13 Ups & 1 Down From NJPW's 47th Anniversary Show
Jay White & Will Ospreay collide as the New Japan Cup hype intensifies.
New Japan Pro Wrestling's last major event, The New Beginning In Osaka, saw 'Switchblade' Jay White crowned IWGP Heavyweight Champion with a controversial victory over the legendary Hiroshi Tanahashi. A bold move, and unquestionably one of the biggest upsets in the belt's long, storied history.
There'd be no such shocks at today's 47th Anniversary event. White's belt wasn't on the line, and this is, at best, a B-tier show, though it did present two interesting title matches in Shingo Takagi and BUSHI vs. Roppongi 3K for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, and Jushin 'Thunder' Liger challenging for Taiji Ishimori's singles Junior belt. Elsewhere, we got a blockbuster exhibition main event as White faced off against Will Ospreay, an all-star six-man featuring Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, Tetsuya Naito, and more, as well as the usual host of multi-man tags.
Much of the show was designed to hype the upcoming New Japan Cup tournament, which begins on Friday (8 March). To that end, it was a complete success, but don't be fooled by the lopsided Ups-to-Downs ratio. This wasn't a near-perfect show. While it was certainly good, and touched greatness on a few occasions, this headline may give a false impression of its quality, though there was little to complain about throughout the 47th Anniversary's three hours.
How did it all go down? Let's take a look...