Okada .vs. EVIL Set For New Japan Cup 2020 Final And More

The final of this year's New Japan Cup tournament will be contested between Kazuchika Okada and EVIL

This is following the pair's respective semi-final wins on today's New Japan card which saw early betting favourite - Hiromu Takahashi - fall to Okada and SANADA lose to EVIL.

Now that we know the final, it's interesting to look back at the market in which customers could gamble on the potential tournament final.

As you'll see below, Okada .vs. EVIL was initially priced at 11/2. Its price had risen to 9/1 a couple of days ago before lowering to 13/2.

It was being offered at 5/1 from last night right up until this morning, when the market closed.

   

The outright winner market that I've been following since the market was first published was also placed back onto the websites this afternoon. It obviously only lists the two remaining participants.

Okada is a 2/5 favourite with his July 11th rival available at 7/4.

The best price customers would have found for Okada to walk away with the cup, and title shot against Tetsuya Naito at Dominion, would have been around June 20th when he was pushed out to 3/1. He had initially started off at 2/1.

As for EVIL - his top price to win the tournament was 15/1. This was also available around June 20th and would have stayed at those odds until shortly before it was lowered into 10/1 on June 20th.

My betting on the outright winner market has not been good for the tourney.  As mentioned in my coverage, I backed Tomohiro Ishii, Shingo Takagi and Taichi at certain points even though I felt that Hiromu Takahashi had the better chance of winning as I felt they would do Naito versus Takahashi in a match that was planned ahead of New Japan being forced to suspend operations due to the worldwide pandemic.

I am now siding with EVIL to be the tournament winner as that would also set up a match with Naito taking on a challenge from one of his Los Ingobernables de Japon stablemates.