u/EffingKENTA

Will Ospreay, Francesco Akira, HENARE def Brian Cage, Rocky Romero, Lance Archer — Hidden Blade

• Ospreay made his full entrance alone, then HENARE and Akira inexplicably came out to Callum Newman’s theme.

• Commentary did briefly talk about the Ospreay and Callum dissension.

• Decent match, Akira was in for a lot of it but that’s because they spent the commercial break doing a “poor little white boy” heat segment on him. Akira and HENARE worked well with Ospreay, no hints of issues.

• UE all did the hand sign and hugged to celebrate their win. Before he left, Ospreay made a telephone hand sign and said something into the camera but we couldn’t hear it over the music and commentary.

In a later pretaped sit down segment between Ospreay and Kenny, they spoke a lot about their careers in NJPW and the comparisons between them. Was a good segment and I’ll link it when it’s available somewhere.

In his Backstage Comments after he and Drilla beat Gabe and Wheeler Yuta, Shingo says his bad G1 was the fault of his loss to Claudio Castagnoli in a tag match (War Dragons vs Claudio and PAC) on the post-Forbidden Door Collision and calls out Claudio to come fight him at Destruction in Kobe.

Claudio’s last match on a purely NJPW show was a failed NEVER 6 challenge at Dominion 2023 alongside Mox and Shota Umino. His last high-profile NJPW match was a loss to Shota Umino at Wrestle Dynasty last year.

On Dynamite, Will Ospreay was challenged to a 3v3 match against the Don Callis Family next week. Will is no longer bros with the Death Riders or Kenny, so in a promo on Collision he said he’ll be calling his boys in Japan* to come be his partners. Will knows HENARE is okay with him, Akira is okay with him, but it’s his “little brother Callum” that’s he’s a little bit worried about. (I’m assuming he only mentioned those three guys because they’re the only ones who’ll be making the trip.)

This Collision was taped on Wednesday so Will is technically free to show up in Ryogoku tonight, but from how he was speaking I doubt he will.

But if you care about the UE/Ospreay story you may want to either watch Dynamite or keep an eye out for the results on Wednesday.

Update: At the end of Collision it was confirmed it’ll be Ospreay, HENARE, and Akira vs DCF’s Brian Cage, Lance Archer, and Rocky Romero.

Additional update: Callum QRTed the tweet Ospreay made about asking UE for help and told him “Jog on”, which if you don’t speak bruv means “fuck off.”

This was not given its own announcement, but was noted as part of the Japanese preview for tonight’s card.

It’s confirmed as likely a legitimate injury by the fact that the English site’s preview was never changed from the original card; with Jake listed as being in the 3rd match of Yuto-Ice, Shingo, Ishimori, and Gedo vs GOK, Jake, JAY, and Zane Jay (that’s now a 3v3 with Gedo dropped from the UBC side).

This was not given its own announcement, but was noted as part of the Japanese preview for tonight’s card.

It’s confirmed as likely a legitimate injury by the fact that the English site’s preview was never changed from the original card; with Jake listed as being in the 3rd match of Yuto-Ice, Shingo, Ishimori, and Gedo vs GOK, Jake, JAY, and Zane Jay (that’s now a 3v3 with Gedo dropped from the UBC side).

Main event: Callum Newman (10) vs HENARE (8)

Semi-main: Yuya Uemura (10) vs OSKAR (8)

Ren Narita (10) vs Gabe Kidd (10)

Aaron Wolf (8) vs Zack Sabre Jr. (8)

Main event: Callum Newman (10) vs HENARE (8)

Semi-main: Yuya Uemura (10) vs OSKAR (8)

Ren Narita (10) vs Gabe Kidd (10)

Aaron Wolf (8) vs Zack Sabre Jr. (8)

On the August 4th CMLL show, the STRONG Tag Titles will be defended for the first time since January 2nd, with Yujiro Takahashi & DOUKI challenging Los Hermanos Chavez (Angel de Oro & Niebla Roja).

Umino defending the Global title against Gabe Kidd is the semi-main event of the show, with YOH vs Akira as the main event.

Rest of the card, in descending order:

• G1 Climax 36 A Block Play-in- Ryohei Oiwa vs El Phantasmo

• G1 Climax 36 B Block Play-in- Yujiro Takahashi vs OSKAR

• Tiger Mask Final 3 Way Tornado Tag Match- Tiger Mask & Jado vs Unbound Co. (Gedo & Taiji Ishimori) vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (Dick Togo & Yoshinobu Kanemaru)

• Boltin Oleg, Aaron Wolf, Hirooki Goto & Tatsuya Matsumoto vs Unbound Co. Yota Tsuji, Shingo Takagi, Yuto-Ice & Daiki Nagai

• Yuya Uemura, Taichi, El Desperado & Masatora Yasuda vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (Ren Narita, SANADA, DOUKI & SHO)

Katsuyori Shibata’s match with Ospreay on Collision was his 99th match since Sakura Genesis 2017, the show where Shibata almost died as a result of (largely self-inflicted) injury during his IWGP Heavyweight challenge against Okada. His 100th match will move Sakura Genesis 2017 off the first page of his Cagematch match list.

There were nearly five years where it seemed like that would never happen. Five years where those of us who thought he could potentially make a miraculous comeback figured he’d work less than 10 matches a year, and where Shibata himself did interviews saying as much.

But above all else, The Wrestler is a pretty stubborn guy. With his signature extraordinary fighting spirit and the help of electroshock therapy usually used on racehorses, he made that miraculous comeback. Unfortunately that stubbornness seemingly cost him the opportunity to keep wrestling for NJPW; thankfully other opportunities arose and from all accounts he appears to be quite happy working for Tony.

It’s kind of a long shot but I’d love to see that 100th match be something fitting the occasion. At least a singles match against an opponent with some name value, instead of the more likely kind of throwaway Opps tag or spot in a multi-man match.