Juice Robinson stripped of IWGP US Championship: Will Ospreay, SANADA to contest vacant title at Dominion

30 comments

1. Is the US title the most cursed title of all time?

2. Anyone else get a “404 Not Found” note when clicking on the article?

3. Can we just get rid of this belt please. it’s got no use, It’s redundant in fact and frankly it’s legacy is tarnished beyond repair. it’s at the point where I dont even care who has it. Less belts, more health! There off my soap box. thanks for coming to my ted talk lol

4. That belt is cursed.

5. Can we just get rid of this cursed title? Like bring back the IC at least it had a prestigious lineage lineage. Where is this one seems to just have a lineage of injuries.

6. New Japan needs to stop announcing people for shows before knowing for certain they will be cleared to compete. I get that they wanted to put the Dominion card out quickly, but they could’ve just left the US title match off and announced it once they knew if Juice would be ready or not. Or even have announced Sanada vs Ospreay as a number one contender’s match, and then either added Juice once he was cleared or announced this if he wasn’t.

   They did it earlier this year with Tenzan and Ibushi for the New Japan Cup, and now this. It’s really not a good look for them (especially considering Ibushi alleged that the company tried to push him to come back from his shoulder injury way too early).

   EDIT: Now that the article is actually up, it’s pretty clear they’re going to work this into a storyline. Still could’ve avoided the whole thing, though.

7. The US Title has been vacated in it’s short history due to the following…

   Typhoon

   Fractured Orbital Bone

   Appendicitis

   ​

   After this Sunday, we will have had 5 different title holders in 2022 alone.

8. Two things: The NJPW logo is so damn awesome. Second, glad that they are doing it this way and not interim champ.

9. It’s interesting that the wording is “demanding the return of the championship belt currently in his possession”.

10. Why have a US title in Japan anyway? Are the Japanese talent lining up in droves to be the US champ? No. Does other western companies have Japan championship? No. Do away with it already

11. NJPW posted a video of Juice cutting a promo from the US saying that the SANADA vs Ospreay match should be a number 1 contender match instead. I thought they uploaded that video as a way to justify not leaving the title vacant, but then they went and did this.

    ???

12. 5 straight reigns with no defenses

13. oooooooooooooof

14. Why not just turn the Strong title into the US title? That way it would actually be a part of NJPW’s US brand and not an afterthought in Japan.

15. At least both SANADA and Ospreay have been stripped of a title before so that’s something that could be at play in this build. Ospreay would be a great shitter if he plays into that after everything he’s said about stripping titles before

16. Put it on Ospreay.

17. The U.S Hvy would have been fine for Strong as it’s 1B belt.

18. This title NEEDS TO GO

    Bring back the IC title

19. What happened?

20. What I’m taking from this is that if you win the IWGP title from Hiroshi Tanahashi, you’re more than likely cursed. First KENTA wins the title from Tana and then loses it at WK (to Tana) AND gets injured during his WK match. Then, SANADA wins the title from Tanahashi and had to relinquish the title due to injury. Now, Juice Robinson (who won the title in a 4 way match where Tana was the champion) is being stripped of the title. Lesson learned. Never take the IWGP US Championship from The Ace 😅😭

21. The IWGP United States title really is cursed, at this point.

22. Reminds of that year or so run with the Never title where it was hot potatoed from one guy to another with one or no defenses. Title lost all prestige and value when that happened.

    Edit – From June 2018 to June 2019, there were two successful defenses of the belt. That’s way worse than I remember it being.

    US title is beyond that point now. Not New Japan’s fault that Sanada and Juice have gotten hurt, but it is their fault for erratically bouncing it from one guy to the next with no long term plan in mind.

23. This belt is a fucking mess. Who even is the real champion at this point?

24. Vacant just beaten ROCK HARD, Juice Robinson to win the IWGP US Title, and now he defends it in a three-way dance? Injustice! If anyone is gonna bring prestige to the IWGP US belt, it should be

    ​

    VACANT! Ichiban.

25. Whoeve wins this, Ospreay or Sanada, I hope New Japan books them as a strong champion and have them defend it at least until Wrestle Kingdom to give the belt some value.

26. Devils advocate

    I love how messy the us title has become. Mirroring the country it represents.

    And this mess is more sports entertaining the final 2 years of the IC Championship before Naito did the double dash.

27. I’m not gonna lie this is kinda cool, obviously I wouldn’t like things like this to happen all the time but juices refusal to defend and so many guys having a claim to this belt, it’s just entertaining

28. So we finally get the match we were supposed to get after Ospreay beat Sanada in the NJCUP. Kind of think they should have just had Will win the 4 way match instead of Juice though.

29. So let me get this right….. it’s ok to let Moxley not defend the belt for a YEAR, but if anyone else can’t for one second strip them…. WTF???

30. At this point, New Japan should just retire the US title and bring back that beautiful, IWGP Intercontinental championship. It would make more sense. Besides, Tom Lawlor has the NJPW Strong Title. They could fight over that instead.

    Also, Keep the IWGP IC Title away from Naito.