New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced the official brackets for the 2017 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, which kicks off at Korakuen Hall on Wednesday, May 17th.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Best of the Super Juniors is a long-running tournament that dates back to 1988. It is similar to the annual G1 Climax, but features only junior heavyweight wrestlers from all around the world. Previous winners include Jushin Thunder Liger, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Koji Kanemoto, Finn Balor and Kota Ibushi, and has been instrumental in launching numerous careers. There will be two blocks, with eight wrestlers in each. Each wrestler will challenge every opponent in his block for points, and the winner of each block will face off in the finals to crown the greatest junior heavyweight wrestler in the world.
The tournament starts on May 17th and will conclude with the finals on June 3rd. For the first time, Wrestlezone is excited to announce that we will have complete and exclusive live coverage of every single show in this year’s tournament, which will all be broadcast live through New Japan World! We’ll be announcing specific dates and high profile matches as soon as they are made available, plus stay tuned as we break down the brackets and more in the coming weeks.
Here are the official brackets:
BLOCK A
- Jushin Thunder Liger
- Ricochet
- Dragon Lee
- Will Ospreay
- Marty Scurll
- Taichi
- TAKA Michinoku
- Hiromu Takahashi
BLOCK B
- Tiger Mask
- Ryusuke Taguchi
- KUSHIDA
- Volador Jr.
- ACH
- Yoshinobu Kanemaru
- El Desperado
- Bushi
The A Block is completely stacked this year, and will be almost impossible to predict. The stand-outs right away are 2016 winner Will Ospreay and 2014 winner Ricochet, juniors champion Hiromu Takahashi, and Jushin Thunder Liger could be a wild card as this is his last year competing in the tournament. The B Block looks to be a platform to set up KUSHIDA into the finals, but it’s very possible this could be the year to elevate ACH or Bushi.
This means we will be seeing the Ricochet vs. Will Ospreay rematch, as well as a return to the recent Ricochet vs. Hiromu match that was an instant classic. This will be the official New Japan debut of Ring of Honor World TV Champion Marty Scurll, so many of these matches for him will be fresh and could be very, very good. We’ll have more on the brackets and matches very soon, so stay tuned!
