AEW's The Young Bucks And Konosuke Takeshita Return To NJPW With Mixed Results

By Sam Palmer
The Young Bucks at Wrestle Dynasty Etsuo Hara/Getty Images

New Japan Pro Wrestling's "The New Beginning in Osaka" took place on February 11 and there were a number of stars representing All Elite Wrestling on the show. The Young Bucks, Konosuke Takeshita, and Rocky Romero were all in action, with all of them experiencing mixed results in Osaka.

To start, Matthew and Nicholas Jackson were unable to bring the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships back to the United States for a second time as they lost their titles to Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi on Los Ingobrenables de Japon. The LIJ contingent had won the 2024 World Tag League to earn a shot at the titles, but felt slighted when they had to forcibly insert themselves into the match between The Young Bucks and the United Empire at Wrestle Dynasty.

There wasn't much luck for Rocky Romero in the junior tag team division either, as he and YOH were unsuccessful in their quest to become the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, with Kosei Fujita and Robbie Eagles, the Ichiban Sweet Boys, retaining their titles.

Someone who did have a successful night was Konosuke Takeshita, as he successfully retained the NEVER Openweight Championship in an extremely physical match between himself and Oleg Boltin. Injured star Yuya Uemura came out after the bout to confront Takeshita, setting himself up for a title match later down the line, but The Alpha has a lot more to think about before he sees Uemura again.

On February 15, he will team up with Kyle Fletcher to take on Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay at AEW's Grand Slam Australia, while his next confirmed date for NJPW will be on April 11 where he will take on Hiroshi Tanahashi at the Windy City Riot pay-per-view, which will also acted as Tanahashi's final match on American soil.

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