NJPW bringing back Young Lion's Cup

[cero2k]

Source: f4wonline.com

After being dormant for over 12 years, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced last night that the Young Lion’s Cup tournament would be making a return on their Lion’s Gate Project events.

It will be called the Kotetsu Yamamoto Memorial 11th Young Lion Cup tournament, in honor of Yamamoto who was a longtime trainer in the New Japan Dojo after retiring from active competition in 1980. The format this time around will be round-robin style, taking place on more than one show with six young lions vying for the cup. They are:

Tomoyuki Oka, 26, a former amateur wrestling champion

Katsuya Kitamura, 31, another former amateur wrestling champion whose career in that field was cut short after testing positive for steroids in 2011

Hirai Kawato, 20, who has trained in MMA and joined NJPW right out of high school, making him one of the youngest wrestlers on the roster

Ren Narita, 20, who is actually a few months younger than Kawato, making him the youngest member of the NJPW roster

Shota Umino, 20, who is the son of NJPW referee Red Shoes Unno

Tetsuhiro Yagi, 25, who has a background in baseball and is the newest young lion, having debuted this past April

Lion’s Gate 8 on October 12th will kick things off with Kawato vs. Narita, Kitamura vs. Yagi, and Umino vs. Oka.

The last tournament was held in 2005, with Hirooki Goto defeating independent wrestler Hiroyuki Ito to win the cup. Previous winners have included Keiichi Yamada (Jushin Thunder Liger), Masahiro Chono, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, Manabu Nakanishi, and Ryusuke Taguchi.

[cero2k]

Awesome news, I had been hoping for this since the G1 Climax

[Big Red Machine]

A great idea, but won't this kind of do away with the tradition of getting a new gimmick when you return from excursion?

[cero2k]

A great idea, but won't this kind of do away with the tradition of getting a new gimmick when you return from excursion?

not necessarily, a lot of these guys will require a gimmick change anyway and they're new enough so that there's still time before they go on excursion, but those are the same that will likely loose. I would give it to Kitamura since he's a guy that doesn't really require much of a gimmick change and could be build from like from yesterday, as the Super Young Lion or something, and him coming back from excursion would be awesome as 'a mature/traveled Super Young Lion Kitamura has returned'

I mean, he already has Lion fangs

just imagine one day, a beared kitamura wearing a cape or a cloak comes back and challenges whatever current IC champion. He'd be a legend

[Big Red Machine]

A great idea, but won't this kind of do away with the tradition of getting a new gimmick when you return from excursion?

not necessarily, a lot of these guys will require a gimmick change anyway and they're new enough so that there's still time before they go on excursion, but those are the same that will likely loose. I would give it to Kitamura since he's a guy that doesn't really require much of a gimmick change and could be build from like from yesterday, as the Super Young Lion or something, and him coming back from excursion would be awesome as 'a mature/traveled Super Young Lion Kitamura has returned'

I mean, he already has Lion fangs

just imagine one day, a beared kitamura wearing a cape or a cloak comes back and challenges whatever current IC champion. He'd be a legend

This is a pretty great idea for what to do with this tournament this year.

[KILLdozer]

Why the hell do they have a cup that a young lion uses to drink from, and WHERE are they bringing it back from????

[Big Red Machine]

Why the hell do they have a cup that a young lion uses to drink from, and WHERE are they bringing it back from????

They have the cup for for young lions to drink from because sometimes their lion cubs get thirsty. Unfortunately, about twelve years ago, one of the lions mistook the cup for a mongoose and swallowed it whole, but now this lion has finally died, and they asked the coroner to retrieve the cup for them while he did the autopsy.

[KILLdozer]

Oh so they're bringing it back so they may drink from it again.