Nakmura

Every day life in Japan is pretty normal. People are not staying home and they are shopping and taking the trains as normal. But far more people are walking around with masks.

The problem is canceling these events is a major economic issue for every company, since, other than New Japan, the profit margins are very small if they exist. It will make a significant difference in annual profits and losses with a few weeks canceled, and be far worse if this lingers on.

All Bushiroad employees are working from home and teleconferencing rather than working out of the office.

Nothing has been said regarding the New Japan Cup tournament, which was to begin on 3/4, or rescheduling the Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiromu Takahashi match that was to headline the 3/3 show.

New Japan Pro Wrestling had just announced one day earlier its “other” major tournament lineup, the single elimination New Japan Cup.

The stakes for the New Japan Cup and G-1 Climax are essentially the same, the winner getting an IWGP title match. Technically in the New Japan Cup the winner can challenge for any title, but it always ends up as the IWGP title. But the dynamics and importance is very different.

It’s single elimination, meaning 31 matches instead of 91 matches, and the title shot is at the big spring show, in this case the 3/31 Sakura Genesis show at Sumo Hall in Tokyo, rather than at the Tokyo Dome.

The G-1 is symbolic in the sense it’s a journey where finals are memorable and a lot of fans without thinking can vividly remember the finals. The New Japan Cup has had some great stories over the years, most notably in 2018 when Zack Sabre Jr. submitted Tetsuya Naito, Kota Ibushi, Sanada and Hiroshi Tanahashi in a row to become an instant superstar in one classic match after another. This set up a loss to Kazuchika Okada in the championship match.

It’s not always as pleasant to remember, as the year before, Katsuyori Shibata went through Minoru Suzuki, Juice Robinson, Tomohiro Ishii and Bad Luck Fale before also losing to Okada in a classic match, but it was also the last match of his career and a match he came perilously close to dying in, needing emergency brain surgery to survive.

Another thing the same is the success rate. The New Japan Cup started in 2005 with Hiroshi Tanahashi winning, but that was just a tournament without the automatic title shot.

But over the next 14 years, four winners followed it up by taking the IWGP title and another chose the IC title and won it. In 2007, Yuji Nagata won the title from Tanahashi. In 2013, Okada won the title from Tanahashi. In 2014, Shinsuke Nakamura chose the IC title and not the IWGP title, and won it from Tanahashi. In 2016, Naito won the title from Okada and last year, Okada won the title from Jay White.

Conversely, since 2012, when the G-1 winner was to get the Tokyo Dome title match (it happened before that but it was never officially part of the G-1 stips until 2012), only once has the G-1 winner captured the title, which was 2018 winner Tanahashi beating Kenny Omega. And the reality is that wasn’t supposed to happen either, but Omega asked to lose the title since he was considering leaving.

The 32-man tournament this year was to have the winner face Naito for both the IWGP and IC titles in the main event at the 3/31 Sakura Genesis show at Tokyo Sumo Hall. What that means to that show is unclear if there is no tournament.