Night 1 of Wrestle Kingdom is finished and honestly, top to bottom absolutely fantastic show. There is not a match i can complain about. Apparently was the number 1 trending topic on twitter worldwide (a surpise given the WWIII tag was up there)
We'll start at the very top (since i actually remembered the starting time), no Stardom showcase review unfortunately as it was not shown on the live broadcast (mainly cause Stardom is on a different TV station for now, i'm guessing they'll be on TV asahi soon enough).
Connors, Fredericks, Coughlin and Henare vs G.B.H, Tsuji & Uemura - **3/4
It was a good young lions match honestly, Fredericks already looks like a future star with his power and speed and Coughlin already as a young lion has the makings of a top gaijin heel (he needs to go straight to bullet club or a heel faction as soon as his excursion is over, shade's of Devitt with him). Connors could be a top gaijin babyface with a good healthy amount of skill, intensity and fighting spirit, Uemura is showing promise and even Tsuji who i criticised showed a lot. I'm worried about Henare though, he's not progressing at all, i think with an American partner like an AEW, they could send him there to get experience and character more importantly.
Tencozy vs Nagata & Nakanishi - ***
Way better than it had any right to be, this match was actually super fun and Satoshi Kojima and Yuji Nagata can absolutely still go. Now, Tenzan and especially Nakanishi are cooked but even they showed bits here and there (Nakanishi with his raw power and Tenzan with some striking).
Liger Retirement Special Night 1 (Liger, Fujinami, Great Sasuke & Tiger Mask/ El Samurai vs Sano, Otani, Takaiwa & Taguchi w/Kunaiki Kobayashi) - ***1/4
Before we go into details, notice one of these names are not like the other (all these legends, then Taguchi
).
Anyway i loved this match for the nostalgia, but beyond that, most of them can still go, Great Sasuke can do a freaking swanton and try to murder himself still i see. Takaiwa has strength still, even Fujinami looked alright to be honest for this. For what this was (a celebration of Liger and all the other legends) this was good.
Suzuki-Gun (Suzuki, ZSJ, Taichi, El Desperado) vs LIJ (Sanada, EVIL, Takagi, Bushi) -**1/2
Not a bad match but not anything super special, some good interactions between EVIL and Suzuki and nice preview to Sanada ZSJ aside. Standard preview tag match.
CHAOS (Goto, Ishii, Yano, Yoshi-Hashi) vs Bullet Club (Kenta, Fale, Takahashi, Owens) - **1/4
Again, rather standard CHAOS vs Bullet Club match, Yano bits where funny but and Takahashi and Owens i think could be a good lower end tag team (they need those, would give the division some depth if they just want a nonsense defense or even team them up with Fale and have them go after the 6 man belts). Main story is Kenta vs Goto though (a match that honestly is too hard to call, they could make Kenta a historic Never openweight champion).
IWGP Tag Team Championship - G.O.D (Tonga & Loa) vs FinnJuice (Finlay & Robinson) - ***3/4
This was the best G.O.D match i've seen in quiet some time, this was a very good match technically and pyscologically (both teams had a lot to gain and lose, G.O.D had never won a match at the dome as tag team champs and FinnJuice where out to prove that they're no fluke). I was most impressed by Finlay, since coming back, he's looked like a completely different wrestler, he is genuinely good. I'm glad they made G.O.D look respectable as well, selling how well they have done as tag team champs (and putting them over as perhaps the best tag team in the world today and they have some argument for that). We need more teams and more tag team wrestling so this was a good start.
IWGP United States Championship - Lance Archer (c) vs Jon Moxley (Texas Death Match) - ****1/2
Death match this was not but it was a good take on the no DQ gimmick and it was rather hardcore, both wrestlers incorporated weapons nicely. This was a step above Kenny vs Jericho in terms of brutality but still reasonably tame by american standards. loved the finish with the Death rider onto the tables with Archer not being able to make the count (not a traditional finish but at least they sold that spot well). Unintentional i'm sure but archer being bloody at the end sold this nicely. Moxley called out Juice ahead of the match as well which was nice touch. Fantastic, brutal match between these two men with both delivering with some unique spots (Archer with the plastic bag being one).
IWGP Jr Heavyweight Championship - Will Ospreay (c) vs Hiromu Takahashi - *****
Would have been MOTN if not for our main event. This was a lot less crazy and slower but Ospreay played the heel perfectly i thought here (honestly, Gedo should have turned him and let him run with Bullet Club to be honest, would have been a great #2 to Jay White). Takahashi as well had the memiest entrance and hasn't lost too much of a step in the ring (though not so many crazy moves yet), speaking of which, he genuinly may be the most over guy (bar maybe Naito and Ibushi) on the roster. Just the smooth sequences, counters and counters to counters and the unique passage made this match fly, this was jr heavyweight wrestling at its absolute best (maybe not its craziest though).
IWGP Intercontinental Championship - Jay White (c) vs Tetsuya Naito - ****3/4
Before the review, Naito's interactions with Gedo was hillarious (and somewhat carthatic given Gedo's booking of Naito in the last 2-3 years). Anyway this match was perfectly structured and booked mostly but doesn't get a 5 because maybe a bit too interference heavy for my liking given the magnitude of the match (this felt like a world title match on its own). Naito playing the supernova hot babyface (and he truly was that over, other than WK12 Naito i can't remember a guy being this over) and White the disgusting heel (he's the best heel in the world today). White is so damn good at getting heat and getting the crowd to cheer naito even more and even making it look like he could win. I thought he might as well but the psychology and selling was top notch (especially naito with the knees, probably plays into tomorrow night). Luckily the right man won here.
IWGP Heavyweight Championship - Kazuchika Okada (c) vs Kota Ibushi - *****
Firstly, Okada with that GOAT entrance (though twitter ruined his outfit because now i can't see it without being reminded of cup ramen
). MOTN and probably the best match at least since the BOSJ final (almost on par as Okada vs Omega at Dominion, if you gave this that stip they would have surpassed it). Easily one of the best sub 40 minute matches of all time. Ibushi truly is the best worker in the world (could literally take a broom to a 4 and a half star match) and Okada truly may be the best overall wrestler in the world (helps when he's across from high caliber talent, he wrestles up to their level, though on the flip side he wrestles down to guys like Jericho as well). This started a bit slow but Ibushi was just like, nah we're putting this into high gear, we got a ton of dangerous spots involving the apron, the neck of Ibushi (to be expected), great counter sequences. A lot more grounded this match was than a normal Ibushi match, this focused on Ibushis striking (and Okada struggles against the striking types a lot in kafaybe so this makes sense). At the end, Ibushi got to kick out of a proper wind up rainmaker, Okada also kicked out of the kamigoye (though not the full exposed one) but Okada wins and goes onto face Naito tomorrow night.
Overall, fantastic show, better than pretty much any new japan show since Dominion in 2018 to be honest and a lot of that has to do with 2 MOTY level matches and consistent quality up and down the card (especially the title matches, all of them delivered incredibly well).
Night 2 should be fantastic as well, Ibushi vs White, KENTA vs Goto, Juice vs Moxley, the jr heavyweight tag team titles should be fairly good (they have to be given that both the tag team title match and the jr heavyweight title match was on another level).
like they couldn't even give Taichi some momentum and a hometown win that's a worrying sign for him for the rest of this year
