IWGP Tag Team Title Match To Main Event NJPW New Year Dash 2026

The World Tag League winners will close New Year Dash.

The 2025 NJPW World Tag League winners are T.M.D.K. (Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa). They won the tournament by besting Gabe Kidd and IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji in the tournament final.

The World Tag League winners normally move on to Wrestle Kingdom, where they challenge for the IWGP Tag Team Championship. Sabre Jr. and Oiwa announced at a press conference that they’ll be challenging for the belts the day after Wrestle Kingdom at the New Year Dash event on January 5th.

Both Sabre Jr. and Oiwa provided reasons why they are going to main event New Year Dash with their tag title challenge instead of having it on the Wrestle Kingdom card. Below is the write-up from NJPW’s website:

‘I’m happy to end the year on a positive note,’ remarked Sabre of his side’s win. ‘This year started with two Tokyo Dome main events, and being the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, and now I have a new focus heading into 2026. ‘ Elaborating, ZSJ said that he viewed Wrestle Kingdom 20 as ‘one of the most important events in Japanese wrestling history,’ but that he saw ‘Oiwa winning his first championship in the main event of the first night post Tanahashi’ as ‘more important than being in the middle of the (Tokyo Dome) card’.

Following on from Sabre’s comment, Oiwa stated that he wanted ‘to be the central point of NJPW post Tanahashi,’ and that ‘after my first trophy, next is my first belt and raising the status of this team’. Oiwa admitted that his first 15 months back in NJPW post excursion had had its struggles, but that ‘now my work is paying off.’ Oiwa said that he intended to close the main event of the first night in the post-Tanahashi era and show that ‘NJPW is more than fine without Hiroshi Tanahashi.’

New Year Dash will emanate from Ota City General Gymnasium in Tokyo. To get a look at the Wrestle Kingdom card, click here.