NJPW: 5 highlights from the first half of Best of the Super Juniors

The first 8 shows of the 26th Best of the Super Juniors are in the bag with 7 more on the way. With the finals inching ever closer on June 5, let’s take a moment to recap some of the best moments from the first half of the annual tournament.

New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Best of the Super Juniors is one of the best parts of wrestling every year. NJPW routinely turns out excellent tournaments with the G1, BOSJ, and Tag League tournaments but when the Junior Heavyweight division is given the chance to truly shine, we get an opportunity to see New Japan on a whole other level.

While the point of any tournament is to be the one who stands tall at the end, New Japan routinely does a glorious job of weaving existing stories into tournaments while creating new stories and rivalries from card to card.

Leading up to this year’s Best of the Super Juniors, SHO made it clear that he wanted one thing and one thing only – Shingo Takagi. After a series of back-and-forth matches between Roppongi 3K and LIJ’s Junior Heavyweight tandem of Shingo and BUSHI, we were no closer to figuring out who was the better bruiser in each team.

Ren Narita, a Young Lion on the rise, wasn’t initially supposed to be in the tournament. Due to visa issues affecting Flip Gordon’s availability, Narita was slotted in and has spent his first 5 matches proving to everybody that he’ll be an undeniable force once he graduates to the main card for good.

After debuting with much fanfare and picking up a tag team win over Will Ospreay prior to the tournament’s kickoff, El Phantasmo has established himself as a new top gun in the Bullet Club. With in-ring acumen as developed as his cocky attitude, ELP has quickly become one to watch.

The old guard of New Japan have come out in full force to remind the younger generation who came before them, and why they should still be considered threats in the division. Rocky Romero has turned out incredible performances, Yoshinobu Kanemaru is eking out surprise wins in true dirtbag fashion, and Tiger Mask seems more invigorated than he has been in recent memory.

On the other end of the spectrum, the newer faces in the mix have more than earned themselves consistent spots on the roster. Jonathan Gresham and Bandido have looked dominant even in their losses, and IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Dragon Lee has shown why he deserves to wear the gold around his waist.

At this point in the game, only a couple of wrestlers have been fully eliminated from winning the Best of the Super Juniors tournament. As of the Korakuen Hall show on May 23, the standings are as follows:

A Block
Shingo Takagi: 10
Taiji Ishimori: 8
Dragon Lee: 6
Jonathan Gresham: 6
Tiger Mask: 4
Marty Scurll: 4
Titan: 4
SHO: 4
Yoshinobu Kanemaru: 4
TAKA Michinoku: 0

B Block
El Phantasmo: 10
Will Ospreay: 8
Ryusuke Taguchi: 8
Robbie Eagles: 6
YOH: 6
Bandido: 4
BUSHI: 4
Rocky Romero: 2
DOUKI: 2
Ren Narita: 0

Jonathan Gresham was one my most anticipated additions to the tournament. I had hopes that he’d be involved in the Best of the Super Juniors due to the ROH/New Japan relationship and was over the moon to see his name on the list of competitors.

Gresham brings a unique style to the Junior Heavyweight division filled with strong style and lucha libre practitioners. Rather than rotating endlessly through the air like a Bandido or Will Ospreay, Gresham breaks his opponents down similarly to Zack Sabre Jr.

Not only does he bring a unique in-ring style, but Gresham also brings a ton of personality in everything he does. It’s easy for a ring technician to be seen as bland or boring despite being incredibly impressive.

That’s not a complaint anyone could possibly have with ‘The Octopus’ in the ring.

As a brand new face in the company, Gresham has seemingly been adopted as quickly as Colt Cabana was during the New Japan Cup. Overcoming a language barrier with ability and character, Gresham has carved out a space for himself in the division that can’t be occupied by anybody else on the current roster.

Also living in a space all his own is Bandido. Bandido has competed on a couple of the joint ROH/New Japan shows but is showing his grit and grace as the days roll on in the Best of the Super Juniors.

What can be said about Bandido that hasn’t already been said?

The dude flies like an absolute maniac. His moves are as breathtaking as they are death-defying. He’s got one of the cooler masks in lucha libre right now and, if Juice Robinson is to be believed, is a dreamboat beneath the mask.

As impressive as he is, Bandido may also be one of the more polarizing figures in the tournament. At times, his offense can seem contrived and take you out of the moment, his springboard 450 to a forever-waiting YOH one of the most glaring examples.

While I’m not a blind believer of Bandido, I do still think that he’s bringing the style and substance to a Junior Heavyweight division which has felt stale since the untimely departure of the ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ last year.

Dragon Lee isn’t a new face to a New Japan ring, but this is obviously his most substantial stint with the company yet. After becoming the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion at G1 Supercard in New York, Lee has vowed to remain champion long enough for the injured Hiromu Takahashi to challenge him for the championship.

So far, Lee has been one of the more dominant competitors in the tournament. Racking up a total of 6 points so far, he’s dropped losses to only two men – the former champion, Taiji Ishimori, and the seemingly unstoppable Shingo Takagi.

It’s basically a given that everybody will lose to Shingo as he prepares to run the table without a single loss, so dropping a match to him isn’t quite so deflating. Even with the loss to Ishimori, Lee has pulled out star-making performances putting the Junior Heavyweight division back on the map.

It isn’t just newcomers and youngsters stepping up in this year’s tournament. In each year’s G1 or Best of the Super Juniors, there are wrestlers who are clearly there to eat losses without necessarily losing any of their own prestige. Typically reserved for the old guard and Third Generation – names who have built their legacy and are now more in the habit of giving back.

Someone may have forgotten to pass that information onto Rocky Romero, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, and Tiger Mask.

Rocky has stood out as an immediate ray of hope and sunshine in this year’s tournament. When I first started watching New Japan, Rocky was teaming with Alex Koslov as Forever Hooligans and I was completely shattered when Koslov announced his retirement in 2015.

Rocky would move on and form another fantastic team with Trent Beretta as Roppongi Vice and has largely been known as a tag team wrestler, manager, and commentator for the last several years. It became easy to write Rocky off as a face in the crowd amongst the more active members of the roster.

In the 26th Best of the Super Juniors, Romero has reminded everybody just how good he is in the ring. Looking at the brackets, everybody was probably quick to assume Will Ospreay would defeat Romero on May 16 – myself included. As the match went on, though, I began to believe in the magic of the former Black Tiger.

With the importance of the BOSJ hanging over everybody’s heads, Romero turned out a performance that should absolutely propel him back into the Junior Heavyweight division as an active competitor. Despite Romero’s legacy in New Japan, he’s only won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship once, and that was under the Black Tiger moniker.

Could this be a career resurgence for the 8-time holder of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles?

While he hasn’t turned out incredible performances like Rocky, Yoshinobu Kanemaru is another outstanding part of the Junior Heavyweight division who often gets lost in the shuffle. Like Rocky, he’s easy to write off as one of the least-promoted members of his stable. When the focus is just on Kanemaru, though, he comes to life.

Much like Romero’s match with Ospreay, Kanemaru’s match with SHO on May 22 seemed like a no-brainer. SHO is one of the most popular names in the division, and a victory over Kanemaru should have been an easy couple of points. Kanemaru, though, had ideas of his own.

In one of the greatest moments of the entire tournament so far, and a true “hands on head, mouth agape” moment for me, Kanemaru baited SHO into brawling throughout Korakuen Hall before using a Young Lion as an obstacle to pick up a count-out victory over one half of RPG3K. The look on SHO’s face when he realized what had happened was absolutely priceless.

Kanemaru continued his pattern of shock victories with a shot of whiskey and a small package stealing 2 points from Taiji Ishimori.

Tied for fourth place in a competitive A Block, Tiger Mask seems to be more motivated than ever before. Nursing a damaged knee hasn’t slowed him down, and the legend has looked good with victories over TAKA Michinoku and Kanemaru thus far. Plus, he continues to have one of the best tombstone piledrivers in the game.

While Tiger Mask hasn’t had as many standout matches as Romero or Kanemaru, he’s coming to the tournament with a chip on his shoulder that nobody has been able to knock off just yet. If he can string together a few more victories in the coming days, he could upset the clear favorite Shingo Takagi as the winner of the A Block.

This year’s New Japan Cup was not only the largest in history, but it also featured the standout performance of Young Lion Shota Umino.

Despite losing to Hiroshi Tanahashi in the first round (and who could blame him?), Umino fought with passion and had the crowd buying into every near fall. Throughout the entire Road To Wrestling Dontaku tour, Umino continued to look strong, determined, and furious.

One of Umino’s most comparable contemporaries is Ren Narita who suddenly found himself in the Best of the Super Juniors just days before the tournament was set to begin. Substituting for Flip Gordon who ran into visa issues, Narita has gone winless thus far, but has absolutely made himself a star among the current crop of Young Lions.

On the second night of the tour, Robbie Eagles battled Narita in the rookie’s hometown. With the packed crowd fully behind him, Narita nearly put Eagles away to the shock and delight of everybody watching on.

Narita pulled out another all-start performance against Bandido on May 22 but, once again, came up short in his quest for points in the block. With a list of daunting challenges ahead of him, including Will Ospreay and YOH, Narita will be hard-pressed to gain any points in this year’s tournament – but that’s to be expected.

Nobody actually thought Shota Umino would defeat Tanahashi in the New Japan Cup until the bell rang and Umino unleashed on the ‘Ace of the Universe’. In the same fashion, Narita looks like an easy 2 points for all of his opponents on paper. When the bell rings though, all bets are off.

After nearly putting away both Eagles and Bandido in outstanding matches, Narita is going to be a force to be reckoned with in his remaining four matches. Unlike the New Japan Cup, the Best of the Super Juniors isn’t a one-and-done situation. Narita is in this tournament until the very end and still stands a chance to pick up at least one moral victory to crack the goose egg hanging over his head.

More than anything though, Narita is gaining valuable experience and whetting the appetite of the New Japan faithful as he continues on his journey to break the Young Lion shackles and become a tried and true member of the full roster.

There are certain wrestlers who you’ll always remember seeing for the first time. For me, El Phantasmo now fits into that category.

A name I’d heard a lot in the past year but had yet to actually see in action, ELP was a complete mystery to me. He had the benefit of having a vignette aired in the weeks leading up to his debut and all that was revealed about him was that he would wrestle under the banner of Bullet Club.

In his very first match in New Japan, ELP teamed with Taiji Ishimori to surprise Will Ospreay and Dragon Lee with an upset victory. More importantly, he pinned Ospreay to immediately establish himself as a threat to every wrestler up and down the New Japan roster.

Over the past several months, Ospreay has been built as one of the most dominant and dynamic wrestlers in the company. Able to shift seamlessly between the Junior and Heavyweight divisions, Ospreay is the type of hybrid wrestler who epitomizes professional wrestling in its current form.

With a win over Ospreay, ELP was instantly put on the map. As if that wasn’t enough, he has gone on – so far – to remain undefeated in the tournament.

It isn’t all about the in-ring ability of El Phantasmo that captivates fans, though. ELP has walked into New Japan with a swagger reminiscent of former Bullet Club leader Prince Devitt, and isn’t shy about dishing out insults and a little bit of destruction of personal property to the ringside fans.

We’re not talking about trading verbal barbs back and forth with adult fans shouting insults at the wrestler. No, ELP’s targets are of a very specific demographic – like the time at ringside he flipped off a literal infant. Or, one of the many times he took a child’s hat and threw it across the arena.

Even his most ardent supporters aren’t safe evidenced by this youngster who had his cardboard RevPro replica title bent over The Headbanger’s knee.

Without seeing him in the ring, it’d be easy to write El Phantasmo off as a goofy character who enjoys making children miserable. For years, Chuck Taylor rode a similar line by making it a point to make children in the audience cry and tremble with fear. What both of them have been able to do though, is couple over the top behavior with fantastic performances.

I’ve mentioned before that the Junior Heavyweight division has felt like a bit of an afterthought for a while in New Japan. While many of the stars shining bright in this tournament help boost it to another level, El Phantasmo is a wrestler who can truly turn an entire division around with his performances alone.

With jaw-dropping Best of the Super Juniors matches, and victories, against Bandido, Ospreay, and Robbie Eagles amongst others, ELP is making a case for himself being the next man whose shoulders can bear the weight of the entire Junior Heavyweight division.

Plus, with the similarities in look, attitude, and swagger to the aforementioned Prince Devitt, could we see another absolute breakout performer take Bullet Club to new heights? While Jay White is the appointed leader of the group, ELP may be the one who embodies the true rebel spirit of the faction more than anyone else currently wearing the black and white.

To paraphrase Franklin D Roosevelt, “I have seen war and I love war when it’s two beefy dudes clobbering each other within an inch of their lives until they finally hit each other so hard that we all turn into dust.”

I think I got that right.

Perhaps no other feud in the Best of the Super Juniors is as important or longstanding as the land war between SHO and Shingo Takagi. When Shingo was first unveiled as the newest member of Los Ingobernables de Japon, he sent a shock-wave through the entire wrestling world.

Billed as a Junior Heavyweight but built like a tank of a Heavyweight, Shingo and partner BUSHI quickly made their presence known by becoming IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions. While their reign was short-lived, it proved that Shingo was here to make a statement as a dominant force in LIJ.

Despite losing their titles back to Roppongi 3K at the anniversary show in March, Shingo continued to protect his status as a technically undefeated member of the New Japan roster. To date, nobody has pinned or submitted Shingo. Any losses suffered in tag team matches have been at the hands of his partners without ‘The Dragon’ being part of the losing fall.

Because of this, Shingo has developed an ever-growing target on his back with the Shock Arrow of SHO zeroing in ever closer on the bullseye. Leading up to the Best of the Super Juniors, SHO made it no secret that he wanted a chance to go one-on-one with Shingo.

It didn’t matter to SHO when – maybe they’d meet in the finals as block winners. Maybe New Japan would be brave enough to place them in the same block so we wouldn’t have to rely on wins and losses to lock horns.

Thankfully for us, the second option came to fruition.

Not only were we lucky enough to get this meeting as part of regular block matches, but we weren’t going to have to wait too long to see it. SHO and Shingo were scheduled to face off on the very first night of the tournament in easily the most awaited meetings of the entire tour.

Unfortunately for SHO, he learned that not all wishes are meant to come true. In spite of a valiant effort from one half of the current IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, Shingo came out victorious in a match that nearly went to a time limit draw.

For Shingo, this was the start of a roll that has yet to be stopped or slowed. For SHO, it was the beginning of a tumultuous journey through the rest of Best of the Super Juniors. While Shingo now sits with a full 10 points on the board, SHO has struggled and has accumulated just 4 points to date.

What’s most obvious between SHO and Shingo, though, is that the war between these two beasts is far from over. When the day finally comes for SHO and YOH to break off into the Heavyweight and Junior Heavyweight divisions respectively, Shingo will be waiting for SHO.

There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that SHO and Shingo will be a feud we see play out in New Japan over the next several years. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see SHO and Shingo headline in The Tokyo Dome years down the line after each man has solidified themselves as legitimate Heavyweights.

For now, though, Shingo looks to be on his way to making history as the third man to go undefeated in the Best of the Super Juniors. For SHO? He’ll be in Shingo’s rear-view mirror as ‘The Dragon’ inches closer and closer to wresting the Junior Heavyweight Title away from Dragon Lee.