6/15/2025

Conor McFall assesses New Japan’s Junior Division in the wake of the final of “Best of the Super Juniors 32”

How does one judge a tournament? By most estimations, the 2025 edition of New Japan’s Best Of The Super Juniors was entirely unremarkable, with truly great matches being few and far between and there not being any particularly compelling narratives through the blocks. With a few exceptions, this has largely been the lot of New Japan round robins in the 2020s. However, at the end of this night, one could make a clear case that this was the most productive tournament they have booked since those days. That is because it seems like they are pulling the trigger on making Kosei Fujita the junior heavyweight ace for the next generation. In the best match of the tournament, he closed the show by defeating YOH in 28 hard fought minutes.

New Japan fans have been high on Fujita for quite some time, with particular acclaim going to his matches with El Desperado, who he will face once again for the Junior Heavyweight Championship at a date to be determined. They tend to really hone in on the mat work in their encounters, breaking the usual pattern of the division. Given that their match will not be on “Dominion”, I expect them to get a main event slot for their eventual title match, likely at Korakuen Hall. Given Desperado’s recent track record, I imagine that both wrestlers will again embrace the struggle and break the 30 minute mark in the match, which I really hope Fujita actually wins.

New Japan is a weird promotion these days. They have the best world champion in the business with the feel-good story of Hirooki Goto on top, but this is ultimately trading in nostalgia while a swathe of younger talents have glacially slow elevations to the top. I recognise that this is the usual Gedo pattern, but given that this company has lost Jay White, Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay and Tetsuya Naito (and also “JC Mateo”) in the last 24 months, it’s pretty clearly long past time to get a move on. Especially given that none of the main event elevations since 2020 have really stuck.

The junior division has had much less turnover than the top of the card in that time, but this brings its own issues, as the biggest star Hiromu Takahashi seems barely connected to the division and not overly interested when he is. El Desperado, his main rival, still puts in strong performances but is also long in the tooth as a focal point for the division. That Hiromu did jobs to Fujita, Francisco Akira and Robbie X in the tournament is hopefully a sign that these three can be the nexus point of the juniors going forward and I hope that the company solidifies this further by putting the belt on Fujita and giving Hiromu a starting berth in the G1 this summer. I am slightly concerned that the title match is not at “Dominion”, which would have been a strong launching point for a Fujita reign. Instead, it is delayed until after Desperado works a grimy death match with Jun Kasai on 24th June. Fujita is remarkably young at 22, so the bookers may be tempted to wait until a more high profile show for his true crowning moment – but I hope not. The best time for New Japan to have embraced its new generation in a big way was probably two or three years ago but they should at least do it now.

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A quick word on the beaten finalist YOH before I get into the full review. It is amazing to think that this guy is 36, not just because he possesses an Ibushi-esque agelessness but because he has spent the majority of his singles career doing a grand total of damn all squared. Whether it’s the sub-Darby Allin jean shorts of a few years back, the weird ziplock bags in this tournament or the repellant open mouth soyface of his match graphic, I find YOH as a package to be very off putting. I’m not sure whether he never truly wanted a big push or just settled into his role when he realised that it wasn’t coming, but he has been content to be weird ahead of being good for quite some time. I felt that aspects of his performance in this match were still too cute for my tastes, which I will discuss when dealing with the actual match, but this was probably the best singles match of his career and I hope it can be a sign of things to come. If he realises that now is the time to lock in, he could still be a key player in this transitioning division for a few years, as a rival to Fujita rather than the top man himself, but still an important cog. When SHO and YOH were dominant in the junior tag division in the last decade, I always found them good but uninteresting. However, both have massively wasted their potential in the 2020s. While SHO seems to be stuck in House Of Torture trash for the foreseeable future, there is at least a window for YOH to finally overcome all of this time being less than the sum of his parts.

The rest of the show was mainly easy-breezy tags that previewed the upcoming “Dominion” card. They’re an easy watch but absolutely nothing worth seeking out or writing a 50,000 word review about. Nevertheless, we shall go through them here.

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Ren Narita, SHO, SANADA, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yujiro Takahashi vs Kevin Knight, KUSHIDA, Master Waco, Oleg Bolton & Toru Yano: Leftovers tag featuring HOT. And Yano. Ick. Wato really has fallen hard since he won this tournament. Obviously he was injured, but still. Sho doing “opening match” slop when his former partner is in the main event is also amusing, although it’s not like Yoh has been setting the world on fire for the last few years. Big brawl to start. Narita and Sho’s gear was giving late era WCW. They should probably be a junior tag as Narita does not work as a heavyweight. Anyway, this quickly descended into Yano and HOT antics and more brawling. Oh look, Sanada is here. Remember when he was a Wrestle Kingdom headliner 18 months ago? HOT got the heat on Yano before Oleg took a hot tag and kicked some ass, overpowering the heels and ragdolling Sanada. Wato got to tangle with Kanemaru before Knight did a cool flip as expected. Kanemaru got Wato in a figure four and the wrench-assisted tap when Sho attacked Wato’s knee. I guess this set up a feud between those two but that’s still brutal for Wato’s stock. They threw him out of the ring like a piece of trash afterward too and he tried to look all angry and intimidating about it. Lol. **1/4

Callum Newman, Francesco Akira & Great O’Khan vs Taichi, Tomoaki Honda & YOSHI-HASHI: The carcass of United Empire vs the bloated mess that is Hontai. But they still have the Just Five Guys thing on their entrance. That’s just the state of factions in this company right now. Callum Newman looks like the guy who works in the vape shop. He does not project any sort of charisma whatsoever. We’re building to Newman and O’Khan vs Taichi and Ishii at “Dominion”, although the Stone Pitbull was not here. Taichi and O’Khan traded strikes to start before the two palest men in all of Japan in Akira and Newman jumped the babyfaces. I wondered if there being only one junior in this match tipped off the finish (/sarcasm). The heels beat on YH for a while before Taichi came in to pair off with Newman, which the veteran got the better of initially. Their exchanges were fine but not the cleanest in the world. Honma, looking like a petrol station sausage left under the heat lamp for way too long, came in to battle with O’Khan. Honma and Taichi tried to do a double big boot but Honma could barely lift his leg to hip level, as my boyfriend chimed in to say that he looked like Gunther from Friends. IDK, I never really watched it. A surprise nearfall on O’Khan followed a rare successful Honma headbutt but O’Khan quickly finished him with a convoluted pump handle chokeslam gimmick. OK. Good for Akira not taking the pin there. Taichi then had a pull apart with Newman which had much more energy than the match itself as we heated up the “Dominion” tag title match. **1/2

El Phantasmo, Shota Umino, MAO & Nick Wayne vs Hartley Jackson, Robbie Eagles, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr: Shota Umino was still drifting along in the sprawling mess that is Hontai. But he’s wearing his hood up like a moody teenager. He’d grown his hair back out a bit. ELP and Nick Wayne were doing different eras of Will Ospreay cosplay, from what I can tell. Hartley Jackson is nicknamed Big Jag. If the shoe fits… We started with some weird posing as this is a skinny ass babyface team. Umino wanted to start with ZSJ. OK, so long as they didn’t go for 48 minutes again. They did the usual Zack exchanges, based around a full nelson and then lots of missed kicks. TBF, the crowd was hotter for this than anything else on the show so far. TMDK ran the train on Shota. No, not like that, though I know some gays who would be into Hartley Jackson. They extended the beatdown on Shota as I guess we’re still trying to get sympathy on this guy. He had an exchange with Oiwa that I’m sure is a preview of many future main events. He looked really old in the face, BTW.

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MAO was in with some cool jumping moves and he double teamed Oiwa along with Nick Wayne. That didn’t last too long as both were easily out powered. Wayne and Robbie Eagles had some nice reversal exchanges before ELP entered for the first time. His gear kind of reminded me of the Yeet Man himself, Jey Uso. The heels beat his ass, including a fun spot where all of TMDK hit him with back splashes in ascending size order. Everything broke down before a heavy lariat from Umino allowed ELP to hit his finish on Jackson for the win.

We’re doing a ZSJ and Oiwa vs Umino and ELP tag at “Dominion”, but I assume that splits off into two singles feuds at some point and I imagine Oiwa is getting that TV Championship as the next step of his ascent. I could see more of Nick Wayne and MAO as a team as well, as they had nice chemistry. Maybe Super Junior Tag League later in the year? Good match. The babyfaces touch tips at the end. Honestly, this match is nowhere near as horny as I’ve made it seem. ***

Yota Tsuji & Titan vs Clark Connors & Taiji Ishimori: Continuity LIJ took on two War Dogs in a tenuous preview of the “Dominion” Global Championship match between Yota Tsuji and Gabe Kidd. Tsuji was there, with Titan, but Kidd was not. The Dogs are represented by Clark Connors and Taiji Ishimori, who has always been a weird fit with this group. He’s way more HOT-coded to me. Connors and Titan started off with the usual reversal exchanges before a tag to Tsuji, who the heels surprisingly got the heat on with some double team cheating. Even more bizarrely, Connors hit Tsuji in the gut with a tire, as I try to avoid a joke about the Global Champion’s physique. The minuscule Ishimori could not maintain the heat for very long on Tsuji before a tilt-a-whirl led to a Titan hot tag and a flurry of his signature offence. He traded blows with Ishimori, including a sweet kick, before both tagged out. Connors managed to get his running pounce thing on Tsuji, although it didn’t look very good. Titan cut off Ishimori’s interference and hit a spine compacting tope to wipe him out. Tsuji and Connors did a cute little stand-off from the opposite corners that ended inevitably with a Tsuji spear for the win. Kind of weird to see Tsuji going blow-for-blow with junior heels, but I guess Gabe Kidd was too busy cutting mid promos that made grown adults crash out for some reason. A pretty perfunctory tag. **3/4

EVIL vs Gedo: I don’t care what the hardcore New Japan defenders say. I cannot bring myself to ironically like House Of Torture. They are synonymous with the dog days of the pandemic, the nadir of the last 15 years of this company. The act is so stale and played out, relying on the same cheap heat tricks over and over. This starts with Dick Togo taped to the set and Gedo emerged to hit Evil with a baking tray and a kendo stick. I wonder if he got those in the same shop. They wander round the crowd like it’s the Impact Zone in 2006, with Evil grabbing Young Lions and announcers to hide behind to no avail. He probably took a solid 10 stick shots to the dome. They finally made it to the ring and Gedo hit a DDT. He went to the top rope, possibly to atone for his hilariously abysmal dive in the recent cage match, but got crotched. Evil then ran through the usual heel tactics as he beat down this small, elderly man. He lifted Gedo up from a couple of surefire pins to beat on him some more and got a tap out from a sharpshooter. The geek squad are beckoned out to put the boots to Gedo, including Sanada in some sub-Seth Freakin Rollins yellow boots. Some War Dog jabronis failed at a save attempt before Evil hanged Gedo over the top rope with the dog collar to set up his “Dominion” match with Finlay, who I guess could not be bothered to save his manager’s life. This was good as a heat angle for the bigger match but I feel like we’ve been doing this HOT thing for so long now with no real development that the “Dominion” match surely has to be a blow-off for the group. **½

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Dragon Dia, Hiroshi Takahashi & Ninja Mack vs El Desperado, Takahashi Michinoku & Yuya Uemura: More faction weirdness as El Desperado, Taka Michenoku and Yuya Uemura team up. In fact, it’s a Hontai derby as this faction has approximately 500 members. This is previewing Tanahashi and Uemura’s generational babyface-off at “Dominion”, where I hope the Ace hands off the reins of the good guys to his young counterpart. Lots of wrestlers try to be Tanahashi clones, but I think Yuya’s Ricky Steamboat energy most closely represents the pure babyface company poster boy archetype that Tana will be vacating. Incidentally, I would love to know what Tana, Dragon Dia and Ninja Mack have to talk about backstage before this match. Tana and Yuya traded headlock takeovers to a stalemate and called for crowd support. It’s a good sign for Yuya that the crowd’s enthusiasm for him matched that of the Ace.

The masked men were in now, with a fun exchange that allowed Ninja Mack to do some jumping about, before Despe beat him down on the outside. Despe gave this guy a happy slap in the year 2025. Taka continued the heat back in the ring before Yuya came in to add some hard chops. Eventually Dragon Dia got to hot tag, though his rana on El Desperado was weirdly slow-motion. His awkward flurry didn’t last long. Despe ran through some power moves but we ended up with a double down and it was back to where we started with the two heavyweights in the ring. Yuya was beating Tana’s ass with chops in the corner. They should’ve probably just stood still and striked because watching Tana try to run or jump or reverse an Irish Whip looked like a dance class at a nursing home. They smartly ended the exchange with Uemura showing his clear superiority to the ailing Ace, although he had the good manners to tag in Taka so Tanahashi had someone to beat on. It broke down a bit so that Dia and Ninja Mack could do their patented dives to the outside before Hiroshi Tanahashi killed off Taka with as much of a High Fly Flow as he could muster. I don’t know why he’s still pulling that out in these tags. Uemura and Tanahashi squared off ahead of their “Dominion” match, while I wished this was a match that could’ve happened 5 years ago so that Tana could still put in some kind of credible performance before passing the torch. Still, this tag had decent energy. ***

The truly gross looking Jun Kasai then came out to show us the world’s most disgusting forehead and challenge El Desperado to the aforementioned garbage match. Not my cup of tea.

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Hirooki Goto & Ryuske Taguchi vs Shingo Takagi & Hiromu Takahashi: This was in anticipation of the “Dominion” main event, an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match between Hirooki Goto and Shingo Takagi. Why in God’s name Ryusuke Taguchi needed to be here was beyond me. We got some proper big heavyweight intensity from both sides of the upcoming title match, both men running into each other like bumper cars. Hiromu got some licks in on the champ before he was overpowered, and then it was off to Taguchi for ass-based nonsense. It’s not even as if he has a particularly big or thick ass. He also looks as old as dirt these days. Thankfully, the big boys were soon back to exchange heavy blows in the corner. They upped the ante to suplexes as they were largely running through signature spots, but with a greater level of intensity than anyone else on the show so far. Taguchi did some more ass stuff, including a hip attack that he weirdly kind of whiffed but Shingo bumped anyway.

Hiromu broke up a submission attempt before the big guys got back to whacking each other. Hiromu held Goto back as Shingo hit a rope-assisted GTR and then finished Taguchi. I’ve been a bit down on the Shingo pattern match in recent months but the sheer intensity shown by both he and Goto here did more to get me pumped for “Dominion” than any other match. It’s the main event of one of New Japan’s biggest annual shows, but I almost hope they resist the obligation to go long and just beat the shit out of each other non-stop for fifteen minutes. ***1/4.

Shingo cut a promo promising to win the title. He noted that he has no faction or affiliation. Interesting. He has no family or friends either apparently, but all he needs is the title. Goto grabbed the mic and told Takagi to just try to stop the revolution. I’m pumped for this one, just two proper bruisers beating the shit out of each other for the big belt.

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Best Of The Super Juniors Final – Kosei Fujita vs YOH: The crowd was super hot for the bell. YOH was wearing what looked like padded shorts with white rubbing on his legs and then some Nike trainers with a splash of neon green. I pointed this out purely because this is the closest he’s ever had to a good look in his entire career, especially coming after the absolutely dire denim shorts he’s been rocking in recent years. Remember YOH’s previous final? I blocked that 38 minute torture experience from my head until Chris Charlton reminded me. Pandemic New Japan was trash.

This match was pretty strongly acclaimed by fans and for the most part I agree. After the usual opening flurries, YOH took over and focused on the arm of Fujita. Both YOH and Fujita hit some pretty cool dives around this point, although neither really made a good connection with their opponent on the floor. I’m kind of surprised at how mixed the crowd was. YOH was popular here – he somehow still has twink appeal as he approaches 40. Fujita can work the quick paced New Japan junior style, but it’s impressive how much the fans also buy into his submission work. Having ZSJ in his corner as a mentor helped to add credibility to his mat wrestling reputation. These fans were absolutely begging YOH to get to the ropes. However, those low angle German suplexes that Fujita has made his signature established his control.

YOH’s display of fighting spirit as he took a ton of chops was a new shade of intensity from him. Bouncing his red raw titties in mocking defiance before beating down Fujita in the corner was a cool character moment. Maybe there could actually be something with this guy. An arm submission played off YOH’s earlier work, but Fujita was able to hit a flash cutter to bring this to a stalemate, as neither man could gain the advantage in the ensuing strike exchange. YOH’s Rainmaker attempt being reversed into a Zack Driver almost had me out of my seat as the crowd reached fever pitch. However, this was unfortunately the peak of the match because the actual finish was a mess. Fujita picked YOH up, held him awkwardly as if he wasn’t really sure what move he wanted to do, and then dumped him awkwardly on the mat for the pin.

Much of the match is built around YOH pulling out moves of old CHAOS stablemates. We saw Yano and Yoshi-Hashi references in the early stages, with some Ishii and Goto thrown in, consistently building to YOH attempting the Rainmaker. This throughline was fine in principle, but I would point out, as a nitpick, that New Japan has gone back to people hitting the Rainmaker in big matches as a signifier for a gravitas on numerous occasions, even since Kazuchika Okada left the company.

I would commend YOH for the level of seriousness and intensity that he showed in this match, which is a rarity for him. The exchange where he continually walked in to Fujita’s hard chops was really cool, although I could’ve done without him making it a little bit too cute by doing a couple of rebounds through the middle of the ropes that, to me, undercut the intensity of the moment by adding some unneeded quirkiness. Such is life with YOH. The intensity of the match did build throughout and reached a fever pitch as both men pulled out all the stops for a climactic finishing stretch which had the crowd in raptures. However, this was slightly spoiled by the fact that Fujita’s awkward finish did not land properly, thus taking the energy out of the final pop, as the crowd did not buy a botched spot as the finish. They probably should’ve improvised one more move, although at that point, I think the damage had been done. Those issues would see this match as below match of the year level for me, but it was still likely the strongest singles performance of YOH’s career and a more than credible crowning moment for Kosei Fujita. ****¼

In conclusion, this was an easy show to watch or even let run in the background while you do other things (or scroll on your phone). Only the main event is vital, even for ardent New Japan fans, but nothing was bad or outstayed its welcome. The show successfully got me excited for “Dominion”, where the booking can take a number of interesting directions. As noted on a few occasions, the factions in New Japan are in complete shambles right now. You have an LIJ without Natio, a United Empire without any stars, a messy Hontai with CHAOS lumped in and Just Five Guys as a kind of sub-unit. I don’t know if it is time to end the Goto title reign but people have been speculating about a Shingo Takagi heel turn and a faction being built around him. A heel Takagi-gun coming up against Yota Tsuji in an ex-LIJ derby is not the worst thing to build the rest of 2025 around. The best way to get there would be with two title changes at “Dominion” – Shingo winning the World Heavyweight Championship with a new group and Gabe Kidd beating Tsuji for the Global Championship to clear the decks for a Tsuji G1 victory later this summer. I also think that Shota Union and ELP showed enough chemistry together to potentially be the basis of a group going forward as well. They are tagging together against ZSJ and Oiwa and “Dominion”. Those two splitting off would leave space for Yuya Uemura to grow into the true, pure babyface successor to Hiroshi Tanahashi as the head of the home army, once President Ace hangs up his boots this January. Those two are wrestling at “Dominion” in a singles match. Hey, maybe this is all starting to take shape.

Maybe Tana will endorse Uemura as his successor, sparking Shota to split away as his own man and set up a rivalry between the two. Or maybe, as is often the case, the fantasy booking of what New Japan could do with these guys is more interesting than what actually happens. Nevertheless, the faction decks have been cleared and the next step for all of these guys is to be their own men as unit leaders. This should be the defining story of the summer for New Japan. But let’s wait and see.

New Japan Pro Wrestling
Best Of The Super Juniors 32 Final
01/06/2025
Ota City Gymnasium, Tokyo, Japan
Company Announced Attendance: 3044
Watch On: New Japan World

Robbie X defeats Shoma Kato (4:49)

House Of Torture (Ren Narita, SANADA, SHO, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yujiro Takahashi) defeat Intergalactic Jet Setters (Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA), Master Wato, Oleg Boltin & Toru Yano (8:14)

United Empire (Callum Newman, Francesco Akira & Great-O-Khan) defeat Taichi, Tomoaki Honma & YOSHI-HASHI (10:24)

El Phantasmo, MAO, Nick Wayne & Shota Umino defeat TMDK (Hartley Jackson, Robbie Eagles, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr.) (10:38)

Titan & Yota Tsuji defeat BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Clark Connors & Taiji Ishimori) (7:56)

EVIL defeats Gedo (2:50)

Dragon Dia, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ninja Mack defeat Just 4 Guys (TAKA Michinoku & Yuya Uemura) & El Desperado (13:01)

Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi defeat Hirooki Goto & Ryusuke Taguchi (9:10)

Best Of The Super Junior 32 Final:
Kosei Fujita defeats YOH (28:05)

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