japan Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
An Unlucky Handball Sends Japan Out Of The World Cup
An exhilarating World Cup round of 16 rematch between the Netherlands and Japan got decided in favor of the Dutch in the 90th minute, thanks to a penalty kick converted by forward Lieke Martens. The PK gave the Dutch a 2-1 win over the same team that kicked them out of the 2015 World Cup, and it put...
Japan Arrive At The World Cup With A New Look And Something To Prove
The USA’s top nemesis in the Women’s World Cup comes into 2019 with plenty of questions to answer, despite winning it all in 2011 and placing second in 2015. A disastrous failure to qualify for the 2016 Olympics ended the eight-year tenure of Japanese manager Norio Sasaki, and as Japan enter their f...
Should WWE Actually Be Worried About AEW?
There’s panic in the streets of Stamford, Connecticut. Or, anyway, there’s a sense that change is coming for the famously change-averse WWE after a ten-day period that could signal the start of a new era in professional wrestling. All it took to rattle WWE was for a new promotion—in this case, All E...
Nathan Chen Repeats As World Champion
After cruising to his first world championship gold last year, American wonderteen Nathan Chen (who is also a pre-med student at Yale, no big deal), managed to top an incredible free skate by Japan’s two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu to win back-to-back world titles. ...
Ichiro Forever
The news circulated through the Tokyo Dome soon after first pitch. As reported by Kyodo News, Ichiro Suzuki had told the Mariners he would retire after the game. A real retirement this time; not the stepping-away of last May, when it became clear that the aged Japanese superstar didn’t have major-le...
Japanese Government Wants Evacuees To Return To Fukushima In Time To Make Olympics Look Good<em></em>
One of the few things that the Olympics do well, aside from putting cities in significant debt that can take decades to pay off, is symbolism. It was on display last year in Pyeongchang when the North and South Korean delegations marched into the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics, and if th...
Jushin Thunder Liger, Japan's Greatest Wrestling Export, Is Set For One Last Ride
On Thursday, Jushin Thunder Liger, inarguably one of the most influential figures in the history of the global wrestling business, announced his retirement at a press conference in Japan. The 54-year-old masked wrestler, whose real name is Keichi Yamada, will travel the world on a farewell tour slat...
Qatar Tuned Up For The 2022 World Cup By Winning The Asian Cup For The First Time
On Friday, the Qatari national soccer team did what it had never done before, beating Japan 3-1 in the final of the Asian Cup to claim its first continental trophy ever....
Floyd Mayweather Changes His Mind About Fighting Japanese Kickboxing Phenom
Remember two days ago when Floyd Mayweather held an hour-long press conference in Tokyo to announce that he would be fighting 20-year-old kickboxing genius Tenshin Nasukawa in Japan on New Year’s Eve? Ha ha, it was all a misunderstanding, according to Mayweather, who announced in a lengthy Instagram...
Kei Nishikori Shows That Sometimes It Pays To Play Dead<em></em>
Like all games when played at the highest level, tennis often requires managing and toying with an opponent’s expectations. Do you think they’ll hit the ball cross-court? Ready yourself for that ball. But maybe they think you think they’ll hit it cross-court? Stay vigilant for the down-the-line. Wha...
Why Does This Japanese Reality Show Have So Much American Sports Team Gear?
I can’t remember which coworker of mine recommended it. Billy or Giri, I think, but maybe both. But after watching the first episode of Japanese reality show Terrace House, which is basically Japan’s Real World, I was hooked. The show’s appeal is simple: you get to watch young attractive people hang...
Martial Arts Legend Kid Yamamoto Dead At 41
The MMA world has lost one of its pioneers, as Japanese combat sports lifer Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto died, a month after being diagnosed with cancer. He was 41 years old....
Japanese High School Team Advances To The Semifinals On Two-Run, Walk-Off Suicide Squeeze
The Japanese High School Baseball Championship—better known as the Summer Koshien—is where legends are made. A young player could do nothing else notable in the sport of baseball ever again, and still be revered as a Japanese icon should he have a world-class tournament. It’s perhaps the single most...
Masa Saito Was A Great Wrestler And Half Of Pro Wrestling's Most Famous Arrest
Masanori “Masa” Saito, known as Mr. Saito to a generation of American wrestling fans, passed away at the age of 76 last weekend following a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. An Olympic freestyle wrestler in 1964, Saito was a legendarily hard man and among the most universally respected people ...
Watch This Weird Old Japanese Home Run Derby Featuring Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, And Bernie Williams
MLB’s single-elimination bracket format has revitalized the Home Run Derby—last night ruled—but can we do even better? As with game shows, the Japanese remain light years ahead of us in Home Run Derby technology....
ROH And NJPW Just Ended WWE's 58-Year Stranglehold On Madison Square Garden
Decades of pro wrestling history were upended via joint press release on Thursday when Ring of Honor, New Japan, and Madison Square Garden announced a joint show at “The World’s Most Famous Arena” for April 6, 2019. Unless an unannounced (but previously reported) planned show from Mexican promotion ...
Someone's Lying About How A Sex Offender Got On Kenny Omega's NJPW Show
For wrestling fans, last Friday was a great night to stay in. The night was packed with free or cheap live pro wrestling streaming, with the three highest profile shows coming from companies that have a strong working agreement. New Japan Pro Wrestling had its roster spread across two of three simul...
I Am Not Superstitious, But Japan <i>Definitely</i> Lost Because Its Psychic Octopus With A Perfect Record Was Killed, Sold, And Eaten
Belgium’s round-of-16 win over Japan was a shocker, with the Red Devils coming back from an 0-2 second-half hole to win 3-2 on a thrilling counter at the very end of stoppage time. It’s gotta be difficult to swallow for Japan, because that final counter—an absolute thing of beauty—came off a poorly ...
Romelu Lukaku Is A Genius
More than any other soccer skill, positional awareness comes with the widest gulf between how important it is to a team’s success and how readily noticeable it is to the casual fan watching at home. This is partly due to the limitations of broadcast camera angles, and partly due to the fact that sma...
Most Thrilling Half Of The World Cup Ends With Belgium Sticking A Dagger In Japan's Heart
After an uneventful first 45 minutes, Belgium and Japan put together the best half of soccer in what has already been an extremely entertaining World Cup. Belgium generated more dangerous chances and generally looked like the better team throughout the first half, but it was a cagey affair and it se...