Andrew’s NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 16 Results & Match Ratings: 1.4.2022

I’d be lying if I said I was really excited for this show. I’m generally hopeful, but since New Japan has been less than inspired for nearly an entire year, I don’t have much of that hope.

Shingo Takagi vs Kazuchika Okada is the only match that really jumps out to me, and that’s a problem. Wrestle Kingdom, much like WrestleMania is supposed to be a bunch of “main events”, and this feels like a one match card.

So maybe I’m taking that “expect disappointment so that way I’m not disappointed” approach a little too far, but I guess we’ll see!

Ratings:

• New Japan Ranbo for KOPW 2022: Minoru Suzuki, Chase Owens, Cima and Toru Yano qualify for KOPW 2022 match tomorrow – **
• SHO vs YOH: YOH wins via Starfish Leg Clutch – ***
• Bullet Club (KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & ELP) vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocky Romero: Bullet Club wins via DQ – **
• United Empire (Will Ospreay, Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) vs LIJ (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & BUSHI): Ospreay wins via Hidden Blade – ** ¼
• Catch Wrestling Rules: Ren Narita vs Katsuyori Shibata: Shibata wins via PK – *** ¼
• NEVER Openweight Championship: Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs EVIL w/Dick Togo: EVIL wins via Everything is Evil – Zero, this was hot garbage – TITLE CHANGE!!
• IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Dangerous Tekkers (ZSJ & Taichi) w/ Miho Abe (c) vs YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto: Goto/HASHI wins via Naraku – *** ½ – TITLE CHANGE!!!
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi vs El Desperado (c): El Desperado retains via Pinche Loco – *** ½
• IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs Kazuchika Okada: Okada wins via Rainmaker – **** ½ – TITLE CHANGE!!!

Results:

New Japan Ranbo

Aaron Henare and Chase Owens start off. Kosei Fujita is the third person…and you know none of this really matters until later. We just enjoy the surprise veterans or freelancers and maybe some shenanigans. Yuto Nakashima…I don’t even remember this Lion…he must’ve started doing things when I stopped paying attention last few months. Ryohei Oiwa…Christ 3 Young Lions in a row. I care about as much about this as I would an enema. Hiroyoshi Tenzan is…something I guess. Wato came in at some point but my stream hiccupped. OH LOOK! It’s DAA KIINNG! (that’s a Lu Bu reference for no one). The Young Lions get fed to Suzuki, so that checks out. Hey Kojima comes out after the mass murder of Young Lions.

TAKA Michinoku comes out next! Cima as well? Okay that’s surprising. Cima immediately eliminates TAKA, and now its Kokeshi no vocal chords vampire chicken! DOUKI is another person who is irrelevant in this match. BLUE JUSTICE! Kanemaru bringing the booze as the grandpa battle continues with Suzuki and Nagata. Togi Makabe still has his music censored. Bad Luck Fale may be Mathew’s Fire Pro champion, but he’s just a mook here. HEY TATSUMI FUJINAMI MAKES IT ALL BETTER! Oh yeah Yano is last because he’s still trophy Jesus.

Fujinami has landed about 37 Dragon Screws. Double pinfall on Makabe and Fujinami while Makabe is in a Figure Four.

Chase, Suzuki and Cima gang up on Yano after the 4 are decided just because everyone is sick of Yano’s crap.

SHO vs YOH

Well I guess it’s a good way to build off YOH making it to the BOSJ finals and SHO having a fairly successful 2021. This match was dominated early by SHO , and YOH was fighting from underneath. With the exception of a very sloppy transition into the Stargazer from YOH it was a decently wrestled match. SHO had great aggression, Togo distracted the referee a little bit, but nothing insane. SHO almost used a wrench, but YOH countered into a Leg Clutch with the arms pinned, so I’m calling it a Starfish Clutch.

Bullet Club (KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & ELP) vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocky Romero

The story coming into this was the fact that the US title match is no disqualification, so Tanahashi is trying to push himself. He is trying to help himself understand the rule breaking/sneaky style mentality so the Mega Coaches are trying to help him prepare.

As is easily predicted, Tanahashi goes dark in this match, gets caught using weapons and gets his team disqualified. This either implies that tomorrow Tanahashi will catch himself before he goes too far, then KENTA will retain. OR Tanahashi will do what’s need because KENTA is aligned with the NOAH Sugiura-Gun on the 8^th.

United Empire (Will Ospreay, Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb) vs LIJ (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & BUSHI)

Cobb and Naito started things off as a preview to their singles matches tomorrow. Naito wasn’t able to get a ton of offense in until LIJ started using Triple Team attacks to chop down the big man. SANADA came in for the preview against O-Khan, and SANADA managed to get O-Khan in the Paradise Lock, while O-Khan feigned a Plancha and even used a Leg Clutch as a way to try and get in SANADA’s head.

When BUSHI got tagged in, we had to assume he was eating the pin because he’s the only one with nothing on the line tomorrow. Ospreay came in, made light work of BUSHI, took his head off and United Empire won with little effort and a lot reserved for tomorrow.

Catch Wrestling Rules: Ren Narita vs Katsuyori Shibata

So we didn’t know who Shibata was facing, and with Narita coming out, that’s one of the least sexy situations that could’ve happened. When Shibata comes out, he asks for the microphone and makes it interesting. He changes the rules to a normal full contact pro wrestling match.

One had to imagine that both he and Narita went over this match often in the LA Dojo, and it was a Young Lion match with different weight. Narita held his own at different points, pushed Shibata into the corner at different times with strikes, applied the Narita Special with the rolling transition into a Texas Cloverleaf, but Shibata got to the ropes. Shibata pushed the young wrestler to give him more, Shibata also gave the fans some of his classics like the Hesitation Dropkick, Sleeper into PK, and that was all she wrote.

Nothing surprising as a result, the match itself was just a bit surprising since the rules got changed.

Well now, looks like New Japan is back on AXS TV! 10 pm eastern directly following IMPACT! So it appears that whatever happened a few years ago, is now water under the bridge.

NEVER Openweight Championship: Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs EVIL w/Dick Togo

EVIL attacks before Ishii is in the ring, small chair duel before EVIL throws him into the barricade to knock over the ring announcer, because that always happens; then we get the chair around the neck/home run swing spot. Oh look the turnbuckle pad is missing too and EVIL throws Ishii into that. Then he distracts the referee and Togo gets in a few shots. God this is such a terrible formula.

Ishii makes a decent comeback but of course, dumb stuff from EVIL and Togo. Literally all of House of Torture gets involved, Yujiro and SHO; YOH comes through the crowd to help equalize a bit, but this formula is repetitive, stupid and just generally sad. It’s rarely ever interesting or a clever twist, it’s always the same garbage.

The numbers get the best of YOH, Yujiro hits a low blow when it looks like Ishii is about to finish things. Belt shot to the head from EVIL and then Everything is…garbage. So congrats to EVIL for tanking the NEVER Openweight to that level of irrelevance that the 6 mans will always be at. Just…trash. The fact that this is on a Wrestle Kingdom card is embarrassing.

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Dangerous Tekkers (ZSJ & Taichi) w/ Miho Abe (c) vs YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto

Things are erratic for a good portion of the early goings. YOSHI-HASHI and ZSJ start things off, where the CHAOS crew tries to apply some tandem attacks, while ZSJ and Taichi just go for staggered and quick Tornado-esque interference tactics. It’s not until we get a double submission moment with ZSJ applying a few to Goto and Taichi using the Stretch Plum on YOSHI-HASHI where we see the pace slow down a little.

ZSJ and Taichi look for a finish, Goto stalls it so they go for a Holy Demon Army call with the combination Backdrop Driver/Chokeslam. Taichi’s pants come off, he looks for the Thrust Kick, but HASHI stops things. Goto tries to roll ZSJ up the same way he did in Tag League, but ZSJ kicks out. HASHI and Taichi become the legal men and start off with the Fighting Spirit strike spot. HASHI and Taichi trade Thrust Kicks, ZSJ tries to wipe out Goto, go for Zack Mephisto, but HASHI fights out. HASHI mounts a comeback, Goto comes in and they go for their own assortment of tandem finishes but ZSJ breaks up the pin. Zack eats a GYW for his trouble and they focus on Taichi. Taichi stops the tandem attack, pushes Goto back to Zack, Gedo Clutch, but only a 2!

ZSJ eats a Shoto, Taichi tries to stave off both men, but he eats a Canadian Destroyer from HASHI, a Reverse GTR and then Naraku gives HASHI another damn title win. Ugh…

After the match both Taichi and Zack congratulate HASHI and Goto, have fairly calm words and then head out. All of 2021 Tekkers have done a great job at basically being babyfaces in most situations. Even though they are still technically affiliated with Suzuki-Gun, they’ve definitely redefined their characters.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi vs El Desperado (c)

Things start off fast paced with the opening strikes that Hiromu loves to start with. Forearms into Lucha overhand Chops. A quick back and forth, Despy gets the advantage, hits a middle rope con Hilo, but Hiromu responds in kind with the Apron Sunset Bomb that beat Kushida in Hiromu’s return a few years ago.

Both crawl in at 19 after the quick bursts of offense. The slowly get up and go back to forearms, Despy gets rocked but wraps around, drops Hiromu and then hits a Frog Splash for a 2 count. Despy looks for the finish with Pinche Loco, but Hiromu blocks. Hiromu hits a Pop Up Powerbomb, the release Belly to Belly in the corner and continues to run the momentum. Dynamite Plunger into the Death Valley Driver into the corner. Hiromu tries to end things, but Despy goes for a big counter flurry to keep him alive. After some frantic counters, Hiromu almost pulls off the Time Bomb, but Despy turns it into a Stretch Muffler. Can’t quite finish the Numero Dos, but its great watching them struggle for positioning.

Hiromu hits the Victory Royal, almost pulls off Time Bomb again, but Despy counters, El Es Culero for a 2, even hits a Dudebuster for a near fall. Hiromu fires, comes off the ropes and eats a stiff right punch to the face. Pinche Loco lands, Despy goes for a second but Hiromu counters with the Hiromu Roll and only gets 2. A Kushida-esque right hand from Hiromu returns the favor from before. Despy with one more punch of his own, hits the double Pinche Loco and …it’s surprisingly over. Not bad, just really quick and oddly paced.

Noticeable after the match, Despy’s eye is swollen. Not sure if one of those punches caught him and maybe that sped things up since it felt a little abrupt. Let’s just hope it was a pivot and not an excuse to give the main event like 55 minutes. Now honestly I wouldn’t hate if the match went to time limit draw, but I don’t want it to be obviously foreshadowed from a quick semi-main.

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs Kazuchika Okada

Okada comes out in a Hakata with the lists of Rainmaker accomplishments, since today marks 10 years of Rainmaker, he came out in slightly self-serving fashion. As if this is merely another thing to add to his list. Classic Okada. He even has a towel around his neck as an homage to Antonio Inoki (who we saw open the show).

Very deliberate early pacing, where both men feel each other out, and then on the second volley both allow the other to take a few swings or try stuff. It’s a great confidence spot with both men respecting the other’s offense but trying to prove their own toughness. Before spilling to the outside, a cute wrinkle fairly early. Shingo likes to feint a Lariat/Punch and then snap off a DDT, but Okada tried to be one step ahead, and ate the lariat instead.

Okada manages to spike Shingo on the outside, but Shingo powers up, keeps a hold of Okada and Suplexes him onto the outside mats. A lot of this early story is just toughness and grit, which Shingo is winning early on. When they get back on the outside, Okada takes some control and pulls off some classic Okada. Throws Shingo over the guardrail and then does his running Crossbody beautifully over the rail.

Okada hits the Missile Dropkick, goes into the Money Clip but Shingo fights it off. Does his Back Elbow/Punch combination and then calls for the Ukon Lariat, Okada ducks and gets caught by the DDT. So that was a good way to call back to an earlier spot in the match. Some fighting back and forth but Shingo hits the Noshigami before landing a Wheelbarrow German Suplex.

This was a great back and forth, Shingo did a lot to try and avoid the Rainmaker, hitting double Made in Japans for near falls. I got a bit taken in by the match because it was haymakers and counters, just generally feeling like anyone could win at any time. Stay Dream attempt from Shingo before Okada counters it into an Avalanche DDT. Hands thrown, craziness, and Okada catches a Shingo with another Rainmaker, stacks him up and OKADA WINS LOL! The rain continues to fall!

Overall Score: 7.25/10

Well my initial feelings were sadly correct. This show was insanely underwhelming. Even though everyone hates EVIL and not because he’s a heel because his matches are repetitive garbage. But even if I hate YOSHI-HASHI coming out with another belt it was still a solid enough match. The Despy match really felt short even though I don’t mind him winning, Hiromu doesn’t need the title, he’s the face of the division because of his personality.

Okada officially putting the 4th Generation belt to bed and being the new champion going into the Ospreay match is a nice way to bring that story full circle. It would be nice for Okada to win tomorrow and there being some tension between Nakajima and Okada with the NOAH crossover is nice. Nakajima and Okada are very close in age with similar enough levels of arrogance. It’s like they could be best friends or the worst enemies.

Tomorrow thankfully seems marginally more interesting, but today was pretty lame, mostly EVIL’s fault.