The Osaka Litmus Test
When you look at the schedule these guys are running right now, it borders on inhumane. They are wrestling grueling singles matches almost every single night, traveling by bus across the country, and sleeping in random hotels. By the time they reach late May, nobody is at 100 percent. Every bump hurts worse. Every chop stings a little longer. That sheer physical exhaustion is exactly what makes the back half of this tournament so fascinating. You stop seeing crisp, choreographed routines and start seeing desperate, ugly survival.
It's late May in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, which means two things. First, the junior heavyweights are currently holding their bodies together with athletic tape, pure willpower, and whatever strong painkillers they can legally acquire. Second, we've finally hit the Osaka stretch of the Best of the Super Juniors.
Edion Arena in Osaka is the ultimate bullshit detector of Japanese wrestling crowds. They don't care about your flashy hype videos. They don't care about your merchandise sales numbers. They just want you to lay it in and make them believe. On the May 22nd card, according to the latest results out of Osaka, they got exactly what they paid for. We saw the breathtaking highs of the junior division. We also suffered through the agonizingly stupid lows of modern NJPW booking.
The Masterpiece in the Mid-Card
Let’s start with the good stuff. El Desperado against Kosei Fujita.
At this point, Desperado isn't just a professional wrestler. He's a violently miserable artist who paints with other people's joints. His match against the TMDK standout was an absolute clinic in grounded sadism. Fujita has been having a massive breakout tournament. He’s young, he hits like a runaway freight train, and he possesses zero respect for his elders. You can literally see Zack Sabre Jr.'s influence leaking out of his every pore.
Let's be clear about Desperado's current run. He is operating on a completely different psychological level than anyone else in this company. He doesn't just want to win; he wants to dismantle you mentally. Fujita learned that the hard way. The young lion tried to rely on his raw speed early, shooting in for quick takedowns. Desperado simply waited for him to overextend, caught him in a kneebar out of nowhere, and the entire complexion of the match shifted immediately.
Desperado took the kid apart piece by piece. It wasn't about high-flying acrobatics or reckless dives. It was an ugly, grinding affair focused entirely on Fujita's left knee. Desperado spent the first ten minutes just wrenching the leg in directions God never intended. Every time Fujita tried to explode out of a hold, Desperado just twisted the ankle a little tighter.
Fujita fought back, obviously. He hit a massive dropkick that almost took Desperado's mask clean off his face. The Osaka crowd bit hard on a near-fall after a desperate inside cradle. But the veteran just ate the damage. He rolled through a sunset flip attempt and locked in Numero Dos right in the middle of the ring. Fujita screamed, fought the hands, and finally tapped at the 14-minute mark.
It was clean, brutal, and exactly the kind of match that reminds you why this tournament is the gold standard for junior heavyweight wrestling.
The House of Torture Disaster
Now, let's talk about the garbage.
The House of Torture problem is officially out of hand. It is 2026. We are still doing this. We are still sitting through 15-minute matches where SHO forgets he's actually one of the best in-ring performers on the planet so he can play hide-and-seek with a custom wrench.
His match against Titan was an unmitigated disaster. Titan is wildly over right now. The crowd loves him. He hit a beautiful springboard tornillo to the outside in the opening minutes, popping the building. He looked ready to absolutely steal the show.
What followed instead was ten minutes of sleepy ref bumps, low blows, and EVIL slowly walking down the ramp like he's wading through wet cement. Dick Togo's involvement is particularly exhausting. The man is a legend, sure, but watching a guy in his late fifties slowly waddle around the ring to distract the referee is insulting our intelligence.
The referees in New Japan are continually booked to look incredibly incompetent, staring blankly at the crowd while the heels bring an entire hardware store into the ring. It ruins the suspension of disbelief. Titan deserved a chance to showcase his luchador offense, but instead, he was relegated to being a prop in the EVIL and Togo comedy hour. The finish came when Togo choked Titan with the garrote wire while the referee was conveniently staring at an exposed turnbuckle pad. SHO hit the Shock Arrow for the win.
It was completely deflating. You could hear a pin drop in the arena. Gedo's absolute obsession with this faction is actively killing the momentum of the B Block. It’s not heat anymore. It hasn't been heat for years. It’s just channel-changing apathy.
When your heel faction makes the fans want to browse their phones instead of booing, you have failed at Booking 101. You have to ask yourself what the endgame is here. The front office knows SHO can work. We all watched his Roppongi 3K run. Forcing him to wrestle this cowardly, molasses-paced style is a massive waste of his prime athletic years.
A Much-Needed Palate Cleanser
Thankfully, the semi-main event gave us a palate cleanser. Master Wato squared off against Clark Connors.
Wato is the ultimate underdog babyface. He still moves a little awkwardly sometimes, but the fans believe in his fighting spirit. Connors, on the other hand, is just a brick wall covered in bad tattoos and pure aggression. Gabe Kidd and the rest of the War Dogs have been terrorizing the heavyweight division, but Connors brings that exact same rabid dog energy to the juniors.
Connors bullied Wato from the opening bell. He hit a pounce that sent Wato flying halfway across the ring. It looked like a car crash. The crowd gasped as Wato folded up like an accordion.
But Wato refused to stay down. He hit a stunning sequence of stiff kicks, lighting up Connors' chest until it was raw meat. The finish was sudden and violent. Connors went for his signature spear, but Wato leaped over him, landed on his feet, and caught Connors with a bridging German suplex for a massive upset.
The pop was deafening. This is what the tournament is supposed to be about. Two guys leaving everything on the mat to scrape out two points.
The Main Event Sprint
All of this led to a main event that managed to save the card from being dragged down by the earlier nonsense. Hiromu Takahashi against Taiji Ishimori.
These two could wrestle each other blindfolded in a Denny's parking lot at three in the morning and still pull off a four-star classic. Ishimori is a freakish machine. The man simply does not age. He doesn't botch. He just targets your neck and waits for you to make a microscopic mistake.
Hiromu, meanwhile, wrestles like a man actively trying to shorten his own lifespan. He sprints through matches with a reckless abandon that makes you fear for his spinal column. You have to wonder how much longer Hiromu can realistically do this. Every time he takes a bump on his neck, the collective breath of the arena catches. He is the heart and soul of this division, but the toll is highly visible.
Ishimori knew this. He expertly picked apart Hiromu's upper back, using nasty crossface variations to grind down the former champion. But Hiromu's defining trait isn't his offense; it's his sheer refusal to die. The pacing was terrifying from the jump. Ishimori hit a sliding German suplex on the hardest part of the ring apron that made the entire front row physically wince. Hiromu answered by tossing Ishimori into the steel barricade with a running death valley driver. They were throwing bombs like it was the finals at the Tokyo Dome, not a block match in Osaka.
The final three minutes were an absolute blur of elite-level counters. Ishimori went for the Bloody Cross. Hiromu slipped out, hit a stiff superkick right to the jaw, and folded Ishimori up with the Time Bomb II. Three count. The crowd lost their minds.
So where does that leave us?
The blocks are a chaotic mess. Hiromu is currently tied at the top of A Block, Desperado is lurking right behind him, and SHO is somehow stealing points he doesn't remotely deserve. We have just a few days left before the finals.
The bodies are breaking down. The athletic tape is getting thicker. If you skip the House of Torture match—and I highly recommend that you do—this was a hell of a night in Osaka. But seriously, New Japan. Figure out the interference spots. It's embarrassing to watch world-class athletes play stooge to guys holding steel chairs. Give us the actual wrestling.
