Monday was “King of Pro Wrestling”, the October supershow for New Japan Pro Wrestling. It was a wild show that gave us the main event of Wrestle Kingdom, new members of factions and title matches made for November’s “Power Struggle” event.
The main event for Wrestle Kingdom 13 has been made official. The IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega was able to ward off both IWGP United States Champion Cody and his best friend and tag partner in The Golden Lovers, Kota Ibushi for his 3rd successful title defence. He now no longer has any title defences scheduled until January 4th. The other half of the Wrestle Kingdom 13 main event will be “The Ace” Hiroshi Tanahashi, who was able to keep his IWGP Championship Certificate after defeating “Switchblade” Jay White in an intense battle. The backstory of the match is that Omega wants to take the title to places outside of Japan, most notably America, while Tanahashi wants to keep everything in Japan. It will be a battle of the generations at the Tokyo Dome on January 4th.
Speaking of Jay White, he may have been the one to make the most noise coming out of “King of Pro Wrestling”. The young New Zealander has made waves worldwide with his defection from Chaos and getting Kazuchika Okada’s mentor, Gedo, to turn on Okada and join forces with White. He also worked himself into a match for IWGP Championship Certificate after attacking Tanahashi in September during the Destruction tour. On Monday, White may have been turned away from main eventing the Tokyo Dome, but a post-match beatdown of Tanahashi caused Okada to come out to try to save Tanahashi, that led to the Bullet Club OG’z to also come out. What happened next has the whole wrestling world intrigued. Jay White has joined the Bullet Club OG’z faction and is now the de facto leader of the group. It appears that New Japan is leaning towards Okada vs. White at Wrestle Kingdom 13. This is another big-time program for White to be a part of at such a young age. The Bullet Club OG’z also announced another member they’ve recruited from a worldwide search for Taiji Ishimori’s partner in the upcoming Super Junior Tag League will be Australian Robbie Eagles. Eagles had participated in cards last November that was co-promoted by New Japan Pro Wrestling and Melbourne City Wrestling.
Los Ingobernables de Japon had mixed results at “King of Pro Wrestling”. The group had been reeling since the early summer when leader Tetsuya Naito lost the IWGP Intercontinental Championship to Chris Jericho at “Dominion” in June, then the then-IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi suffered a broken neck during a match against Dragon Lee at the “G1 Special” in San Francisco. The 3 members of LIJ that were entered in the G1 Climax, Naito, EVIL, and Sanada, did not fare well during the tournament. Bushi then lost a semifinal match for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship to longtime rival KUSHIDA. But, Monday could have been a turnaround for the group. They brought in a new member to replace Takahashi while he is out and to be Bushi’s partner in the Super Junior Tag Team Tournament. The new member happened to be Dragon Gate’s Shingo Takagi, the hottest free agent wrestler in Japan. Takagi might be the most decorated wrestler in Dragon Gate history and picked up the victory for LIJ.
On the flip side for LIJ was the aforementioned EVIL. He was expected to face Zack Sabre Jr. but was attacked by one of his own druids. The druid turned out to be current IWGP Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho. Jericho showed up to get his revenge on EVIL for coming out to save Naito from a post-match beatdown at June’s “Dominion” show. This has led to a match between the two at November’s “Power Struggle” event.
Another title match that has been announced for “Power Struggle” is for Taichi’s NEVER Openweight title as Will Ospreay gets his first shot at a heavyweight title in New Japan. This was made after Ospreay pinned Taichi in a 6-man tag team match between Chaos and Suzuki-Gun. Ospreay has put on about 20 pounds of muscle and appears to be making the move up from junior heavyweight to heavyweight. Taichi will be making his first defence of the title.
Over in the junior heavyweight division, we finally have a new champion after the title was vacated by Hiromu Takahashi after he suffered a broken neck in July. KUSHIDA won the title for a 6th time defeating “The Villian” Marty Scurll. With his 6th reign, KUSHIDA is now tied with Tiger Mask for the 2nd most reigns in New Japan Pro Wrestling history, but far off the 11 reigns by Jushin Thunder Liger.
Lastly, the details for the Super Junior Tag League was announced. In a departure from years past, it’ll be a thirteen-night round-robin tournament featuring 8 teams in a single block with the finals being between the top 2 teams at “Power Struggle”. Before it was an 8-team, single-elimination tournament. The block matches will be contested from October 16th-November 1st. The teams in the tournament are as follows:
ACH & Ryusuke Taguchi
Bushi & Shingo Takagi
Chris Sabin & KUSHIDA
El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask
Robbie Eagles & Taiji Ishimori
Sho & Yoh
Soberano Jr. & Volador Jr.
What did you think of NJPW ‘King of Wrestling’ Event? Let us know below.
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