Goddamn what a show. I only had about 2 hours sleep before watching the show, and by the time it ended, I was way too hyped to go to sleep. I don't even know where I'd rank this in the handful of WK's I've seen in full. There was no Gracie disaster like WK8 so it's got that going for it.
I'm honestly conflicted on which was better, the IC or the Heavyweight title match. I was more excited to see Naito/Tanahashi than Omega/Okada, but the latter two had me at the edge of my seat way more than the former. I knew they were going to have a great match but this blew away my expectations.
I'm actually glad Okada won. As great as Kenny is, I feel like he would have lost the championship to Okada at Dominion anyway and possibly lose the rematch at KOPW like AJ did back in 2015. Not a bad run, but it would have been a bit too short for my liking. Plus, I think with this match, the crowd is going to start rooting for Kenny more and possibly lead to a face turn in the future.
I feel like they really want to get behind him, but I think the Cleaner gimmick, and probably more than anything, him insisting on speaking English instead of Japanese, is holding him back from the breakout star he should be. I can see why he doesn't want to speak it, since he's a heel and the crowd pops every time he does, but I don't see why he doesn't just cut heel Japanese promos. As much as I like his promos, it gets pretty damn awkward at times when he's cutting an over the top promo and there's nothing but silence with some polite applause sprinkled here and there. It's one thing to have Yujiro cutting a promo, but having the leader of the Bullet Club cut one in Japanese can give the group a shot in the arm it needs.
Overall, great show and a ton of surprises. I went 50-50 in my picks, although I think the biggest surprise was Adam Cole winning the ROH title back so soon. I thought they'd give O'Reilly at least 1 win.
That was actually the original purpose of the Wrestle Kingdom name, it was to showcase talent from other promotions, not just NJPW. In fact, the name was originally to cross-promote a video game that Yukes (NJPW's owners at the time, and also devs of the WWE games) were making at the time, but the name has continued onto NJPW's new ownership under Bushiroad (a maker of card and mobile games). The first one was specifically an NJPW/AJPW crossover show, while the second one brought in TNA and the third also had talent from NOAH, ZERO-1, and CMLL. It wasn't until around WK7 that the shows became mostly NJPW-only.
Yeah, the original Wrestle Kingdom game had NJPW, AJPW and NOAH wrestlers, along with some freelancers. It came out in 2005, but the first Wrestle Kingdom show was in 2007 with the 2nd Wrestle Kingdom game coming out later in that year, this time, without NOAH.
I have no doubt that if the NOAH/NJPW partnership was still around, we would have seen some Noah wrestlers, or even some GHC title matches last night.
