One of New Japan Pro-Wrestling occasional trips to the United States was last night (Feb. 27), when they brought The New Beginning USA to Trenton, New Jersey’s Cure Insurance Arena. The show featured six title matches, five of which featured AEW wrestlers.
Two of those folks left with gold, one of whom carried his title into The New Beginning USA. That would be Ricochet, whose arm was targeted by Taiji Ishimori in their AEW National title match. That added some suspense…
…but Ricochet was able to counter a Superstar Quebrada and hit Spirit Gun to remain the only person to hold that belt.
A couple of matches later, former IWGP World champion Konosuke Takeshita took on El Phantasmo for the NJPW Television title, one of the promotion’s lesser singles belts.
The Alpha, accompanied to the ring by fellow Don Callis Family member (and NJPW/CMLL/AEW liaison) Rocky Romero, took El-P to a time limit draw. The former Bullet Club member didn’t want it to end that way, and after similar inconclusive finishes with Phantasmo and Jon Moxley lately, neither did Takeshita. Unfortunately for El-P and his Bret Hart tribute gear, he didn’t last long after the restart. Takeshita hit his opponent’s own CR-2 on him, then finished things off with a Power Drive and Raging Fire to claim the TV title.
New Beginning USA’s only other title change saw AEW regular Tomohiro Ishii (who amazingly wasn’t hurt on Dynamite two weeks ago when it looked pretty clear that he’d torn a hamstring or done serious damage to his leg) drop the Strong Openweight title to rising star Oleg Boltin.
A top-to-bottom entertaining show with a variety of match types and wrestling styles showcased (still available for purchase on the NJPWWorld streaming service), New Beginning USA Ring of Honor Women’s champ Athena giving IWGP Women’s champ Syuri hell in a losing effort for the New Japan belt before setting up a possible rematch for the ROH one (Alex Windsor also delivered a challenge to Syuri for the IWGP strap at Eve’s Wrestle Queendom VIII show March 8 in London), and a similarly strong-but-unsuccessful effort from Andrade El Ídolo against Yota Tsuji for the IWGP Global title.
In other news, we still got no answers about David Finlay’s next move after he defeated Fred Rosser in the opener…
Here are the complete results from New Japan’s The New Beginning USA:
AloJapan.com