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What's the story?
At today’s NJPW: Wrestling Hinokuni show at the Grand Messe Kumamoto, Los Ingobernables de Japon leader Tetsuya Naito defeated Minoru Suzuki in order to win the IWGP Intercontinental Championship for the second time in his career.
In case you didn’t know…
Tetsuya Naito’s first reign as IWGP Intercontinental Champion came way back in 2016 when ‘The Ungovernable’ defeated former ROH World Champion Michael Elgin in order to become the 15th IWGP IC Champion in NJPW history.
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During his first reign as IWGP IC Champion, Naito successfully defended the belt against Hiroshi Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom 11. However, after successfully retaining the strap against Michael Elgin and Juice Robinson, Naito eventually lost the IC Title to ‘The Ace’ at Dominion 6.11.
The heart of the matter
Earlier today in Kumamoto, Japan, LIJ leader Tetsuya Naito won back the IWGP Intercontinental Championship from Suzuki Gun frontrunner Minoru Suzuki, who previously won the championship belt at NJPW: New Beginning in Sapporo earlier in the year.
Naito and Suzuki wrestled each other to a solid back-and-forth match, with some amazing storytelling to the contest and apparently, in the closing stages of the match, Naito also seemingly broke Minoru Suzuki’s nose before defeating him via the Destino in order to regain the Intercontinental Title.
However, despite the huge win, Naito eventually went on to let the title belt slide off his shoulders and left it lying in the ring because apparently the IWGP Intercontinental Championship still has zero value and means absolutely nothing to ‘The Ungovernable’.
Shortly afterwards, in the post-match backstage conference, Naito stated that he’s still not sure how he feels about winning the IC Title and claimed that he definitely doesn’t need the belt.
“I don’t know how I feel about this (pointing at the title). I still don’t need it. Nothing has changed. I’ll have to think about it more, but maybe tomorrow I’ll know better.”- Naito stated.
What’s next?
Following Tetsuya Naito’s successful championship win, we could potentially witness him defend the belt against a very familiar face in Chris Jericho, who could very well make his return to NJPW later this year and reunite his rivalry with Naito.
Several previous reports have suggested that Naito could very well square-off against Chris Jericho at this year’s Dominion pay-per-view and it that is indeed the case, then Naito vs Jericho could potentially be for the IWGP IC Championship.
Author’s take
There is certainly no surprise to the fact that Tetsuya Naito is not the biggest fan of the IWGP Intercontinental Champion as we’ve previously seen him destroy and shatter that championship belt to pieces, however, I personally, feel that NJPW should’ve given Minoru Suzuki a stronger run with the IWGP IC Title instead of crowning a new champion in Naito.
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