Subscribe to download
Yuya Uemura (2018)

30 PTS.



Mazel Tov, it’s a boy! The 24-year-old Uemura debuted in New Japan as one of its most recent young lions in April at Lion’s Gate Project 11. He lost to the more experienced young lion Ren Narita, a trend which would continue throughout the rest of the year since Uemura only won three of his 55 matches that he had in 2018. On that very same Lion’s Gate Project show, another young lion named Yota Tsuji debuted as well. Uemura and Tsuji were often put in the same matches together, and when I say often, I mean often. 35 out of Uemura’s 55 matches in 2018 had Yota Tsuji in them. Out of those 35 matches, 17 of them were singles matches. And out of those 17 singles matches, every single one of them ended in a time limit draw. It’s become a relationship that is heavily reminiscent of SHO and YOH’s when they were young lions; they wrestled 23 straight time limit draws before SHO was finally able to get the win on the 24th encounter. Whether it will be Uemura or Tsuji who finally breaks the tie, it goes without saying that the two will be linked to one another for many years to come, quite possibly the remainder of their careers.