Best of the Super Juniors Update: 13 Confirmed Names

New Japan Pro Wrestling’s “Best of the Super Juniors” is the next big tournament for the promotion. The 25th edition of the tournament is scheduled to run from May 18th to June 4th. Both the first and last night will be held in Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall.

Advertising for the show has seemingly confirmed 13 of the entrants. In recent years, the tournament has consisted of 16 junior heavyweight wrestlers.

Names leaked for the 2018 Best of the Super Juniors include:

• Hiromu Takahashi
• Sho Tanaka
• Yohei Komatsu
• Will Ospreay
• KUSHIDA
• El Desperado
• Yoshinobu Kanemaru
• Bushi
• Dragon Lee
• Flip Gordon
• Marty Scurll
• Tiger Mask
• Ryusuke Taguchi

Flip Gordon’s name being included will be exciting to some fans. The 26-year-old has only been a professional since 2015 but has won over the respect of many in a short amount of time. Gordon has been a major player as of late in Ring of Honor and on the Being the Elite YouTube series.

Travis Gordon was trained by Brian Fury and made his pro-wrestling debut on May 6th, 2015.

This will be a big tournament for Kushida, who has won 2 of the last 3 BOSJs. Only two wrestlers in history, Jushin “Thunder” Liger and Koji Kanemoto, has ever won the tournament 3x.

Will Ospreay won the tournament in 2016 but he won’t have to wait until the tournament this year to face Kushida. The 2016 and 2017 winners of the Best of the Super Juniors will clash for Ospreay’s IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship at Wrestling Dontaku in May. Ospreay most recently defended the title against Marty Scurll at Sakura Genesis.

Ryusuke Taguchi is the only other former tournament winner to be announced for the 2018 edition so far. Taguchi won the 2012 version of the tournament. In the 2013 version, the then-IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, Prince Devitt, ran the table, winning every single match en route to a tournament victory. Devitt had just formed the new faction, Bullet Club, at the time.