12 Ups & 6 Downs From NJPW Best Of The Super Juniors 2019
Takagi, Ospreay, and Moxley highlight NJPW's signature Jr. Heavyweight tourney.
New Japan Pro Wrestling's 26th annual Best Of The Super Juniors tournament concluded with today's final in Tokyo's Ryogoku Sumo Hall. A huge upgrade on last year's venue, the 10,000-seater building was red-hot for a stunning night of action, and rightly so, given the way NJPW had built the show.
The 2019 finals felt like a much bigger deal than usual. This was thanks not only to the excellent tournament that took Shingo Takagi and Will Ospreay all the way to the end, but an undercard crammed with intrigue. Would Hiromu Takahashi finally return from his broken neck after dropping several social media hints? Perhaps we'd see Chris Jericho, who'll challenge for Kazuchika Okada's IWGP Heavyweight Title at Dominion 6.9 Sunday? Could the legendary Hiroshi Tanahashi prove Bullet Club leader Jay White wrong in their latest single bout, and how would Jon Moxley fare in his first match since leaving WWE earlier this year?
This write-up will double as a review of the final night and the tournament as a whole, touching on every important talking point. These past few weeks haven't been perfect, but they have helped New Japan return to the cutting edge after recent spotlight-stealing shows from AEW and NXT, with some of these bouts set to place highly on many a 'Match of the Year' ballot.
Let's dive into it.