Flip Gordon pulled from New Japan’s Best of The Super Juniors
By Paul Bradley
This year’s dream New Japan Pro Wrestling Best Of The Super Juniors lineup seems to have been too good to be true as Flip Gordon and El Desperado have both been pulled from this year’s tournament.
Flip Gordon is the latest addition to this year’s extensive list of wrestlers who have encountered visa issues.
Gordon will not be able to participate in this year’s New Japan Pro Wrestling Best of the Super Juniors, in Japan, due to not being issued a proper visa in time for the tournament.
Fans might be experiencing deja vu with this announcement as New Japan and other Japanese companies like Dragon Gate have had many issues this year when it comes to overseas shows and visas.
Like New Japan, Dragon Gate also had some issues as they weren’t able to use their current Open The Dream Gate Champion, PAC, on any WrestleMania weekend shows earlier this year.
New Japan had quite a few issues earlier this year when it came to their New Beginning in the USA shows, as many of their talents were denied visas or weren’t given the correct documents in time to make the trip to America.
New Japan has since announced that fan-favorite Young Lion, Ren Narita will be replacing Gordon in the tournament.
Replacements announced for El Desperado, Flip Gordon in #njbosj : Ren Narita to make tournament debut, 'hired gun' DOUKI appears in New Japan for the first time. Deatils: https://t.co/3bSyrRl0jL #njpw pic.twitter.com/eUcgHv1obn
— NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) May 10, 2019
Another talent being pulled from this year is former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, El Desperado.
The Suzuki-Gun wrestler participated in a highly-anticipated match against death match legend Jun Kasai at Taichi and Taka Michinou’s produced show, TAKATaichiMania II, on March 7. The match lived up to the hype but the hotly-contested contest was not without battle scars as Desperado broke his jaw during the match and will need time to recover.
Desperado’s replacement will be Japanese wrestler, DOUKI, who has been used as a freelancer for Suzuki-Gun in the past.
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Fans may be disappointed to see Gordon and Desperado off the card, but their replacements in DOUKI and Narita should be able competitors in the tournament and should put on some great matches that may win them some new fans.