Night 1 - Jan 4th, 2022
New Japan Ranbo
Final 4 will determine who will fight for the KOPW 2022 Trophy on Night 2

YOH vs SHO w/Dick Togo

Hiroshi Tanahashi & The Mega Coaches (Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocky Romero) vs. Bullet Club (KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo)

Los Ingonerables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & BUSHI) vs. United Empire (Will Ospreay, Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb)

Katsuyori Shibata vs. TBA

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

IWGP Tag Team Championship
Dangerous Tekkers (Zack Sabre, Jr. & Taichi w/Miho Abe) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI)

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

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

Night 2 - Jan 5th, 2022
TBA Match

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
Flying Tiger (Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask) (c) vs. Bullet Club's Cutest Tag Team (El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori) vs. The Mega Coaches (Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocky Romero)

STARDOM Showcase
Mayu Iwatani & Starlight Kid vs. Tam Nakano & Saya Kamitani

King of Pro Wrestling 2022
Fatal Fourway Match - participants to be decided on Night 1

NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship
House of Torture (EVIL, Yujiro Takahasi & SHO w/Dick Togo) (c) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & YOH)

SANADA vs. Great-O-Khan

Tetsuya Naito vs. Jeff Cobb

IWGP United States Championship - No Disqualification
KENTA (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
Shingo Takagi OR Kazuchika Okada vs. Will Ospreay

Night 3 - NJPW vs. NOAH - Jan 8th, 2022
Kosei Fujita vs. Yasutaka Yano

Tencozy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) & Yuji Nagata vs. Funky Express (King Tany, Muhammad Yone & Akitoshi Saito)

SHO vs. Atsushi Kotoge

Bullet Club (Taiji Ishimori & Gedo) vs. Stinger (Hayata & Seiki Yoshioka)

Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & Douki) vs. Los Perros del Mal de Japón (Yo-Hey & Nosawa Rongai)

CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi), Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Daisuke Harada, Hajime Ohara, Daiki Inaba, Yoshiki Inamura & Kinya Okada

Suzuki-gun (Zack Sabre Jr. & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs. Naomichi Marufuji & Yoshinari Ogawa

Suzuki-gun (Taichi, Minoru Suzuki & Taka Michinoku) vs. Sugiura-gun (Takashi Sugiura & Kazushi Sakuraba) & KENTA

House of Torture (EVIL & Dick Togo) vs. Go Shiozaki & Masa Kitamiya

Kazuchika Okada & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Keiji Mutoh & Kaito Kiyomiya

Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, SANADA, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi) vs. Kongoh (Katsuhiko Nakajima, Kenoh, Manabu Soya, Tadasuke & Aleja)

The lack of singles matches in the NJPW vs NOAH card is pretty disappointing.

Or is it a suggestion that there is more to come in the future?

Also very interesting to see KENTA fighting on team NOAH.

NJPW have posted thorough previews of each match if anyone's interested in reading the background.

January 4

January 5

Shibata announced yesterday that his match will be a “catch wrestling” match and strikes are banned. Still no word on his opponent and I assume it’ll be a surprise for the show.

I am excited to see what it’s like. Really interesting how they’ve turned Shibata’s limitations into an angle.

Catch match should be exciting. I long wished RoH pure title would become catch wrestling. When done right it is amazing and absolutely brutal looking as it is usually a ton of chain wrestling into nasty submission holds. Generally not many suplexes or slams like that are used as it is extreme working over a body part until someone submits.  

ZSJ is a master of the catch style.

It's a heel turn. He's going full on Nigel agreeing to rules and then in frustration he's gonna use a STRIKE~!!!

LUL, I actually bet he does end the match with a strike.

Absolutely does not have to be two nights, never mind THREE. And, to the shock of no one, Shibata goes right back to being the best fucking thing about New Japan.

I just started watching NJPW again. I've noticed most of the wrestlers don't rush in between spots. It's a deliberate pace. Different wresting in that regard from the states.

NJPW gives the guys more than two minutes to work matches so need to for that rushed style.

Some of those 40 minute epics would be a lot better if they rushed...

Thoughts so far....

-Skipped the Ranbo match because I already knew who the final four are and don't care. Minoru Suzuki wins or we riot.

-YOH vs SHO was fine. Enjoyed it well enough. Right guy won.

-Skipped the multi-man matches because they're just filler.

-Seeing Shibata walk into Wrestle Kingdom again was so nice to see. Match was fun, and Shibata's comments afterwards make me wonder what's going to happen to him going forward. One thing for them to allow him to wrestle again, another for him to go into business for himself almost right away.

-I skipped to the end of EVIL vs. Ishii because I read how bad it was, and skipping it didn't even help. What utter dog shit House of Torture is. Dick Togo needs TO GO.

-A little surprised at the tag title result. Nice to see Goto with some gold again.

-A lot surprised at the Jr Heavyweight title result. I fully expected Hiromu to win the title back since he never actually lost it. But El Desperado puts that feud to bed once and for all. [insert "Hiromu finally gets called up to Heavyweight division" here]

-I expected Okada to win because they're not going to not do Okada vs. Ospreay tonight, but now I'm curious...does Ospreay finally get his win, or does The Rainmaker finally return to prominence? Will Okada seriously only be a 24-hour champion? Do they put the strap on Ospreay only for him to return to the United States? Lots of questions and I legit have no idea who is going to win tonight.

God they are so fucking quick to edit the wiki articles, even just the belt.

Well since I'm a total moron I was scrolling instagram and had the main event result spoiled for me. My own fault. I wasn't thinking.

THOUGHTS ON NIGHT 2!

-Skipped the multi-man matches because who gives a fuck!
-But I will say this: Dangerous Tekkers take back to back losses at Wrestle Kingdom. Interesting that.

-The Jr Tag titles stay in Japan. Thought so. You got Rocky Romero and El-P on the other teams and they ain't staying in Japan. Outcome was pretty obvious.

-I enjoyed the STARDOM match. Tam Nakano and Mayu Iwatani are very good. Kenny Omega must be calling them every day to join AEW.

-SUZUKI KING OF PRO WRESTLING. HELL YES.

-House of Torture can eat my entire ass. At least Yano makes cheating to win fun. These guys are the most predictable pieces of shit in the business today and somehow none of their opponents expect it.

-I didn't watch SANADA vs Great O Khan because I don't care. SANADA won. Yay.

-Naito is so cool. I love his theme music. And I love how he shows up like he just got to the arena but always has his gear on under his fancy clothes.

-I thought Cobb would beat Naito for sure. I thought he was due for a big victory in NJPW. Match was good, a little underwhelming but that's probably my fault. I expected too much. Naito worked the knee, but Cobb kept using his power to keep Naito grounded, dominated most of the match, but then his knee gave out when he tried to hit the Tour of the Islands and Naito got the Destino(ooooooo) for the win. Solid stuff.

-KENTA looks like a fucking bad ass. He's taken to NJPW so well. God I love him.

-Guitar shot was great. Loved the High Fly Low missing onto the pile of chairs. Match was actually pretty decent and I didn't expect much out of Tanahashi in a hardcore match...then it took KENTA 17 hours to set up the big ladder. Ugh, come on. KENTA is shaken off the ladder and OH MY GOD THERE'S BLOOD EVERYWHERE. KENTA decided to break his fall with his face on the edge of the garbage can. Yikes. Tanahashi gets to relive his idol's iconic spot from Wrestlemania 10, match over. Someone help KENTA.

-Okada vs Ospreay was pretty standard until the final 5-10 minutes. Their sequences were impeccable. I'm really pissed off that I ruined the ending for myself because when Ospreay kicked out of the Rainmaker I actually forgot who won and thought for a split second that he was going to pull it off. Found myself cheering for Ospreay even though I knew he lost.

-All members of United Empire lost tonight. Hmmm...

-Good finish, Okada is unbeatable again, nice little speech to close the show. I liked Naito coming out too. Guess they go again!

Six THOUSAND less people showed up for Night Two. Ospreay is, objectively, an anti-draw.

Jan 6, 2022 0:55:23 GMT KITN said:

Six THOUSAND less people showed up for Night Two. Ospreay is, objectively, an anti-draw.

Night 2 has always drawn less, which is to be expected given how well established the January 4th date is in Tokyo.

But my version is funnier.

Damn RT you're fast. I watched this year's shows with my girlfriend and a friend of hers so it took a couple of days for us to meet. Nice to read your thoughts, good stuff!

January 4

- YOH vs SHO was fine. Enjoyed it well enough. Right guy won.

- Skipped the first multi-man match because it's just filler. I did check out LIJ vs United Empire. After all, it's Ospreay's first match in Japan since his injury. Worth checking it out. Ospreay trolled during the match, basically teasing the crowd saying he's not going to wrestle while Cobb and O'Khan did the heavy lifting. He tagged in once, taunted, grabbed Naito, rammed his head into the turnbuckle and immediately tagged out :lol: He actually scored the winning fall on BUSHI. BUSHI escaped Stormbreaker but O'Khan hit him with a big boot, then Ospreay hit Hidden Blade for the fall.

- I skipped to the end of EVIL vs. Ishii because I read how bad it was, and skipping it didn't even help. What utter dog shit House of Torture is. Dick Togo needs TO GO.

- Shibata vs Ren Narita was really fun. It was meant to be catch-wrestling (no striking) but Shibata changed it on the fly before the match. They wrestled a pretty normal match, except Shibata didn't take any bumps. Shibata talked very freely backstage which was nice to see. He said he'd take any punishment for adlibbing the match type. Said he knew his own body and his limits better than anyone. Said that it wasn't just the headbutt that caused his injury, the cause was greater than that. Illuminating stuff.

- Goto/Yoshi vs ZSJ/Taichi was fantastic in the World Tag League, I gave it ****3/4. Sadly they couldn't replicate it here. To be honest I thought the match kinda sucked. ZSJ/Taichi had all the offense, then Goto/Yoshi had all the offense. Then they just spammed double team moves ad nauseam. Seemed a bit too easy for Goto/Yoshi to beat the champions, they had like 75% of the double team move spam. I'm surprised at the result too. Backstage interview indicates Taichi and Zack are moving onto singles this year. Although they're a great tag team, single is where they should be.

- YOSHI-HASHI at last wins IWGP Heavyweight gold. Not only that, he earned the respect of his peers. He's been the verbal whipping boy of the locker room for years. ZSJ/Taichi put him over huge, showing respect in the ring and in the backstage interview. Yoshi has finally made it. Good for him.

- Pleasantly surprised that El Desperado retained against Hiromu. It's a win he really needed to establish himself as an elite Junior Heavyweight since he never beat Hiromu before. And what a stage to do it on. Not great, but second best match of the night.

- Okada vs Shingo was great. Felt like it could have gone a bit longer, seemed a little too easy for Okada, but that's a minor complaint. Not at all surprised at the result. I predicted Ospreay to beat Okada, but then someone mentioned that it's the 50th Anniversary and they'd surely keep the belt on their golden boy on this special year. My mind was changed.


January 5

- Come on RT, I know SANADA is kinda lame but Great O'Khan is one of the best in the company. I'm not even kidding. The match as a whole was good, but some interesting spots with O'Khan trying out some high flying. He didn't just do random moves either, they made a thing out of it, with O'Khan hesitating to do a plancha, then SANADA taunting him like "come on buddy", then he does a plancha. O'Khan's willingness to experiment and poke fun at himself is one of his many positive attributes.

- Naito and Cobb had nice psychology. As RT mentioned, Naito relentlessly attacked the knee which kept him in the game against Cobb's raw power. Shocked at the result because I thought Cobb would win for sure especially since O'Khan lost. Solid match, but it did feel like it was lacking that something special.

- Pro-wrestling is so fucking weird. Two guys hate each other so much they want to murder each other. In real life they would be all over each other, punching, scratching, clawing, stabbing, bashing. In pro-wrestling...you start off with some of that, then you go away for 30 seconds to grab a chair and put it on the floor so you can slam your worst enemy on top of it. Spend 2 minutes grabbing a table and setting it up so you can break the table with your worst enemy on it. Ditto with the ladder. I know comparing pro-wrestling to real life is inherently absurd, but even in kayfabe the premise of a hardcore match (at least the way they are worked nowadays) is dumb as fuck.

The match was literally one guy hitting the other with a weapon, taking a time out to grab a weapon and set it up, rinse and repeat for 20 minutes. KENTA took what seemed like 5 minutes to set up that massive ladder. Don't get me wrong, some of the spots were spectacular, particularly the ladder match, but as a whole the match was kind of a joke. The finish was incredible though, picture perfect.

KENTA loses the belt, but also suffers a dislocated hip, broken nose, severe lacerations and tendon damage to his finger. Tanahashi came out seemingly unscathed. His press conference was fascinating though, he basically said he felt nothing about his victory, was not proud of wrestling a match like that, yadda yadda. That's a character trait you don't see in pro-wrestling.

- Unsurprisingly, Okada vs Ospreay stole the show. Brilliant match. Dare I say they have even better chemistry than Okada and Omega? It's at least equal. Ospreay kicking out of the Rainmaker was an amazing near fall too.

- Naito vs Okada. It's time. Yes please.

While the shows weren't bad, they didn't feel special at all outside of the Okada matches. Worst Wrestle Kingdom since I started watching. And yeah, two nights is too much, but there's no going back. They will have to keep finding convoluted ways to force two IWGP Heavyweight Championship matches each year. This year kinda fell into their hands with Ospreay getting injured, but what happens next year?

Emperor I had a couple slow days at work and I was alone so I was able to watch the replay on my laptop the morning after the shows.

I'm going to go back and watch SANADA vs GOK because you're right, GOK is pretty good and I need to give him more credit. I'll report back.

I did not realize YOSHI-HASHI had never won gold, but that's my own ignorance because of course he hasn't. I totally should have clued in with that match. That's nice he finally won something.

I know Naito won his match so they could continue his momentum going into Naito vs Okada, but Cobb totally should have won since GOK lost. Both Empire big men with a reason to fight. The newer guy wins while the original big guy loses. It writes itself.

Jan 7, 2022 17:29:20 GMT Big Pete said:

Jan 6, 2022 0:55:23 GMT KITN said:

Six THOUSAND less people showed up for Night Two. Ospreay is, objectively, an anti-draw.

Night 2 has always drawn less, which is to be expected given how well established the January 4th date is in Tokyo.

Numbers do not lie.  Night 1 clearly the superior brand and they nuke night 2 because no one was watching it.

/aewratinglogic

Okada's Stormbreaker was a thing of beauty.

And yeah the Kenta match was weird. A lot of real damage done there. I liked it, but at some point they need to ask, is this worth the injury?

gfycat.com/energeticcoldindianelephant-ospreay-okada-njpw-wk16-iwgp

Jan 8, 2022 2:07:30 GMT c said:

Okada's Stormbreaker was a thing of beauty.

And yeah the Kenta match was weird. A lot of real damage done there. I liked it, but at some point they need to ask, is this worth the injury?

gfycat.com/energeticcoldindianelephant-ospreay-okada-njpw-wk16-iwgp

I think KENTA just fucked up and shouldn't have hit the garbage can with his face. Other than that the match was rather tame.

Jan 8, 2022 2:16:36 GMT RT said:

Jan 8, 2022 2:07:30 GMT c said:

Okada's Stormbreaker was a thing of beauty.

And yeah the Kenta match was weird. A lot of real damage done there. I liked it, but at some point they need to ask, is this worth the injury?

gfycat.com/energeticcoldindianelephant-ospreay-okada-njpw-wk16-iwgp

I think KENTA just fucked up and shouldn't have hit the garbage can with his face. Other than that the match was rather tame.

Wouldn't describe it as tame, several tables were broken, both guys got slammed on piles of chairs a bunch of times. The final bump looked nasty as well.

Jan 8, 2022 2:07:30 GMT c said:

Okada's Stormbreaker was a thing of beauty.

And yeah the Kenta match was weird. A lot of real damage done there. I liked it, but at some point they need to ask, is this worth the injury?

gfycat.com/energeticcoldindianelephant-ospreay-okada-njpw-wk16-iwgp

Very nice. Okada knows better than to waste a nearfall on the backslide!

I'm tempted to check out Night 2, just for KENTA/Tanahashi.

Jan 8, 2022 15:24:58 GMT Lony said:

I'm tempted to check out Night 2, just for KENTA/Tanahashi.

You should that match was insanely brutal.