Mike’s Mini Review of NJPW The New Beginning In Osaka 2024

Happy Sunday Everyone!

The folks in the Evening thread were discussing this New Beginning show and made it sound interesting, so I’ll have a look at it. It won’t be a full review, but just some musings after a casual viewing.

As always, get yourself over to Rick‘s page for your Japanese needs!

Card for New Beginning below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=380029&page=2

New Beginning is emanating from Osaka, Japan on the 11th of February 2024

Your English announce team are Smooth Walker Stewart and Sassy Chrissy Charlton

Opening Match
Oleg Boltin and Ryusuke Taguchi Vs CHAOS (Toru Yano and YOH)

This was your standard comedy opener from the Japanese guys, with Boltin getting to throw in some impressive power stuff. Taguchi eventually couldn’t lift YOH and A roll up won it for CHAOS. A nice easy start to the show, although I feel a bit for YOH that he’s in this role when you consider that SHO seemingly still gets treated somewhat seriously. Never nice to see someone talented get Jannetty’d. Also, is it Boltin or Oleg that comes first when saying his name? Because Cage Match and the commentary team seem to disagree…

WINNERS: CHAOS
RATING: *1/2

Match Two
Bishamon (Hirooki Goto and YOSHI-HASHI) Vs United Empire (Callum Newman and Great-O-Khan)

This crowd was pretty HOSS for Newman, and that gave the match some good heat. I’ve never seen Newman before, but he was great here. The wrestling was good in general and it was an entertaining match, with Newman getting worked over for a bit until it was hot tag O-Khan. TMDK hopped on commentary for a bit and made some funny Art Donnovan references. The finishing stretch was done really well, with Newman having some chances to win until Bishamon doubled up on him for three.

WINNERS: BISHAMON
RATING: ***

Match Three
El Desperado, Shota Umino, Tiger Mask IV and Tomoaki Honma Vs House Of Torture (EVIL, Ren Narita, SHO and Yujiro Takahashi)

House of Torture matches aren’t really there to be enjoyed, but endured, but I guess it’s better than an EVIL singles match. Honma is beyond done physically at this stage, to the point that he makes 1988 Andre The Giant look like a prime Jushin Liger when it comes to movement and agility, but the crowd still likes him so he can manage being a babyface in peril, which was smartly what he mostly did here. The most impressive folk in the match were Desperado, Umino and Sho, which I don’t think will shock anyone. Umino did a great hot tag segment that the fans got into, with HoT being an acceptable Putty Patrol for it all. The babyfaces all quadrupled up on SHO at one stage in a funny bit, with Honma getting the falling headbutt as the full stop on it all, but HoT had to ruin that perfectly cromulent ending by breaking up the pin. That left us with SHO and Tiger, with SHO getting the win, seeing as he’s going after Desperado’s belt on 23rd Feb. An okay match, and the post-match promo stuff with SHO and Desperado advanced the storyline.

WINNERS: HOUSE OF TORTURE
RATING: **

Match Four
Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito and Yota Tsuji) Vs Just 5 Guys (DOUKI, SANADA, Taichi, TAKA Michinoku and Yuya Uemura)

Uemura growing his hair as long as possible, so that the inevitable hair cut he’ll suffer following the upcoming Luchas de Apuestas match with Tsuji will be even more crushing, shows that he gets this whole Pro Wrestling thing. Charlton getting a Bottom reference here on commentary is why he makes the big bucks. I apologise if this was actively explained and I missed it, but this looked to be worked Torneo Cibernetico style, with only one partner on the apron at any time. We got the expected pairings facing off (DOUKI/Hiromu, Uemura/Tsuji etc) and they all produced good action that laid the table well for future clashes. SANADA and Naito of course had a tango together, and I thought it was okay but not as good as some of the other sections. Things eventually broke down and SANADA put BUSHI away with the Skull End. Decent stuff for the most part, with it working well as a way to set up future matches.

WINNERS: JUST 5 GUYS
RATING: **3/4

Match Five
Hiroshi Tanahashi Vs Kazuchika Okada

Okada is getting so emotionally wrought during this leaving tour that his body will be bereft of moisture by the end of it. As someone who fondly remembers the initial Okada/Tana Trilogy, it was sad to see the end of an era here. Tana is showing his age more and more these days, and he’s been working in New Japan since 1999, so his body has been worn down significantly. Despite that, he can still work a fun match provided you adjust your expectations on what you’re going to get.

Okada actually played Heel here for old time’s sake, and he got booed for it too, but in a sort of “we’re doing this because we’re obligated to because you’re Heel for the night, but we don’t actually dislike you” way. We got the classic hits here, with Okada working a bit of heat and Tana replying by screwing some dragon’s, with the crowd digging all of it. Tanahashi even came off the top rope to the floor at one stage, which is madness in his physical condition.

The finishing stretch was done well, with some finisher countering from both wrestlers leading into the gutsy strike battle, with neither wishing to yield. There was a bit of miscommunication on a Sling Blade at one stage, but they powered through it and things picked up again, with Okada eventually making it rain for the surprising result as I didn’t think President Tanahashi would do the J-O-B here. Still, a good match and a nice end to the long rivalry, with the two hugging.

WINNER: KAZUCHIKA OKADA
RATING: ***1/4

Match Six
IWGP Tag Team Title Match
Champs: Guerrillas Of Destiny (El Phantasmo and Hikuleo) Vs BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens & KENTA)

This was seemingly the Gedo middle finger flip to the fan base match based on the reaction to the result. I thought the match itself was okay, if a bit dull. I do like how much KENTA enjoys being a jerk though, it can be very entertaining. Naturally we got the heat segment on ELP, as Hikuleo is a perfect hot tag guy. The challengers actually worked a reasonable heat segment, with some smoothly executed false hot tags. Hikuleo did eventually get the tag and ran wild, looking good whilst doing so, and we headed into the home stretch following that.

The crowd actually sounded quite muted, and it left the match feeling a bit flat, but the action wasn’t bad, although Owens is notably not as sharp a worker these days. That’s understandable when you play a smaller bumping Heel for so much of your career though, as your body is going to wear down eventually. The Champs looked to have it won, but Owens took out the ref and Taiji Ishimori interfered in order to help the Heels win. It was very much a groan reaction rather than a proper Heel heat reaction for the finish, but the match itself was okay.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: BULLET CLUB
RATING: **1/2

Co-Main
Bryan Danielson Vs Zack Sabre Jr.

So hey, you like technical wrestling? Well this is the one for you! Tremendous stuff here, with both wrestlers trading holds and counter-holds with a smoothness and elegance that you don’t always see. I think that even if technical wrestling isn’t really your thing, the quality of the action here would at least be entertaining, if only because of the speed and creativity on display from both competitors. Whereas ZSJ targeted Danielson’s arm in the AEW match, we had Dragon going after the leg of ZSJ here, and it gave ZSJ a valley to climb out of.

There was a fantastic moment where Dragon practically goaded Zack into grabbing a rope, with Zack refusing, showing that this wasn’t just a grappling exhibition but there was also character work going on. Danielson’s ability to play both a gutsy underdog and a sadistic torture machine with equal aplomb really is impressive, as he’s great in both roles. Eventually the intensity of the bout escalated leading to both wrestlers using more strikes, as once again the mutual dislike between the two denied us a completely hold based technical battle, which you had to know was coming.

The strikes were just as well done as the technical wrestling, with the bout descending into a war of attrition as the intensity rose and rose. Eventually we had both wrestlers abandoning the plan to just go for a submission victory, with both trying to win by pin or KO, showing how important winning was for the pair for them to be prepared to try other methods of finishing the contest than solely a submission hold. It was really cool to see ZSJ being such an effective gutsy babyface too after years of being mostly known as an arrogant sadist who liked hurting people. After a fantastic sequence of pinning holds and counters, ZSJ finally managed to hold Danielson down for three, but there’s still room for another match so someone can finally get a submission win in this feud. Bring it on I say!

WINNER: ZACK SABRE JR
RATING: ****1/2

Main Event
Ten Man Steel Cage Tag Team Match
United Empire (Francesco Akira, HENARE, Jeff Cobb, TJP and Will Ospreay) Vs BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Alex Coughlin, Clark Connors, David Finlay, Drilla Moloney and Gabe Kidd) w/ Gedo

This was essentially the ROH Vs CZW Cage of Death match, with the cage surrounding the ring with space outside to fight whilst people entered in intervals like War Games. Ospreay demanded five minutes with Finlay to start, and got it, leading to a good intense brawl between the two. Thankfully New Japan had the Heels get the equivalent of winning the coin toss, which is the only way this sort of match really works.

This one did unfortunately fall into the trap of the WWE War Games and AEW Blood and Guts though, by having the match beyond section go on for way too long. You don’t need one of these going any longer than 25-30 minutes in my opinion, and this went double that. We got the requisite violence and blood here, with the fans digging it more than I thought they would.

This one had so many twists and turns, along with some surprise appearances, that I’d just be listing stuff here if I went through it all. Akira and Maloney both had good nights, with Henare getting to do the “injured guy comes back from the dead to help his team” bit. Overall; it was too long, and it won’t be for everyone, but if you enjoy the modern War Games and B&G matches, then I think you’d enjoy this too.

At the 40 minute mark I was happy to chalk it down to something that isn’t for me and give it a ***ish rating, but then it kept going. Eventually all of the babyfaces were cuffed outside the ring to the cage, leaving Ospreay alone in the ring with the Heels, but Great O-Kahn made the save and everyone was uncuffed, only for Finlay to kick out of Ospreay’s follow up pin attempt after taking a trip through a barbed wire table.

Akira got possibly one of the biggest pops of the night, by taking a fork to Maloney and Connors. The Heels ended up removing the padding of the ring before recuffing the Faces, as things reached the hour mark. By this point the match had peaked nearly 20 minutes previously, and the ring looked super unsafe with the boards bouncing and leaving holes in the ring. Eventually Ospreay was 1 on 5 with the Heels, and that ended as you’d expect, with Finlay of course getting the pin.

WINNERS: WAR DOGS
RATING: **

Overall Thoughts

Not an amazing show or anything, but I enjoyed it for the most part and the ZSJ Vs Dragon match was sensational. New Japan structures their shows really well, with the early tag matches advancing angles and giving folk a chance to get in there and do a bit for the crowd without taking too many knocks, and then there’s usually some bigger matches in the second half that deliver great action. It’s a good way of doing things and the shows usually flow well, although having to set up the cage for the main on New Beginning was an exception. The cage match didn’t really do it for me, as it was way too long and wildly self indulgent, but I’m sure some will love it.

Mildly recommended show