The Young Bucks are set to defend their tag team gold.
Though Matthew and Nicholas Jackson opted to let the forest burn (AEW), the duo decided that it would be a great time to make their return to New Japan Pro-Wrestling. The Young Bucks beat Jeff Cobb & The Great-O-Khan and Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi at Wrestle Dynasty to win the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team titles for the second time in their careers. The AEW tag team teased the possibility of bringing those belts to Dynamite.
Though their biggest concerns should be their first opponents at The New Beginning on February 11. New Japan confirmed that The Young Bucks will defend their prestigious titles against Los Ingobernables de Japon’s Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi.
This should be a great match. We got a preview of what these two teams can do at Wrestle Dynasty and seeing Naito working in the tag team division is always a treat. Naito is no stranger to being a tag team champion as he’s won the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team belts with SANADA on two separate occasions. However, Naito and Hiromu have been working together mainly since joining forces in the World Tag League. They won the 2024 tournament, but opted to wrestle each other at Wrestle Kingdom 19 instead.
Hiromu doesn’t have a tag team title run in the record books, but he is a former NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Champion with BUSHI and Yota Tsuji. The match came about when Naito made the challenge to The Bucks following his match at New Year’s Dash.
Not surprisingly, The Young Bucks accepted the challenge. The big championship match joins Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hirooki Goto for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, Yota Tsuji vs. Gabe Kidd for the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship, and IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Champions the Ichiban Sweet Boys defending their titles against Roppongi ReVice. The New Beginning is shaping up to be something special for New Japan. We'll find out if The Young Bucks can successfully retain their belts on February 11.