Summer Struggle in Jingu

On March 1, 2020, NJPW suspended all future live events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this, many of their annual tours and tournaments, such as the New Japan Cup, Best of the Super Juniors, and a summer tour scheduled in Hokkaido, in place of where the G1 Climax would normally be (which was moved to September, due to the upcoming, now postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics) were canceled.[1][2][3] To make up for the lost dates, on June 26, 2020, NJPW announced the Summer Struggle tour to run from July 27 to August 29.[4] On July 25, 2020, NJPW announced the culmination of the Summer Struggle tour to take place in Meiji Jingu Stadium, the first NJPW event inside the stadium since 1999 with last event being Jingu Climax.[5]

Summer Struggle in Jingu featured professional wrestling matches that involve different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portray villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.[6]

On July 11, Evil defeated Kazuchika Okada to win the 2020 New Japan Cup and earn a shot at the IWGP Intercontinental and IWGP Heavyweight championships, when Gedo, Jado, Taiji Ishimori, and Yujiro Takahashi helped him win the match. Evil then called out Tetsuya Naito to celebrate the win, before turning on him and the Los Ingobernables de Japon stable, defecting to Bullet Club in the process.[7] On July 12 at Dominion in Osaka-jo Hall, Evil defeated Naito to win both championships.[8] On July 25 at Sengoku Lord in Nagoya, Evil defeated Hiromu Takahashi to retain the double championships. Afterwards, Naito confronted Evil, challenging him to a title match for both titles. The title match was announced on July 28.[9]

On July 25, at Sengoku Lord in Nagoya, during a post-match interview, Kazuchika Okada teased a "controversial announcement". Three days later, during a press conference, NJPW chairman Naoki Sugabayashi alongside Kazuchika Okada announced the creation of a new title, the KOPW Championship, as well as a tournament to crown the inaugural champion.[10] Instead of a conventional professional wrestling championship, the KOPW Championship is represented by a trophy with only one wrestler per year being recognized as the champion. At the beginning of a new year, the title is inactive, with a provisional champion being determined. At the end of the year, the winner of a final title defense is officially recognized at that year's KOPW Champion. While NJPW has historically been focused heavily on traditional matches, KOPW Championship matches focus exclusively on non-regular stipulations, with the fans voting the stipulation of the match. The tournament, which would begin on August 26, featured four first-round singles matches, where the winners would face each other in a four-way match to determine the provisional champion on August 29. On August 6, Okada and Yujiro Takahashi were announced as the first participants for the tournament. The following day, Okada and Takahashi announced their match stipulations for their match. The rest of the participants for the tournament were announced on August 10. On August 17, NJPW announced a fan vote on Twitter to decide the stipulations of the first round matches, while Sho and Sanada both agreed to face each other in a submission match.[11] On August 24, the stipulations were decided.[12]

• 2020 in professional wrestling
• List of NJPW pay-per-view events

• Official New Japan Pro-Wrestling website