The New Japan Cup is officially underway!
This year has 24 competitors fighting for the opportunity to challenge the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion at Genesis on April 5th. The annual tournament features several former world champions (Testsuya Naito, EVIL, SANADA, and Zack Sabre Jr.) and standouts who have the potential to be a future world champion like Gabe Kidd, Jeff Cobb, and Shingo Takagi.
Four matches from the first round have officially been determined as former IWGP Heavyweight Champion EVIL will moves onto the second round of the single elimination tournament. EVIL was well…evil in his match against Yota Tsuji as he used a low blow and finisher, Everything is Evil, to get the cheap victory.
The bigger surprise of the evening was Yuya Uemura taking out SANADA in the very first round. The match went nearly 16 minutes and the former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion seemingly had the match won until Yuya blocked a Deadfall attempt. That allowed him to get a Superman Press cover, which got the three count!
The star of the show however was Gabe Kidd. The Strong Openweight Champion had a wrestling clinic with Ren Narita for nearly 24-minutes. Heel shenanigans took place that almost stopped Kidd from advancing as Sho and Yujiro ran down after Kidd accidentally hit the referee with a lariat. But Drilla Moloney and Taiji Ishimori ran the two NJPW stars to the back and Gabe was able to recover. He finished off Narita with a jumping piledriver that got the three count.
Check out the full results of the first night of the 2025 New Japan Cup.
- Katsuya Murashima def. Daiki Nagai
- Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Koijima, Hiroyoki Tenzan & Tiger Mask def. Hirooki Goto, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toru Yano & Tomoaki Honma
- El Phantasmo, El Desperado & Jado def. United Empire (Great-O-Khan, Jeff Cobb & Jakob Austin Young)
- United Empire (Callum Newman & Francesco Akira) def. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI)
- New Japan Cup 1st Round Match: Yuya Uemura def. SANADA
- New Japan Cup 1st Round Match: EVIL def. Yota Tsuji
- New Japan Cup 1st Round Match: Ryohei Oiwa def. Chase Owens
- New Japan Cup 1st Round Match: Gabe Kidd def. Ren Narita