NJPW sets date for New Japan Cup winner’s IWGP World title match
New Japan Pro Wrestling has made Yota Tsuji’s next defense of the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship official.
Tsuji will defend his title on April 4 at Sakura Genesis against the winner of the New Japan Cup, which is set to kick off on March 4.
The brackets for the upcoming tournament are below:
Left side —
- March 4: Yuya Uemura vs. Great-O-Khan (winner faces Drilla Moloney on March 10)
- March 4: Aaron Wolf vs. Don Fale (winner faces Shingo Takagi on March 10)
- March 5: Taichi vs. Ren Narita (winner faces Tomohiro Ishii on March 12)
- March 5: El Phantasmo vs. Oleg Boltin (winner faces HENARE on March 12)
Right side —
- March 6: YOSHI-HASHI vs. Jake Lee (winner faces Hirooki Goto on March 13)
- March 6: OSKAR vs. Callum Newman (winner faces Hartley Jackson on March 13)
- March 8: Shota Umino vs. Chase Owens (winner faces Yujiro Takahashi on March 14)
- March 8: Yuto-Ice vs. Ryohei Oiwa (winner faces Zack Sabre Jr. on March 14)
This will be the fourth year in a row the New Japan Cup winner has challenged the champion at Sakura Genesis. David Finlay was last year’s winner, and he lost his title challenge to Hirooki Goto on the show.
The match is set to be Tsuji’s second defense of the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, which he won from Konosuke Takeshita at Wrestle Kingdom 20 on January 4, 2026. He successfully defended the title on February 11 at The New Beginning in Osaka against Jake Lee. Tsuji was also in action on Saturday in Trenton, New Jersey, where he successfully defended the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship against Andrade El Idolo at The New Beginning USA.
This year’s Sakura Genesis will take place at Ryogoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall) in Tokyo. No other matches have been announced for the card thus far.
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.