NJPW Best of the Super Juniors 31 night eight results, updated standings

The Best of the Super Juniors continued on Wednesday with a show in Osaka.

Today’s event began with an announcement that Francesco Akira will miss the remainder of the tournament. His scheduled opponent for Wednesday, Hiromu Takahashi, came out to address the fans and said he’d open the show since his match was canceled. He then joined the Japanese commentary team. Takahashi receives an automatic two points as a result of the default victory.

Just two tournament matches remain for the wrestlers in A Block. Three matches remain for each member of B Block.

Titan and El Desperado are now tied atop A Block, but a post-match attack on today’s show by Clark Connors will seemingly put Desperado at a disadvantage going into his final round-robin matches. In B Block, things are wide open with five wrestlers tied with eight points.

Here are the quick results from today’s show:

• A Block match: Titan defeated Kosei Fujita
• B Block match: Robbie Eagles defeated Dragon Dia
• A Block match: BUSHI defeated Yoshinobu Kanemaru
• B Block match: Drilla Moloney defeated KUSHIDA
• A Block match: HAYATA defeated Kevin Knight
• B Block match: Taiji Ishimori defeated Willie Mack
• A Block match: El Desperado defeated Clark Connors via DQ
• A Block match: TJP defeated Blake Christian
• B Block match: SHO defeated DOUKI

Other notes from the show:

• Drilla Moloney handed KUSHIDA just his second loss of the tournament, which has led to a five-way tie atop B Block. KUSHIDA focused on Moloney’s biceps for much of the match and it was implied on commentary that the injury could impact the rest of Moloney’s tournament.
• A rare disqualification victory was awarded to El Desperado on the show when Clark Connors shoved a referee and refused to stop punching his opponent. Connors then attacked several young boys after the match and unmasked Desperado.
• SHO used a loaded boot and frequent interference to defeat DOUKI in the main event.

After the show, Desperado challenged Connors to a hardcore match after the BOSJ ends.