The Korakuen Hall treadmill
If you stayed up until 4 AM to watch the March 28 and March 29 Road to Sakura Genesis shows, I have two questions. First, are you okay? Second, why do we keep doing this to ourselves?
I love New Japan Pro-Wrestling. I really do. I have defended their product through some incredibly lean years when half the fanbase jumped ship. But there is a serious conversation to be had about the current state of these tour shows. They are becoming entirely unwatchable.
We all know the formula by now. You get the young lions opening the card, working their hearts out with basic Boston Crabs and loud chops. That part is fine. It’s the middle of the card that makes me want to pull my hair out.
How many times can we watch the exact same eight-man tag team matches? You know exactly what I'm talking about. The babyfaces clear the ring. The heels roll to the outside. Someone teases a dive but poses in the ring instead.
It’s paint-by-numbers wrestling. For a company that built its modern reputation on having the best in-ring product on the planet, these preliminary tour shows feel like they are running on fumes. The roster looks exhausted before the big shows even begin.
If you look at the Night 1 results from March 28, the entire midcard was a blur of meaningless tags. The broadcast went a grueling 165 minutes, and maybe twenty of those minutes actually mattered.
I completely understand the reality of the touring schedule. The wrestlers are protecting their bodies for the big pay-per-view at Ryogoku Kokugikan. But when you charge fans their hard-earned money for a monthly subscription, giving them a glorified house show just doesn't cut it anymore.
The House of Torture problem is past the point of parody
Let's talk about the elephant in the room. House of Torture. It wasn't funny three years ago, and it certainly isn't funny now. The same exact issues plagued the entire weekend, as documented in the Night 2 report.
Every single match involving them on this tour has devolved into the exact same sequence. The referee gets bumped. The low blow connects. The foreign object gets used. I genuinely feel bad for the refereeing crew at this point.
You'd think after the 400th time EVIL distracts the official, Red Shoes might catch on. But nope. We have to sit through another five minutes of wrench attacks, chokeholds with t-shirts, and exposed turnbuckle spots.
It drags the entire energy of the building down. You can literally hear the Korakuen Hall crowd groaning when the interference starts. That isn't heel heat. That's "please get me out of this building" apathy.
New Japan's booking committee needs to realize that this act has a definitive ceiling. You cannot build a credible main event scene when a quarter of your roster is locked in a never-ending loop of poorly timed interference spots.
It completely undermines the athletic credibility that NJPW spends so much time trying to cultivate. Wrestling needs heels who cheat, yes. But the cheating has to be clever. House of Torture just makes me angry at the booking sheet.
Who is actually trying?
It isn't all negative. There are always a few guys who refuse to take a night off, even on a meaningless Road To show. Zack Sabre Jr. remains an absolute machine. He is the standard-bearer for work ethic right now.
Watching him tie someone into a pretzel during a throwaway six-man tag on March 29 was the only time I actually sat up in my chair. He works with a sense of urgency that the rest of the roster desperately needs to emulate.
When Zack locks in a submission, he actually looks like he's trying to win the match right then and there. It's a shocking concept, I know. He doesn't play to the crowd unnecessarily. He acts like a professional fighter trying to get his hand raised.
The younger generation is also putting in the work. Yota Tsuji continues to look like an absolute star every time he walks through the curtain. He has that unteachable, magnetic charisma that you cannot manufacture in a dojo.
He doesn't need to do thirty moves to get a reaction. He just stands there, flashes a smirk, and the crowd treats him like a massive deal. His explosive offense actually wakes the audience up from their multi-man tag induced slumber.
But the contrast between guys like Tsuji and the aging veterans coasting through their tags is glaring. One match makes you think you're watching the best promotion in the world. The very next match makes you want to cancel your streaming subscription.
The build to Sakura Genesis lacks heat
Let's look at the bigger picture. Sakura Genesis is supposed to be one of the premier events on the NJPW calendar. It's the show where the spring storylines are supposed to peak and set the stage for Dominion.
Even PWInsider's coverage of the tour highlights how thoroughly skippable these early shows have become. Do you feel any genuine animosity between the main eventers right now? I sure don't.
We are getting polite exchanges of forearm strikes, a few obligatory taunts, and the occasional post-match staredown. Where is the bad blood? Where is the intensity? Everything feels entirely too safe right now.
Modern wrestling fans are too smart to be tricked by basic promotional tactics. We know when a promotion is just killing time. And right now, New Japan feels like they are killing time until they absolutely have to deliver a major angle.
The main events for the upcoming pay-per-view look decent on paper. But decent isn't enough anymore. Not when there is so much high-quality wrestling easily accessible across the globe on a weekly basis.
NJPW used to be the cool alternative. They were the gritty, hard-hitting counter-programming to the polished, sanitized product in North America. Now, they frequently feel like the most conservative, stubborn promotion in the industry.
What needs to change right now
First things first. Trim the fat off these cards. Nobody needs a seven-match card where four of the matches are completely interchangeable multi-man tags. It dilutes the product and makes the fans numb to the action.
Give me five matches on a Road To show. Give them higher stakes. Put a lower-card title on the line. Make a number one contender's match. Give us a reason to actually tune in live instead of reading the results on Twitter the next morning.
Make the young lions work against established veterans in singles matches. Let them take a beating for ten minutes. That's how you build sympathy and create future stars. Sticking them in opening tag matches does nothing for their long-term development.
And for the love of everything holy, stop ending these shows with a twenty-minute promo that puts everyone to sleep. The fans want action. They want to be sent home excited. Instead, we get a polite, repetitive speech thanking everyone for coming.
The bottom line for the spring tour
I'm being harsh because I know what New Japan is capable of. When they fire on all cylinders, nobody can touch them. The in-ring action, the camera work, the presentation—it can be pure magic.
We saw glimpses of that magic a few years ago. But we haven't seen it consistently for a long time. The booking has become entirely too reliant on outdated tropes that the audience rejected months ago.
These Road to Sakura Genesis shows were a massive missed opportunity. They could have used March 28 and 29 to set the wrestling world on fire. They could have delivered a shocking angle, a brutal backstage attack, or an incredible sprint of a match.
Instead, they delivered two shows that you could completely skip without missing a single beat of the overarching storylines. It is the definition of filler content, and in 2026, fans don't have time for filler.
If you have a backlog of wrestling to watch, do yourself a favor. Read the results from these Korakuen shows, skip the broadcasts, and just hope that Sakura Genesis actually delivers on its promise.
Because if it doesn't, we are going to have to have a much more difficult conversation about the future of this company. The goodwill from the golden era is running out. It's time for NJPW to wake up and remember who they are.
