TMDK take down Bishamon to secure NJPW World Tag League grand final spot

Image Credit: NJPW

TMDK is heading to the NJPW World Tag League finals.

Zack Sabre Jr. and Ryohei Oiwa took down multi-time tag league winners Bishamon (YOSHI-HASHI and Hirooki Goto) on Wednesday night in Nagasaki, Japan, punching their ticket to the tournament’s finals later this week. The semi-final bout was made after both teams qualified via standout runs in round robin action throughout the past month.

A 24-minute battle came to an end after a Chaos Theory German Suplex from Oiwa to Goto was bridged into a pin attempt by Sabre Jr., earning him the three-count.

The result means that Bishamon will miss the World Tag League Finals for the second year in a row. The decorated duo previously three-peated the tournament from 2021 to 2023 and has overall been one of the more decorated tag teams in the promotion’s recent history.

While Sabre Jr. has a long list of accomplishments in NJPW, including a past G1 tournament win, the result on Wednesday put him through to a World Tag League final for the first time ever.

The grand final opponents for Sabre Jr. and Oiwa will be decided on Friday, when the second semi-final match for the tournament takes place between the Knockout Brothers (OSKAR and Yuto-Ice) and the duo of Gabe Kidd and Yota Tsuji.

If the Knockout Brothers advance, Sabre Jr. and Oiwa will get a chance to avenge a loss they suffered during B Block action when they face off in the finals.

Here are the quick results from today’s show:

  1. Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi def. Katsuya Murashima & Shoma Kato
  2. Satoshi Kojima, Taichi & Masatora Yasuda def. El Desperado, Shuji Ishikawa & Tatsuya Matsumoto
  3. Callum Newman, Great-O-Khan & Jakob Austin Young def. Alex Zayne, Lance Archer & Zane Jay
  4. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toru Yano & Boltin Oleg def. SHO, Don Fale & EVIL
  5. El Phantasmo, Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura def. Ren Narita, SANADA & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
  6. David Finlay, Gedo, OSKAR, Yuto-Ice & Hiromu Takahashi def. Drilla Moloney, Gabe Kidd, Daiki Nagai, Shingo Takagi & Yota Tsuji
  7. Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr. def. Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI (2025 World Tag League Semi-Final)
About Jack Wannan 1253 Articles
Jack Wannan is a journalist from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He writes and reports on professional wrestling, along with other topics like MMA, boxing, music, local news, and more. He graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University in 2023 with a bachelor's degree in journalism. He can be reached at jackwannancanada@gmail.com