2/1Tokyo Kokuritsu Yoyogi Kyogijo Dai-nitaiikukan 3,500
Shinya Hashimoto is working this tour after all due to "being persuased by President Fujinami." Hashimoto teamed with Takashi Iizuka in the semifinal, defeating the tag champions, Manabu Nakanishi & Yugi Nagata, in a non-title match when Hashimoto forced Nakanishi to submit to his sankakujime at 11:32. If Iizuka is kept with Hashimoto, which should be the case, he might finally become more than a very good worker with no charisma.
The nWo members that broke away from the injuried Keiji Muto were put over Chono's group in the main event. Hiroshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Hiro Saito defeated Masa Chono & Don Frye & Super J in 13:26 when Kojima lariated J.
Kenzo Suzuki lost the first match in his CHALLENGE TRIALS series when the referee had to stop the match at 6:01 following Kensuke Sasaki knocking him out with a migi (right) straight. This furthers what was done against Tenryu, putting Kensuke's punches over as a weapon.
Kendo Kashin & Minoru Tanaka beat Jushin Thunder Liger & El Samurai when Tanaka used his Minoru special II on Samurai at 13:33. This makes Tanaka look a little stronger going into his title match with Liger on 2/4.
Koji Kanemoto & Dr. Wagner Jr. downed the junior tag champs, Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa, when Wagner used his Michinoku driver II on Otani at 12:21. This makes Wager look stronger going into his tag title match with Kashin on 2/4.

Yuji Nagata has joined Team Obake. I don't know how he'll be able to train in the Atlanta based gym where athletes ranging from UFC champion Kevin Randleman to punch and judy shortstop Walt Weiss train, but he claims that WCW helped him, so any time he gets to spend there in between NJ tours will certainly do wonders for him. Nagata will be promoting the team by wearing their T-shirt to the ring on 2/1.

New Japan will have a small tour called ADIOS PERRO IN JAPON ~Perro Aguayo Nippon Intai Jiai~ from 3/3-3/6 to celebrate the career of Mexican wrestling legend Perro Aguayo. The tour will consist of Mexican wrestlers Perro, his son El Hijo Del Perro Aguayo, and Negro Casas, plus all the NJ Juniors (including Wagner) and Gran Hamada. Perro was one of the more prominent juniors that would tour New Japan during the Fujinami era when NJ and UWA had a working relationship, with Hamada being one of his main rivals since he was more in tune with the Lucha style than the other New Japan juniors. Years later Hamada used Perro as one of his top stars in his Universal promotion. Perro's opponent(s) for his retirement match on 3/6 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall haven't been announced yet.

Shinya Hashimoto is also off New Japan's FIGHTING SPIRIT '00 tour. There is an angle where Hashimoto has aligned himself with Inoki and wasn't going to wrestle, but Fujinami ordered Hashimoto to return starting this tour and in the story he holds an ace over Hashimoto in that Hashimoto's contract is up for renewal. However, today Hashimoto refused to work the tour. I really don't get this one because they need draws and he isn't injured. I don't think his status is helped any by sitting out after he sat out so much last year due to health (injuries and dropping weight). It seems like his only purpose at this point is to wrestle Ogawa, and Ogawa, of course, isn't on the tour so they are keeping Hashimoto off as well. If they were to align Hashimoto with UFO after he beats Ogawa at the Tokyo Dome, I don't think that would do any great business because with Yamazaki retired and Fujita aspiring to be UFO, New Japan doesn't have any native shooters left except loosely Yuji Nagata for them to wrestle against.
Muto, who has talked of retiring due to his bad knees, probably won't wrestle again until the 4/10 Tokyo Dome show.

With Muto out for the next tour, the nWo wrestlers under his leadership, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, and Hiro Saito,"decided to abandon him." Kojima said that he never thought of Muto as the boss to begin with. Tenzan demanded a singles match against Chono during the Sapporo double shot since he pinned Chono in tag in December, but Muto lost to Chono in singles at the Dome. If Tenzan can beat Chono when Muto couldn't then that would start to bring him up to their level overall.

New Japan announced that Keiji Muto will sit out their February FIGHTING SPIRIT '00 series to rest his bad knees. Although he missed matches at the end of 1999, the condition of Muto's left knee has worsened from the ones he did participate in. If New Japan doesn't elevate one or more wrestlers from the Tenzan, Nagata, Kojima, and Nakanishi group quickly, this could be a really long year for them because Muto and Chono could very well wind up missing a lot of time due to their degenerating health.

Kazuyuki Fujita, one of New Japan's top "shooters," announced that he was leaving the promotion. He is officially a free agent. Supposedly he wants to join U.FO., but Antonio Inoki & Naoya Ogawa haven't accepted him yet. This sounds like an angle so he can team with Ogawa to feud with New Japan wrestlers.

Nobuhiko Takada challenged Kazuyuki Fujita to a match. The angle is Takada was impressed with Fujita's performance against Kimo in the shoot style match on 1/4. Seemingly, the idea of this match would be to give Takada a win over a "shooter" to build him up for a title match against Kensuke Sasaki.

NJ announced the title matches on their 2/4-2/5 Sapporo double shot
2/4:
Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa defend the IWGP Junior Tag Senshuken against Kendo Kashin & Dr. Wagner Jr. Kashin & Wagner were the team that ended Otani & Takaiwa's first reign with these titles.Kashin just challenged with Tanaka and couldn't win. If Wagner is a better partner then why is Tanaka getting a better title shot? It just seems like they don't have enough wrestlers in this division to have three of them hold belts.
Jushin Thunder Liger defends the IWGP Junior Heavykyu Senshuken against Battlarts Minoru Tanaka. Hopefully this match will last a lot longer than 3:56! These two are capable of having a great match. However, it's Tanaka's first title match against Liger, he isn't coming in with much of a push, and Liger isn't that used to working with him, so I would be very happy with **** this time. I just have a hard time seeing Tanaka being able to push Liger all that much at this point.
Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi defend the IWGP Tag Senshuken against Michiyoshi Ohara & Tatsutoshi Goto. *Groan*
2/5:
Kensuke Sasaki defends the IWGP Heavykyu Senshuken against Don Frye. This is puzzling. Scott Norton & Shiro Koshinaka had been mentioned as possible challengers, which made some sense because they won their matches at the Tokyo Dome. Frye lost his match to Norton, so why give him the title shot instead of Norton when there's no shows the rest of the month to build anyone up? Kensuke vs. either Frye or Norton would suck, but now you are making Frye do two major jobs in a row instead of giving Norton one big win then one big loss.
New Japan also announced that rookie Kenzo Suzuki would have some big singles challenges on the FIGHTING SPIRIT '00 tour. Suzuki will wrestle Sasaki on 2/1, Nagata on 2/5, Norton on 2/11, and Fujinami on 2/20.

1/4 Tokyo Dome 63,500 sellout
If a bunch of short matches, most notably the match that everyone thought would be the best on the show going less than 4:00, wasn't enough to ruin this show, Choshu #2, Kensuke Sasaki, capped things off by regaining the IWGP Heavykyu Senshuken. Sasaki's previous reign was from 8/31-97-4/4/98, but seemed five times as long because all his title matches were mediocre. Sasaki, who wrestled even though he had a high fever due to the flu, took the title from Genichiru Tenryu, who had just defeated Keiji Muto on 12/10 and was trying to make his first defense here, after firing two northern lights bombs in succession. Sasaki had promised he would win with this move because Kensuke didn't like Tenryu using his wife's finisher to beat everyone. Tenryu had even used the move to defeat Sasaki in their last match, which took place on the 10/11 Tokyo Dome show, making it not too surprising that Sasaki gained revenge here. Of course, the match had a lot of hard chops from Tenryu that Kensuke answered with punches. Tenryu "humiliated" Sasaki by using the northern lights bomb again here, but it just wasn't enough. Sasaki wound up with a nosebleed, but it was a small price to pay for such a huge victory. Sasaki isn't a good champion because he isn't particularly good or over, but Muto and Chono aren't options at this point because of their health, and Hashimoto hasn't exactly done much in between his losses to Ogawa. That pretty much left Sasaki because the younger wrestlers like Tenzan, Kojima, and Nagata haven't been elevated to championship level yet, although Tenzan is close enough that you could go to him if you were desperate.

In a match that was originally going to be the main event for the IWGP Heavykyu Senshuken billed as BLACK SUMMIT, Masahiro Chono made Keiji Muto submit to a cross shiki no STF at 25:00. This length doesn't make that much sense because you had all these healthy guys going 10 minutes, then you have the guys whose health you need to protect because they are your drawing cards go 25? It makes sense in that these guys are huge stars that are on the same level when it comes to push, but they could have gotten away with this match going 15 minutes and added the time to Benoit vs. Tenzan, Liger vs. Koji, and/or Koshinaka vs. Kojima.

In a match billed as Strong Style Millennium, Shinya Hashimoto got a measure of revenge over Naoya Ogawa, putting him in a chickenwing so he couldn't save his partner from Iizuka's submission. Hashimoto & Takashi Iizuka defeated the UFO team of Ogawa & Kazunari Murakami when Iizuka used the hadakajime (naked choke) on Murakami at 8:59. The match was originally ruled invalid at 2:24 when Murakami "lost it," but the fans were pissed and Antonio Inoki "saved the day" by ordering a restart. This match was a war for the bitter rivals Hashimoto & Ogawa, who were determined to "kill" each other. Hashimoto would throw flurries of "merciless punches" to Ogawa's head, but couldn't put him away. Hashimoto also "made Murakami faint" with a face kick. Hashimoto is still losing weight. Supposedly it resulted in his kicks being faster and deadlier, but Nikkan Sports would say that whether it was true or not, so who knows. The big news coming out of this match, although it probably comes to the surprise of no one, is that Hashimoto will have his fifth singles match with Ogawa on the April Tokyo Dome show.
In a match billed as WCW Special Match, Rick Steiner downed Randy Savage with his diving bulldogging headlock at 11:08. If there was one match on this show that should have been 6-8 minutes long, it was this one. Instead, they had these guys out there longer than Liger vs. Koji, Benoit vs. Tenzan, and Koshinaka vs. Kojima. Unfortunately, Steiner, a former IWGP tag champ, might be asked back at some point.

In a match billed as GREAT DANGER ZONE, Scott Norton pinned Don Frye with his powerbomb where he held onto either Frye's leg or foot. These two can't really coexist because they both require their opponent to sell for them the whole time. They did some brawling outside the ring, but that was about it. Frye won their first meeting on 8/28 at Tokyo Jingu Kyujo, so this was Norton's revenge where he regained his position as the top foreigner in the company. Hopefully this isn't going to turn into a best of 3! That said, Norton challenging Sasaki for the IWGP Heavykyu, which this match probably set up, won't be any picnic either.

In a match billed as Kakuto (hand-to-hand fighting/grappling) Mokushiroku (The Apocalypse), Kimo beat Kazuyuki Fujita by foul at 4:02 due to Fujita giving Kimo a testicular left knee.

One of the best wrestlers for the past 15 years, Kazuo Yamazaki, hung up his boots today. While Yamazaki is 37, he might have had five good years left in him if it wasn't for the trachea support enlargement disease he suffers from. I mean, he's had health problems for the past three years and was still one of the best heavyweights up until he had so much trouble breathing that he would be winded in two minutes. He came back today after missing the last quarter of the year and had a short match where he put over Yuji Nagata, a wrestler of the same basic shooting style that has surpassed Yamazaki in terms of push and due to Yamazaki's health problems, ability as well. I expected Nagata to make Yamazaki submit, but instead he pinned him with a backdrop then a backdrop hold at 6:44. Yamazaki's former colleagues in UWF and/or UWF-I, Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada, Kiyoshi Tamura, and Hiromitsu Kanehara were present for his retirement ceremony. Yamazaki cried, and the fans made it known that they also didn't want to see him go. I guess Yamazaki is starting a medical treatment house in Ebina city, which is in the Kanagawa prefecture.
Yamazaki's career began in New Japan in 1982. He was a judo boy that admired Tatsumi Fujinami. He left to become a member of the original U.W.F., returning to New Japan along with Maeda, Takada, etc. after if folded. He participated in the classic, incredibly heated New Japan vs. UWF feud, but wasn't a key player because he was still very young. He was pushed in the junior division in the mid 80's, having great title matches with Nobuhiko Takada, but was never able to win the title. That was pretty much the story of his career, he was always behind Takada because Takada had more ability, charisma, and the movie star look. For years, the gap wasn't that huge, as Yamazaki would beat Takada sometimes. However, in UWF-I, Takada went on a huge unbeaten streak that led to him becoming arguably the top drawing wrestler in Japan, with only the top foreigners Vader & Albright being able to defeat him. Meanwhile, Yamazaki was used to build up challengers for Takada, and eventually started losing to everyone they wanted to elevate.
Yamazaki did team with Kazuo Fujiwara to take the IWGP Tag from Maeda & Takada on 9/1/87. The duo held the belt for three months before losing the titles to Fujinami & Kengo Kimura. A few months later Maeda reformed the UWF with Takada as the #2 star and Yamazaki as the #3 star. The shoot style league did incredible business while it was around, but disbanded in 1990 due to conflicting egos. This was the peak of Yamazaki's career, as he regularly had very good or better matches with Takada and Maeda. He also had arguably the best of the wrestler vs. martial artist mixed matches against Trevor Power Clarke on 1/10/89.
Like most of the UWF, Yamazaki went on to become an original member of the UWF-I when it started in May of 1991, initially the #2 native behind Takada. His work was strong in UWF-I, but started to slip toward the end because he was fed up with his lack of push and it really was getting embarrassing for them to keep making him put over guys who had no hope of ever reaching the level of stardom or ability Yamazaki had before the started jobbing him left and right. Yamazaki eventually said enough is enough and went back to New Japan in July of 1995. They gave him a much better push than he was receiving in UWF-I. His timing was really good because if he would have stuck with UWF-I for a few more months, he almost certainly would have been buried by Choshu during the NJ domination of UWF-I.
Yamazaki formed a team with Iizuka, and they captured the titles from Hashimoto & Junji Hirata on 6/12/96. They had a good little series with Chono & Tenzan, but could never regain the titles after quickly dropping them to the said team on 7/16/96.
Yamazaki didn't get a huge singles push in New Japan, but he was able to score big wins over the likes of Muto, Chono, etc. That combined with his submission skills, craftiness, and excellent timing allowed him to always be dangerous. His lone shot at the IWGP Heavykyu Senshuken came on 2/16/97 against Hashimoto. He didn't win the match obviously, but he made the most of his opportunity by having the best NJ heavyweight match of the year (it wasn't close to great, but that was a horrible year for NJ heavies).
He formed a team with Sasaki at the time when Sasaki was just beginning to receive his megapush. He did a great job of carrying that slug in their tag matches, singlehandledly making many of them good. The duo won the IWGP Tag Senshuken from Kojima & Nakanishi on 8/10/97, but again it was a short reign because Sasaki captured the heavyweight title the same month.
The pinnacle of his New Japan singles career came during the '98 G1 Climax when he beat the current heavyweight champion Fujinami, the previous heavyweight champion Sasaki, and the next heavyweight champion Chono to get to the finals. Yamazaki then had the best NJ heavyweight match in recent years, putting Hashimoto over in the final.
Yamazaki didn't do that many moves and his kicks weren't really as stiff as they needed to be, but he was one of the most technically excellent wrestlers of recent times. He wasn't flashy or even a great athlete, but he got more than he should have out of himself and his opponents by being smart and knowing how to play things. He excelled at timing and transitions, which was one of the reasons he could keep heat on himself. You never knew when he'd make a really quick move and wakigatame you out of nowhere. Yamazaki won't be remembered as one of the legends of the sport, but real fans won't forget just how good this guy was for a decade and a half.

Since Maeda & Takada were there for Yamazaki's retirement, they had a meeting with Fujinami and Inoki. Supposedly they are going to try to rejuvenate interest in puroresu by exchanging talent beginning this year. New Japan is planning to run a Tokyo Dome show in October, but they have nothing major within the league to warrant taking the building out, so that would be a time when interpromotional matches would be needed. Takada talked of challenging Sasaki for the title, which is likely to happen because they were going to do this match last August but it fell through when Takada changed his mind about putting Kensuke over and took an easy worked win in PRIDE over Alexander Otsuka. RINGS has expressed interest in using Ogawa in the past, and they had an Ogawa vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto match set, but that also fell through. UFO already works with New Japan and Takada Dojo will be working with New Japan this year, but RINGS and New Japan is a weird one because RINGS has become predominantly a shoot organization. RINGS hasn't drawn that well since Maeda retired, and that isn't about to change, so they could make more money by working with New Japan. However, they run the risk of alienating some of their fans, not to mention Choshu will try to kill their guys off to prove New Japan superiority.

In a match billed as Super Rookie Debutsen (debut match), Manabu Nakanishi forced Kenzo Suzuki to submit to his Argentine backbreaker at 6:41. Suzuki, 25, is a former rugby star that they have high hopes for, as shown by him following in the footsteps of only Koji Kitao and Naoya Ogawa as natives that debuted on a NJ Dome show. Aside from those guys, New Japan usually doesn't push wrestlers until they've been around at least 2 years. Suzuki's offense was based around his rugby background, but ironically a tackle backfired on him and lead to the finish.

Jushin Thunder Liger made his first successful defense of the IWGP Junior Heavykyu Senshuken, downing Koji Kanemoto with a suichoku rakka shiki no brainbuster (vertical drop style brainbuster) in a mere 3:56. Liger wore a new deep black costume and totally overwhelmed Koji. An angry Liger used his biggest moves such as the nadare shiki no German suplex, super high angle Ligerbomb, shotei, etc. to do major damage to the punk Koji. This was a total WTF? Have the evil claws of Vince Russo extended so far that the New Japan junior division is going to be converted to WCW fodder? I highly doubt it, but this should have been the best match on the show. Instead, it was a crummy WCW length squash. Another disgrace to a title that was very proud until Liger showed up in WCW. The length of the match has lead to speculation that Koji was injured going in, similar to how Liger doing a 3 minute match with Ultimo Dragon during the J Crown seemed incredibly bizarre until he announced that he had a brain tumor. After the match, Liger said he wanted to team with Pegasus to challenge for the IWGP tag titles. Yeah, not junior tag. It seems like the idea of the match was that Liger is too good for the junior division, so he'll wrestle some matches with the heavyweights this year. Previously, Liger would always lose when he ventured into the heavyweight division, so this really seems bizarre. If Fujinami is going to be a junior then you'd at least think Liger would beat him before moving out of the junior division for a few special matches.
In a match billed as BATTLE BORDER-LESS, Hiroyoshi Tenzan beat Wild Pegasus (Benoit) at 10:55 with his diving headbutt after Benoit's nadare shiki no Frankensteiner failed. This is no surprise because Benoit has always been a junior in New Japan, and juniors don't beat heavies here. This was a heavyweight style match, although Tenzan did miss his moonsault. It was at least good, but too short.

In a match billed as SPIRIT or POWER, Shiro Koshinaka pinned Satoshi Kojima with a reverse DDT followed by a powerbomb at 10:17. Again, this is too short for a match between these two. I would have had Kojima go over here. I love Koshinaka, but it's time for Kojima to start taking the spots of the guys that are getting up there in age (Koshinaka is 41) and breaking down. By winning the match, Koshinaka avenged a 10:33 kubigatame loss to Kojima during the '96 GI Climax.

Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa made their third successful defense of the IWGP Junior Tag Senshuken, beating Kendo Kashin & Minoru Tanaka in 13:19. Kashin had Takaiwa in the sankakujime, but Takaiwa lifted him up and did his Death Valley bomb then a series of powerbombs leading to his new Takaiwa driver (Gannosuke's fire thunder) for the win.

Not surprisingly, Choshu wouldn't have the no people match with Onita.

New Japan announced that all four IWGP titles will be defended during the 2/4-5/00 double shot at Hokkaido Getsukan (?) Green Dome. The IWGP Jr, IWGP Jr. Tag, and IWGP Tag will be defended on the 4th, leaving the to title, IWGP Heavy, for the 5th. This is the first time New Japan will have all their major titles defended during the annual Sapporo double shot, which up to this year was held at the now torn down Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center. Of course, the Jr. Tag only dates back to 8/98, so 1999 was the only year they could have had all the titles up for grabs during the Sapporo double shot. Instead, the heavyweight tag titles were defended on the first night and the junior title was defended on the second night, with both shows announced as sellouts. Most likely the main reason they are presenting better lineups is that All Japan is running a major show in the area on 2/17. Secondarily, is that they are trying to start a new February tradition now that Sapporo Nakajima is gone.

New Japan announced that Randy Savage will take the place of the injured Goldberg in the WCW Special Match on the 1/4 Tokyo Dome show. The only point in having a WCW match was that it would be Goldberg's debut in Japan. Now they have stale doritos against Rick Steiner going on 9th and no one will buy a ticket to see this (although it's late enough that a few people have already bought a ticket to see Goldberg) and even though it's going on in the slot of a key match, few will truly care about it. More importantly, the match doesn't do New Japan any good because they weren't planning on using either of these washed up wrestlers in the future, they just wanted Goldberg as a special attraction and got stuck with Steiner as his opponent because WCW wouldn't let him face one of NJ's wrestlers. Savage will probably get a big pop because the fans remember him as WWF & WCW heavyweight champion, and back in the day he wrestled Genichiru Tenryu at the Tokyo Dome as a key part of the Japan and America Wrestling Summit on 4/13/90. When they last saw him, he was still capable of very good performances, at least by US "standards." This will be their first look at the guy that needs well below average women to do all the work for him in his singles matches, so the fans will at least be glad to see him until they realize how much he sucks these days. President Tatsumi Fujinami said that the fans could expect to see Goldberg at their next Dome show in April. Knowing New Japan's luck in dealing with WCW, the odds are probably against Goldberg wrestling on that show.

As a way to thrust Tatsumi Fujinami right into the thick of things in the New Japan junior division that he's dropping about 35 pounds to rejoin, Kanemoto challenged him his first title match. Of course, Kanemoto has to win the title from Liger on 1/4, but it's pretty much a given that this will happen, so Koji defending against Fujinami Koji during the February Fighting Spirit '00 tour sounds like a very realistic possibility. Fujinami brings a tremendous amount of credibility to the division because after graduating from the division in the early 80's, he went on to win the WWF International Heavyweight Title twice and the IWGP Heavykyu Senshuken six times. His presence will put the juniors in the spolight more and make them more of a draw. The problem is Fujinami still wrestles like it's 1982. He's old, slow, and boring and will just kill the match quality in this division because he simply can't keep up .

Never say never in wrestling because you just wind up looking foolish. Just four months ago, New Japan said they were through with Nobuhiko Takada because he opted to headline PRIDE.7 instead of honoring his verbal agreement to wrestle Kensuke Sasaki on New Japan's huge show on 8/28 at Tokyo Jingu Kyujo. Today, New Japan president Tatsumi Fujinami had a closed door meeting with Takada. Details weren't made public, but the general assumption is that they are talking about exchanging talent next year. While this might not mean we'll see Takada return to New Japan rings even though they "owe him" a major win for dropping the IWGP Heavykyu Senshuken to Shinya Hashimoto on 4/29/96, which was Takada's last excellent match, one would have to think that there is a strong possibility of it. If any agreement is reached, Kazushi Sakuraba would appear in the New Japan junior division, most likely with Kendo Kashin as his main rival because Kashin is theoretically their best submission wrestler. To me, this would be a huge mistake for Sakuraba because he's been building a ton of momentum and a huge following through his legit wins in PRIDE, wins that have helped him get over his lack of size and become one of the best drawing native shooters. Being seen as a junior in pro wrestling would just remind people that he's "too small" to be the big star and draw that his ability warrants. I know money is money and Sakuraba wrestled in this division in 95 & 96, most notably an underrated match against Shinjiro Otani on 6/17/96 where Otani gave one of his classic performances in carring Sakuraba to an excellent match, but that was before he meant anything outside of pro wrestling. Would you want to go from beating a Gracie to jobbing to an Ishizawa? I know I wouldn't. Other than Takada & Sakuraba, no one else in Takada Dojo means anything at the gate. Naoki Sano could be brought in to revive his legendary 89-90 feud with Jushin Thunder Liger, but his limited credibility was shot due to being massacred everytime he tried to shoot. Although he has the former FMW junior title and has faired well this year against independent junior heavyweight wrestlers, he isn't a star on the level where he'd mean much against any of their other NJ juniors until Liger put him over again.

Genichiru Tenryu has fought seemingly every man with name value at some point in his career, and even Shinobu Kandori. Supposedly if he beats Kensuke Sasaki at the 1/4 Tokyo Dome show, he wants his next big match to be against Masaake Satake. Yes, I still hope Tenryu wins at the Tokyo Dome, nothing could be worse than Kensuke getting another title run.

Shinya Hashimoto will face Naoya Ogawa on NJ 1/4/00 Tokyo Dome, sort of. NJ decided to hold off the big payoff match between Hashimoto and Ogawa so they could have a reason (read: something that will put asses in the seats) to run a Dome show later in the year (the singles match will probably be in April). To keep the feud alive, Hashimoto is teaming with Takashi Iizuka against Ogawa & Kazunari Murakami. Iizuka & Murakami don't have any value at the box office, they are pretty much just here because they didn't already have a match on the show. The angle is that in the post match melee after Ogawa "shot" on Hashimoto on 1/4/99 Tokyo Dome, Iizuka was one of the NJ guys that kicked the crap out of Murakami, who was acting as Ogawa's second since both are from the "rival" UFO promotion. This beating resulted in Murakami being hospitalized. I think this is a good move on NJ's part because they always find a way to draw over 60,000 fans on 1/4, mainly due to the tradition of this being their biggest show of the year. Their subsequent Dome shows require better lineups, and at this point NJ lacks another match that would warrant taking out a Dome.Assuming Hashimoto is beating Ogawa in their next singles match (they could shoot him if he lost that match, but it would be too late because he'd already be dead) I would have Hashimoto pin Murakami in this match because they desperately need Hashimoto to regain his aura and drawing power since Muto may be retiring, Chono is also on his last leg, and the younger guys like Tenzan, Kojima, and Nagata haven't been brought up to their level. A win over Murakami won't help him a lot, but it would get him back on the right track. If they stick with him for the next few months, giving him wins over some of the guys he lost to in the past year (taking the title from Tenryu would be nice), he could possibly be back to where he once was when he completed his revenge by beating finally taking out that punk Ogawa. I really don't see any other options because you can't give away a result between Hashimoto & Ogawa. Sure, it would help Hashimoto to beat Ogawa here, but you also don't want to hurt Ogawa by having him lose to Hashimoto in tag and then lose again to Hashimoto in singles at the next Dome. That would take away a lot of what he has gained by beating Hashimoto twice in 1999, and the idea is to rebuild one guy without taking away what was gained when you knocked him down. Ogawa's team can't win because Hashimoto can't continue to fail against Ogawa. Another failure on his part, even if it was due to his partner, would further erode his tough guy aura to the point where it might be impossible to get him back to around where he was in 1996.

12/10 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan 6,700 sellout
Less than two months before his 50th birthday, Genichiru Tenryu captured the IWGP Heavykyu Senshuken for the first time. Even though Keiji Muto's knees are totally shot, which was worked into the story of the match (Tenryu even used Muto's Dragon screw on him), he wrestled 26:32 before Tenryu dropped him on his head twice in a row with the Akira Hokuto Northern Lights bomb to win the title. Tenryu is the 25th champion. Muto had made 5 successful defenses. Since Tenryu was the second holder of the Sankan Heavykyu Senshuken, this makes him the only native that has held those belts and the IWGP Heavykyu (Vader has also accomplished this feat). Tenryu is now the oldest IWGP Heavykyu champion ever. Previously, that honor went to Fujinami, holding the title last year at the age of 44. Tenryu's match against Kensuke Sasaki at the Tokyo Dome is now a title match. In the semifinal, Hiroshi Tenzan, teaming with Satoshi Kojima, scored a major win when when he pinned his former partner Masahiro Chono, who was teaming with Don Frye, at 14:05 with his diving headbutt. Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani beat Kendo Kashin & Dr. Wagner Jr. when Koji used his moonsault press on Wagner at 12:18. Tatsuhito Takaiwa beat Minoru Tanaka of Battlarts, who is filling Liger's spot in the junior matches on this tour, with his Death Valley bomb at 12:38. This could mean that Kashin & Tanaka will tag the IWGP Junior Tag from Otani & Takaiwa at the Dome.