The New Beginning (2012) was a
professional wrestling pay-per-view
Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast.
Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program guid ...
(PPV) event promoted by
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). The event took place on February 12, 2012, in
Osaka,
Osaka, at the
Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium. The event featured eight matches, four of which were contested for
championships
In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.
Championship systems
Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.
Title match system
In this system ...
.
The event was the first major event held by NJPW after the promotion had been sold to
Bushiroad. It was the third event under the
New Beginning name.
Storylines
The New Beginning featured eight
professional wrestling matches
Many types of wrestling matches, sometimes called "concept" or "gimmick matches" in the jargon of the business, are performed in professional wrestling. Some gimmick matches are more common than others and are often used to advance or conclude a ...
that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and
storylines. Wrestlers portrayed
villains
A villain (also known as a "black hat" or "bad guy"; the feminine form is villainess) is a stock character, whether based on a historical narrative or one of literary fiction. ''Random House Unabridged Dictionary'' defines such a character as ...
,
heroes
Heroes or Héroes may refer to:
* Hero, one who displays courage and self-sacrifice for the greater good
Film
* ''Heroes'' (1977 film), an American drama
* ''Heroes'' (2008 film), an Indian Hindi film
Gaming
* ''Heroes of Might and Magic'' ...
, or
less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.
Event
In the third match of the event, the
No Remorse Corps (
Davey Richards
Wesley David Richards (born March 1, 1983) is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to Major League Wrestling (MLW), under the ring name Davey Richards, and is the current MLW National Openweight Champion in his first reign. ...
and
Rocky Romero) recaptured the
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship from
Apollo 55 (
Prince Devitt and
Ryusuke Taguchi), while
Tencozy (
Hiroyoshi Tenzan and
Satoshi Kojima) successfully defended the
IWGP Tag Team Championship against previous champions
Bad Intentions (
Giant Bernard and
Karl Anderson
Chad Allegra (born January 20, 1980), better known by the ring name Karl Anderson, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to WWE where he performs on the Raw brand. He also makes appearances for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), whe ...
).
[ This would turn out to be the final match of Bad Intentions, the longest reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions in history, as the following month, Giant Bernard returned to WWE as "Lord Tensai". The event featured two title changes; in the first Hirooki Goto captured the IWGP Intercontinental Championship from ]Masato Tanaka
is a Japanese professional wrestler, best known for his appearances with Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) in Japan where he was a one-time FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Champion and a one-time WEW World Heavyweight Champion and in Ext ...
, while in the main event Kazuchika Okada, who had just the previous month returned from a twenty-month American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
excursion, defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship for the first time.[ NJPW called the result of the main event the "upset of the century".][
]
Reception
In his review of the show, Dave Meltzer of the '' Wrestling Observer Newsletter'' criticized the decision to take the IWGP Heavyweight Championship off Hiroshi Tanahashi, writing " ere is very little that works well in modern wrestling, and when you've got a guy on top who is carrying the ball, it's not the time to replace him". Meltzer wrote that in Japan the general reaction to the title change was negative. Though Meltzer went on to call the match between Tanahashi and Okada "excellent", he credited it entirely to Tanahashi, writing that Okada looked " green" and "way out of his league".
Results
References
External links
The official New Japan Pro-Wrestling website
{{DEFAULTSORT:New Beginning 2012, The
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...
2012 in professional wrestling
February 2012 events in Japan
Professional wrestling in Osaka
Events in Osaka