Today in NJPW History - April 19th

New Japan Cup debuts & a junior legend takes his first breath

Today in New Japan Pro Wrestling history - April 19th (big up to Pro Fight DB)

New Japan Cup is born

Sadly, we didn’t get to see the New Japan Cup this year due to that damned pandemic - and it was looking like it was going to be a banger. The reason I’m mentioning this is on this day in 2005 the New Japan Cup was born, as the first round of the first ever New Japan Cup openweight tournament took place on April 19, 2005. All eight first round matches went down in the Hiroshima Sun Plaza in Hiroshima in front of 3,000 spectators. The main event saw a couple of guys who would hot potato the IWGP Heavyweight belt between each other over the next couple of years, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Yuji Nagata, face off, with Ace winning via DQ. In another notable match, Hiroyoshi Tenzan beat Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger with a moonsault press.

El Samurai is born

Also on this day in 1966, Osamu Matsuda, aka El Samurai, took his first breath. He entered the famed New Japan dojo right out of high school, and adopted his masked El Samurai gimmick while on excursion in Mexico. He went on to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship twice, the junior tag belts three times, the J-Crown once, as well as the 1997 Best of the Super Juniors. His top-rated match was the finals of that very tournament, against Koji Kanemoto, which is a five star match according to the Wrestling Observer.