The New Beginning in Sapporo (2019)

The New Beginning in Sapporo 2019  is an upcoming professional wrestling event promoted by New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). The event will take place on two nights on February 2 and 3, 2018, in Sapporo, Hokkaido, at the Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center. Both nights featured eight matches, three of which were contested for championships in the second night. The first night will be main evented by Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada facing Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale and Jay White) in a predule match for their upcoming singles matches at The New Beginning in Osaka. The second night will be main evented by Tetsuya Naito defending the IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Taichi. This will the sixteenth event under the New Beginning name and the third to take place in Sapporo.

Background
In recent years, NJPW has held the opening day of the G1 Climax tournament in Sapporo. With The New Beginning in Sapporo, the promotion revives an old tradition of holding a show during the annual Sapporo Snow Festival, resulting in the show being promoted in Sapporo. Since January 2018, NJPW hosted the event on two different nights. The event will air worldwide on NJPW's internet streaming site, New Japan Pro Wrestling World, with English commentary provided by Kevin Kelly and Chris Charlaton.

Storylines
The IWGP Intercontinental Championship will be defended in the main event of second night the event, with Tetsuya Naito making his first title defense against Taichi. On January 5, 2019, at New Years Dash, Naito and Taichi faced each other in a ten-man tag team match, with Naito teaming with his Los Ingobernables de Japon stablemates BUSHI, EVIL, SANADA and Shingo Takagi and Taichi with his Suzuki-gun stablemates El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Zack Sabre Jr. The match ended after Taichi scoring a direct pinfall over Naito. Afterwards, Suzuki-gun attacked L.I.J. and Taichi stated that if Naito didn't wanted the IWGP Intercontinental Championship, he should give it to him and made his intentions of challenging Naito for his title. The title match was made official on January 7.

The feud between L.I.J. and Suzuki-gun resulted in The New Beginning in Sapporo also featuring other prominent matches featuring the stable.