The BOSJ 33 Final was a total roller coaster
Stop what you're doing. Let’s talk about that NJPW Best of the Super Juniors 33 final that just went down at the Ota City Gymnasium. YOH finally got his flowers, taking down Kosei Fujita to lock up the tournament win, and the online reaction is about as unified as a locker room before a pay-per-view. As WrestleTalk reported, this was straight-up redemption for a guy who fell short in last year’s final. Watching him stare down the mountain he failed to climb twelve months ago was the highlight of the weekend.
The enthusiasts are calling this the move NJPW needed to refresh the junior heavyweight scene. You have the purists flooding the forums with analytical breakdowns of the transition work and, specifically, the finishing exchange that sent Fujita to the mat. One post on a major sub-forum captured the mood perfectly: "Seeing YOH pull this off after the heartbreak of last year isn't just booking; it's a character arc we actually finished." It turns out people love it when companies actually stick to a plan rather than just tossing the strap on whoever is trending on X.
Not everyone is popping champagne, though. The skeptics have arrived, and they are armed with enough sarcasm to fill a stadium. There is a vocal pocket of fans who feel Fujita had the momentum of a runaway freight train and that burning his heat on a YOH win is a classic case of sticking to the old guard instead of embracing the future. "We had a generational talent in Fujita potentially taking the mantle, and we opted for the safer, known quantity? It feels like we’re back in 2022," one disgruntled user wrote, clearly still holding onto whatever grudge they have against NJPW management.
My take? The cynics are missing the forest for the trees. You don't build a star like Fujita by handing him every trophy on his first try, and YOH has been grinding for this validation as noted in the final results. That victory felt earned, not manufactured. It adds actual weight to the division when a veteran proves he can still hang with the hungry up-and-comers, and the match quality at the Ota City Gymnasium certainly backed that up.
Then you have the wildcard opinions regarding the AEW crossover segments involved in this tour. Watching guys like Nick Wayne drift in and out of the NJPW scene has been a polarizing flavor experiment. Some fans are acting like his comments about the tour ending—where he asked if it’s truly over—is a teaser for a bigger storyline coming down the pike. If I’m being honest, I think some of you are reading too much into a guy just trying to keep his name in the conversation. As WrestleTalk documented, it’s just the standard "what's next" post-tour chatter.
"YOH clutching that trophy looks like a man who just survived an exorcism. That is the kind of raw emotion that makes this sport worth the headache of staying up until five in the morning to watch."
While the BOSJ discourse dominated the feed, we can't ignore the Collision side of the house. The Women's Tag Team Eliminator matches on June 6 felt a bit flat compared to the high-octane Japanese tournament finish. TayJay surviving that five-minute mess against Divine Dominion to secure their title shot was... fine? It was functional wrestling. Nobody is going to be talking about this in a month, which is the definition of filler booking.
Look, NJPW hit a 10/10 on the emotional payoff scale, while AEW is currently stuck in neutral with their tournament pacing. If you had to pick one to highlight in your group chat, the BOSJ final is the only real play. The rest of this stuff is just noise until we get some actual stakes on the line. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go find where I put my coffee, because my brain is still processing that final submission sequence from Ota City.