look at the last two SG events, they’ve shown a willingness to headline with challengers who aren’t established main event guys, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility.

Edited by EVA
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Ishii looks like the likely winner of his block. Though I also wouldn't be surprised to see Henare get his first big win there either, I could see Owens getting a little push here too, they both have been getting positioned to move up the card it seems. But if Ishii doesn't win that bracket than it would probably be Yano or Fale taking it which idk if I see happening.

For the bottom left bracket I think the winner of the second round of the top half is going to the finals, It's likely that the winner of Okada/White will be the one to make it to the finals but I could see Suzuki making the finals and even possibly winning the whole thing, as it would be a good high level defense for Naito but one that doesn't burn though either a) a big match with one of the current top guys or b) have someone like SANADA win a title shot and likely come short (and in SANADA's case he's either got to be held out of title matchs for a while or get to win one so he doesn't end up like Goto). I think Juice will get a good run here too.

Tanahashi could win his bracket to play out a scenario like the Suzuki one I outlined also and he and Naito have great chemistry so I'd be there for it. But I think it's Ospreay's block to lose, ZSJ is targeting Moxley so I don't see him winning though I'd love to see Taichi in the finals (or even win it all but doubtful cause of the tag team scene) and Shingo is tied up with the NEVER belt so don't see him challenging for the big belts.

Don't see how anyone but KENTA wins his bracket but look forward to him and either EVIL or Goto beating the piss out of each other. 

 

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Be interesting to see how they handle the tournament. Do they cram the entire thing into the rest of the tour? Run a reduced tournament starting with quarterfinals? Or do they cancel the whole thing?

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They should just run the tournament (or at least the matches that are impacted) in Rio Di Janeiro or whatever the proper equivalent would be. New Zealand maybe. We may never see the footage but we can be sure that things were contested properly. 

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Well, they're losing 8 shows off the tournament, but have 9 days between the finals and Genesis.  I'd say rearrange tourny matches, tighten up how many tourny matches they run per show, and do the finals at Sakura Genesis, with the shot possibly being at Dontaku.  That way you can still sneak in the Naito/Hiromu Anniversary match at Genesis as well, since that's going to need a makeup.

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9 minutes ago, Raziel said:

Well, they're losing 8 shows off the tournament, but have 9 days between the finals and Genesis.  I'd say rearrange tourny matches, tighten up how many tourny matches they run per show, and do the finals at Sakura Genesis, with the shot possibly being at Dontaku.  That way you can still sneak in the Naito/Hiromu Anniversary match at Genesis as well, since that's going to need a makeup.

Or Gedo puts on his Indy Promoter hat. "FOUR-WAYS!"

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8 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Emergency international tour!

But, seriously, it was weird they hadn't canceled anything given that Stardom basically closed down for a month.

Makes sense. Stardom makes most of their money by charging their fans ¥10000 to breathe on the talent after the show.

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On 2/27/2020 at 12:21 AM, John E. Dynamite said:

If only it were June, we could have the NJPW/CZW Best of the Best of the Super Juniors we've always silently begged for.

If it's all deathmatches you might have DOUKI winning it all.

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  • 2 months later...

We're baaaaack.

 

So it's roughly the same brackets, just remove the gajin and replace them with whoever they had ready to go that's not Naito.  

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