Kazuchika Okada Retains IWGP World Heavyweight Title At NJPW New Year's Golden Series
Okada's second successful defence
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Feb 20, 2022
New Japan Pro-Wrestling's New Year's Golden Series entered its final day on Sunday, February 20 with an event from Hokkaido.
The show was headlined by an IWGP World Heavyweight Title match between Kazuchika Okada and Tetsuya Naito in their sixth match for the top title in NJPW, having previously faced off for the old IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
As is typical of Naito vs. Okada, both men put together a very good match and it looked like Naito had the match won after he caught Okada with Destino. The champion managed to kick out, though, and Okada hit a Destino of his own before he followed up with a Landslide Tombstone and a Rainmaker for the victory.
Both men then showed respect to each other following the main event. Okada's next big match looks set to be at NJPW's 50th Anniversary Show when he will take on IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion El Desperado.
Check out the full results from the final day of New Year's Golden Series below:
- El Phantasmo, Taiji Ishimori & Jado def. Tiger Mask, Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita
- Taichi & DOUKI def. Ryohei Oiwa & Tomohiro Ishii
- Team Six or Nine def. El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
- Great-O-Khan def. Satoshi Kojima
- Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi, BUSHI & SANADA def. Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, Yuji Nagata & Hiroshi Tanahashi
- Toru Yano def. Minoru Suzuki (c) - Dog Cage Match for KOPW 2022 Provisional Trophy
- EVIL, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi (c) def. YOH, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto - NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championship
- Kazuchika Okada (c) def. Tetsuya Naito - IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
