6 Winners And 4 Losers From The New Japan Cup

9. Winner: SHO

EVIL New Japan Cup
NJPW

SHO, already a junior tag team champion, represented both his division and himself extremely well, despite only getting one win in the tournament before losing to SANADA. Sometimes one win can be enough depending on who it's against, and in this case it was NEVER double-champion, The Dragon, Shingo Takagi.

SHO remained his high voltage self, already being the muscle of Roppongi 3K. He went blow for blow with the equally musclebound Takagi able to keep one of NJPW's best wrestlers from making it out of the first round. While SHO may have lost to SANADA, he continued to look good in tag team matches against Los Ingobernables de Japon.

After another win, Takagi confronted SHO asking him which title he wanted to challenge for, the openweight belt, or the six-man title. SHO emphatically chose the openweight belt, getting into a tug of war with The Dragon. This sets up SHO for a big singles title.

Seeing as SHO hasn't won much on his own, aside from NJPW's bodybuilding competition, this will be a perfect opportunity for him to strike out as his man, potentially even getting himself into a G1 Climax.

SHO has always demonstrated great singles potential in the Best Of The Super Juniors tournaments - this can be his time to capitalize on everything going his way.

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A former NCAA runner turned writer, and an ardent aficionado of all things academic, aesthetic and athletic.