For the past two weeks, New Japan Pro-Wrestling has been running their annual New Japan Cup and the 2025 version didn’t disappoint. We got several classics from the annual tournament, but more importantly, two new names emerged victorious and will head into the finals: David Finlay and Shota Umino.
Shota Umino is coming off a star-making year where he won the 2024 G1 Climax. Unfortunately, Umino was unable to beat Zack Sabre Jr. for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 19.
Now this isn’t the first time Umino and Finlay have fought one another. In fact, these two met in the quarter finals of the 2023 New Japan Cup. That night, David Finlay beat Umino, but both men have changed since their last encounter. Finlay has been on the cusp of becoming the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion for years, but Umino has plenty of experience when it comes to winning tournaments.
Can the 2024 G1 Climax winner pull off back-to-back tournament wins and secure a world title match against Hirooki Goto? Or will David Finlay steal the opportunity from under his nose and challenge Hirooko Goto?
Other than the Finals match, the show is loaded with tag team matches, which is tradition for the finals of the New Japan card. Los Ingobernables De Japon, HOUSE OF TORTURE , and Bullet Club are all advertised to be in action.
Check out the full card below of the finals of the 2025 New Japan Cup:
NJPW New Japan Cup Final (3/20)
- New Japan Cup Final: Shota Umino vs David Finlay
- El Desperado, Boltin Oleg & Hirooki Goto vs TMDK (Hartley Jackson, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr.)
- Los Ingobernables De Japon (Shingo Takagi & EVIL) vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL & Yoshinobu Kanemaru)
- War Dogs (Gabe Kidd, Drilla Moloney & Taiji Ishimori) vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (Ren Narita, Yujiro Takahashi & SHO)
- Los Ingobernables De Japon (Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI) vs United Empire (Jeff Cobb, Callum Newman & Jakob Austin Young)
- Just Four Guys (Yuya Uemura, Taichi & TAKA Michinoku) vs BULLET CLUB (SANADA, Chase Owens & Bad Luck Fale)
- Hiroshi Tanahashi Final Road ~Kinship~ Satoshi Kojima vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
- ELP NJPW World Open Challenge: El Phantasmo (c) vs TBD
- YOSHI-HASHI & Katsuya Murashima vs Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii