The New Japan Cup came to a close this morning with Zack Sabre, Jr outlasting Hiroshi Tanahashi in a final for the ages folks.
Each man had one win over the other going in, so no feeling out process, as we get going with solid back and forth. Sabre wants this to stay on the mat and early on Tanahashi is more than willing to grapple with him even going after one of Sabre’s legs. ZSJ begins targeting Tanahashi’s injured arm, which was inevitable, and we get some grueling submissions from the Brit. Tanahashi fights back and takes it to Sabre with the crowd in a frenzy.
The two battle with Tanahashi looking like he may be getting the better of Zack after a sling blade but Sabre kicks out! Tanahashi follows up with a dragon suplex but Sabre still has too much fight in him. With nothing else to do, Tanahashi makes his way to the top rope and connects with high fly flow.
At this point, I thought it was all over for Sabre but Tanahashi disagreed and made his way up top again looking for ANOTHER high fly flow only for Sabre to move out of the way! Tanahashi immediately reaches for his left leg in pain after hitting the canvas but he has no time to recover as Sabre is all over him. Submission attempt after submission attempt for Sabre before pulling Tanahashi to the center of the ring and locking in ‘orienting with napalm death.’ Tanahashi taps and Zack Sabre, Jr is the 2018 New Japan Cup winner!
With the win, Sabre became the first British wrestler to ever win the New Japan Cup and the first gajin, that means foreigner folks, to win the cup in twelve years.
What does all this mean?
Well it means that 2018 has already been a great year for ZSJ and now he gets a shot at Okada and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship as was announced post-match. We get a brief stare down between Okada and ZSJ before Sabre makes it clear that Okada will tap at Sakura Genesis on April 1.
John Mosley is the independent wrestling and TV aficionado of the SoBros Network. He graduated from ETSU with a degree in Radio, TV and Film along with a minor in Film Studies. Since graduating he’s done pretty much nothing but watch, film, edit or commentate for local wrestling promotions and is the current color commentator for Resolute Wrestling. #Preds #Titans #DefendOrVacateConor – Follow on Twitter: @CoupleOfJobbers
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