The final tournament of New Japan Pro Wrestling's year is the annual World Tag League, where the winners earn themselves a shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships. Day 17 of the 2025 NJPW World Tag League tournament took place on December 14 and after a long, hard-fought battle, it was Zack Sabre Jr. and Ryohei Oiwa of TMDK who walked away with the victory over Gabe Kidd and Yota Tsuji in the finals.
With the victory, Sabre Jr. puts himself amongst an esteemed group of NJPW legends as one of the only people to have won all three of NJPW's heavyweight tournaments. Tetsuya Naito and Hirooki Goto have both won the World Tag League, New Japan Cup, and the G1 Climax, while Yuji Nagata and Shinsuke Nakamura both won the New Japan Cup and G1 Climax tournaments, but won the World Tag League when it went under its former name of the G1 Tag League. Nevertheless, Sabre Jr. becomes the first non-Japanese wrestler to achieve this feat, adding another honor to his ever growing list of accomplishments in NJPW.
Usually, the winners of the World Tag League would get their shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions at the annual Wrestle Kingdom event on January 4 in the Tokyo Dome, but TMDK have opted to do something a little bit different heading into 2026. Instead of challenging the current champions, The Knock Out Brothers, at Wrestle Kingdom 20, Sabre Jr. announced that himself and Oiwa would take their shot at the champions the night after Wrestle Kingdom 20, with their IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match being set as the main event of the New Year Dash!!! show on January 5. Sabre Jr. explained that he wanted to make history by main eventing the NJPW event in post-Hiroshi Tanahashi landscape as the current NJPW President is set to have his retirement match at WrestleKingdom 20 against Kazuchika Okada.
