NJPW: IWGP Women’s Championship Details Announced, Partial Card for Historic X-over, More News

Aug 23, 2022

NJPW Announces New Details for IWGP Women’s Championship Tournament

New Japan Pro Wrestling held a press conference earlier today in Japan. One of the topics discussed included the company providing new details regarding their upcoming IWGP Women’s Championship tournament with Stardom.

It was announced that the tournament will start with the first quarterfinal round matches at their Royal Quest II Night 2 event on October 2nd in London, England and continue at Stardom’s October 22nd event. It was also announced that the semifinals will be taking place at Stardom’s event on October 23rd in Tachikawa and the finals will be taking place at NJPW and Stardom’s co-promoted Historic X-over event on November 20th in Ariake.

It was also announced that the first title defense for this upcoming new IWGP Women’s Championship will be taking place at NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 17 event on January 4, 2023.

Partial Card for NJPW & Stardom Historic X-over Event

During the same press conference, NJPW announced the first four matches for the card of their co-promoted Historic X-over event with Stardom on November 20th in Ariake, Japan.

Three of the four matches announced were revealed to be intergender type matches.

IWGP Women’s Championship tournament Finals – TBA vs. TBA
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Utami Hayashishita vs. Hirooki Goto & Maika
Tom Lawlor & Syuri vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Giulia
El Desperado, DOUKI, Starlight Kid, and Momo Watanabe vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi, Natsupoi, and Tam Nakano

NJPW News & Notes

New Japan Pro Wrestling reportedly reached sold out status for the pre-sale for their upcoming Rumble on 44th Street event on October 28th in New York City, New York, according to the Wrestling Observer. In regards to sales numbers, Dave Meltzer reported that NJPW had only put 1,025 tickets for sale and all were quickly sold on Monday morning.

NJPW announced that fans will be allowed to verbally cheer at their upcoming Burning Spirit events on September 5th and September 6th at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo due to those events being held with limited capacity under the current COVID-19 rules for public events in Japan.

Chris Dickinson made his return to NJPW at their NJPW Strong Fighting Spirit Unleashed 2022 event this past Sunday in Los Angeles, California. Following the NJPW Strong Openweight Championship match between TJP and champion Fred Rosser, Dickinson made a surprise appearance and ambush attacked Rosser setting up a future match between him and Rosser for the title. This was Dickinson’s first appearance in NJPW since this past May and the first time wrestling since this past June following the fallout of the allegations of past domestic abuse towards indie wrestler Christina Von Eerie and one other woman.