Andrew’s Ratings & Analysis: NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 14: Day 1

The first time in history Wrestle Kingdom will be two days! Day 1 has 5 championship matches, two of which will lead us to the competitors in the first Double Gold Dash!

So we’re in the midst of history everyone! First time Wrestle Kingdom is two days and tomorrow we will crown the first ever Double singles champion in New Japan.

Also on the historical side, these two days will mark Jyushin Thunder Liger’s last two matches of his career (unless he gets called out of retirement).

Now any combination of Jay White, Kota Ibushi, Tetsuya Naito, or Kazuchika Okada will make for a great match. Let’s get to some answers!

Ratings:

• Pre-Show: Toa Henare, Clark Connors, Alex Coughlin & Karl Fredericks vs Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, Yuya Uemura & Yota Tsuji: Toa Henare wins via Toa Bottom @7:35 – **
• Pre-Show: TenCozy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) vs Yuji Nagata & Manobu Nakanishi: Kojima wins via Cozy Lariat @5:45 – ** 1/2
• Liger the Final: Ryusuke Taguchi, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Shinjiro Otani & Naoki Sano w/Kuniaki Kobayashi vs Great Sasuke, Tatsumi Fujinami, Tiger Mask IV & Jyushin Thunder Liger w/El Samurai: Taguchi wins via Dodon @8:50 – ***
• Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Shingo Takagi, SANADA & EVIL) vs Suzuki-Gun (Zack Sabre Jr, El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki & Taichi): Sabre wins via Leg Scissor Armbar @8:40 – ** 1/2
• Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI vs KENTA, Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi w/Pieter: Goto wins via GTR @8:15 – **
• IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: FinJuice (David Finlay & Juice Robinson) vs G.o.D. (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) (c): Finlay wins via Acid Drop @13:25 – ** 3/4 – TITLE CHANGE!!!
• IWGP United States Championship Texas Deathmatch: Lance Archer (c) vs Jon Moxley: Moxley wins via Death Rider through tables @14:25 – ** – TITLE CHANGE!!!
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi vs Will Ospreay (c): Hiromu wins via Time Bomb 2 @24:35 – **** 1/2 – TITLE CHANGE!!!
• IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Jay White (c) vs Tetsuya Naito: Naito wins via Destino @33:55 – ***** – TITLE CHANGE!!!
• IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs Kota Ibushi: Okada retains via Rainmaker @39:10 – **** 1/2

Analysis:

-I suppose the Stardom match was truly a dark match. Reasons behind that are most likely because Bushiroad discussed keeping Stardom-World and NJPWWorld separate, so maybe we’ll see it on Stardom’s website. 

Pre-Show: Toa Henare, Clark Connors, Alex Coughlin & Karl Fredericks vs Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, Yuya Uemura & Yota Tsuji – Young Lion matches always have great fire, but sometimes miss the mark. This match was a great opener. Makabe and Honma really didn’t do much, it was mostly the Young Lions until Henare came in, did a Rolling Sole Butt that connected with Tsuji’s chin, Toa Bottom, and the match was over. Nice start to the festivities.

Pre-Show: TenCozy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) vs Yuji Nagata & Manobu Nakanishi – There’s so much history between these four that let’s just focus on the current. Nagata and Nakanishi beat TenCozy during tag league, so they had to get their win back. We had a really solid match between the dads where everyone got in solid offense. Nakanishi even looked more rested and better in the ring than he has in a few months. Solid stuff, great legends in the ring, and a Cozy Lariat allows Bread Club to rejoice!

Liger the Final: Ryusuke Taguchi, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Shinjiro Otani & Naoki Sano w/Kuniaki Kobayashi vs Great Sasuke, Tatsumi Fujinami, Tiger Mask IV & Jyushin Thunder Liger w/El Samurai – The beauty of this match was more how many different rivals and legends that Liger’s retirement pulled together. As a match it was fun to watch everyone’s signature moves and some older names that haven’t been in New Japan in years. Even though everyone would want Liger to get the win, we know there’s the old tradition of “going out on your back”. If that telegraphs tomorrow as well, so be it. But there’s an emotional weight and historical aspect to this that surpasses who gets the pinfall. Great stuff.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Shingo Takagi, SANADA & EVIL) vs Suzuki-Gun (Zack Sabre Jr, El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki & Taichi) – We got a match that ended rather abruptly, but got the point across. Shingo got a small flourish against Taichi and Taichi held his own decently. So if there’s anything to take from this exchange, it’s that Taichi’s more serious approach hasn’t gone away just yet…and Shingo is still a house. SANADA and Sabre had a quick exchange, but BUSHI came in, and Sabre tied him in knots for the win.

Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI vs KENTA, Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi w/Pieter – KENTA and Goto have a lot of animosity, which sets the stage for tomorrow’s NEVER Openweight match, but the rest of the people in this match are just spot fillers. As a match it was alright, YOSHI-HASHI got a bit more shine than most people probably expected or wanted, but this was a good match to pick to skip. With the title matches upcoming and only 1 person on each side that has anything to really wrestle for, this match was flatter than a pancake.

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: FinJuice (David Finlay & Juice Robinson) vs G.o.D. (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) (c) – Juice…Juice’s appearance is one of…a Village People alternate. Finlay and Juice try to meet G.o.D. on the ramp, but it backfires a bit. The Guerrillas control a good bit of the match, but it starts to fall apart when FinJuice kick out of an assortment of big finish moves. Magic Killer didn’t get the job done, Tandem Backdrop/Neckbreaker, Jado’s Kendo Stick…nothing kept the challengers down. A Left Hand of God, into the Acid Drop, derailed G.o.D.’s fifth title reign. The match was fine, but nothing to really sink your teeth into.

IWGP United States Championship Texas Deathmatch: Lance Archer (c) vs Jon Moxley – Well this was going to be a spectacle one way or the other, and this was a mixed bag of things. Some of the weapon strikes looked weak, some of the spots were a little off and there was obvious cooperation at certain points. And yes, I noticed Moxley’s Knee Strikes hitting nothing but air at one point. Not brutal enough to really be a death match, and not crisp enough to be a great match. Entertaining from a car crash kind of perspective, but not really good.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi vs Will Ospreay (c) – Ospreay has a new found arrogance as this feud built, and Hiromu had everything to prove. We saw a great back and forth with Hiromu doing a few moves he was famous for, before the injury, and pulling off a few new moves. Ospreay focused on the head and neck area of Takahashi, so with every Draping DDT, Double Footstomp and Hidden Blade, they were hold your breath moments. The match proved that Hiromu’s neck was fully healed and that his style was slightly less reckless. A ton of action, a great match, a great moment and a new finisher for Hiromu. The first must see match of Wrestle Kingdom.

IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Jay White (c) vs Tetsuya Naito – We watch a great story play out in this match. Naito’s usual Traquilo countenance has changed over the last few months with all of the loses and short comings. Jay has managed to take advantage of short cuts, blindside attacks and general great heel tactics. Naito’s evolution and Jay embracing his character fully has been wonderful during this feud. So we finally get to see which one has come further when there’s double gold on the line.

Naito brought a meticulous and methodical approach early on, but Gedo’s interference proved to be exactly what White needed to regain advantages. White worked over the knees, which Naito sold well, had a huge Chairshot while Red Shoes was recovering from a bump, and just a lot of great near falls and moments to keep you on the edge of your seat. The story played out perfectly with Naito being able to Jay behind him, but not without tons of struggles and nearly failing again. Now, one more step for Naito.

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs Kota Ibushi – As with many Okada matches it’s hard to really put to words how the match plays out. This one was a slow build and honestly, following the other two matches, it was a little bland early on. They both traded strikes, but it wasn’t until Okada unlocked Ibushi’s second health bar, that we saw the dark side of Ibushi show up and turn up everything.

Ibushi with the closed fists, stiff kicks, generally head hunting and looking like he was trying to actually injure Okada. Ibushi also tapped into a few friends/idols moves with a Bom-Ba-Ye, V-Trigger, and an attempted Avalanche Tiger Driver. Okada pulled out some old tricks, Red Ink, Heavy Rain, Rolling Rainmaker and the Fire/Thunder Driver, before winning with the Rainmaker. The second half of this match made it one worth watching.

Overall Score: 7.25/10

Well this was a weird card. Any of us who watch Japanese promotions should understand that the undercard tags are built to set up future stories, add a wrinkle to a current feuds or keep a title match hot. However, these tags felt more like filler than usual, aside from Liger’s match of course. With so few threads to pull at between some of the competitors in the tag matches, it really wasn’t much deeper than whoever had a match tomorrow, and that’s never fun.

Also hurt a little since the first two title matches really didn’t do much for me. So including the Pre-Show, the show was about 5 hours and carried by the last 90 minutes. Hiromu and Naito are a great story, and Okada being the only champion to retain on Day 1 was interesting.

But you know, given all of the hype because Wrestle Kingdoms have been pretty epic the last few years, the fact that this is the first two day affair was unprecedented. Many of us expected two nights of PPV of the year, but it seems more like Day 1 built towards it’s end and towards Day 2, which is correct since they are two days on the same event and not two separate events, in all honesty.

I’m rambling a little, but it’s super early, I’ve had no sleep and this was a different experience. Still a good show thanks to Liger’s historical significance and the last 3 matches. Now let’s get ready for sleep and then day 2!