Empyrean Heaven
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For its fourth year, New Japan Pro Wrestling will hold the final major event before January 4th's Wrestle Kingdom 10 in Tokyo Dome. Essentially an anniversary show, it has gained the apt name of King of Pro Wrestling, and serves as the first look at what we may see at the company's biggest show. But why is this year's significant?
For the first time ever, NJPW's streaming service, NJPWworld.com (which you can subscribe to for less than $9 a month!) will feature an English-language simulcast of the event, with Ring of Honor's Kevin Kelley calling the action and color commentary provided by Lucha Underground's Matt Striker. While this will be the first time Kelley has called an NJPW event, he is familiar with many of the wrestlers through New Japan's alliance with ROH, while Striker is a long-time follower of the product, and called Global Force Wrestling's simulcast of Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome this past January alongside the legendary "JR" Jim Ross. In short, this is a huge step towards taking New Japan, for many years considered the best promotion on the planet, to a worldwide audience.
Card:
Match 1 - Ten-Man Tag Team Match
Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask IV, KUSHIDA, Mascara Dorada, and Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Yohei Komatsu, Sho Tanaka, David Finlay, Jay White, and Juice Robinson
The opening match of KOPW will be a Junior-focused tag match as veterans take on the company's young lions. The legendary Liger teams with his regular tag partner Tiger Mask IV (who just won the NWA Jr. Heavyweight Championship at New Japan's Destruction event), along with the high-flying masked luchador Mascara Dorada and "Funky Weapon" Ryusuke Taguchi, known for his dance moves, ass-based offense, and ability to annoy pretty much everyone watching him. The most interesting member of this team is KUSHIDA, who is coming off of a month he would rather forget after losing both his IWGP Jr. Heavyweight championship and a title match for the Jr. Tag titles with his Time Splitters partner Alex Shelley. KUSHIDA is on the road to redemption, and a win in this tag match may prove to be just the thing.
Their opposition is provided by the five wrestlers currently training in the New Japan Dojo, affectionately called "Young Lions". Komatsu and Tanaka are the veterans of the group, while New Zealander Jay White has certainly turned heads and Irishman David Finlay has a tremendous pedigree, being the son of the legendary David "Fit" Finlay (no, he's not Hornswoggle, this is his ACTUAL son). The newest member of this grouping is Juice Robinson, who you may know better as former NXT star and Kevin Owens murder victim CJ Parker. While there's little to no chance of this team winning, matches featuring the Young Lions have been among the best parts of NJPW shows this year, so expect them to put on a heck of a show.
Match 2 - Special Singles Match
Tomoaki Honma vs. YOSHI-HASHI
The first featured bout of the evening is a surprising match between two of NJPW's perennial...oh, let's be nice and call them "rising stars". Despite often finding himself counting the lights after most matches involving him, Tomoaki Honma found himself with the opportunity of a lifetime in 2014 when he replaced the injured Kota Ibushi in that year's G1 Climax tournament. While he would lose every single one of his matches, Honma's never-say-die attitude and fighting spirit gave him the admiration of the fans, and gave rise to a cult following known as "Honmania". After several great matches in 2015 including a match of the year candidate against Tomohiro Ishii, Honma was once again invited to compete in the 2015 G1, a decision that did not sit well with YOSHI-HASHI of the faction CHAOS.
Like Honma, YOSHI-HASHI is the one most likely to eat the pin in matches involving him, but he still felt giving Honma an opportunity was a waste of a spot, one he would make better use of. However, after once again looking like he would reach a clean sweep of futility in the tournament, Honma finally picked up his first singles win in New Japan on one of the last nights of the tournament, defeating his old rival Tomohiro Ishii. Infuriated by this, YOSHI-HASHI challenged Honma to a singles match, and at King of Pro Wrestling we will find out who will be the winner in this battle of the lovable losers.
Match 3 - Eight-Man Tag Team Match
Tenkoji (Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan), Yuji Nagata, and Manabu Nakanishi vs. Meiyu Tag (Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata), Kota Ibushi, and Captain New Japan
In perhaps one of the most bizarre matches on the card, this will pit several of the old guard of NJPW, all former IWGP Heavyweight champions, against three men who really should deserve better. Oh, and Captain New Japan is there too.
Hirooki Goto seemed to finally be the man to wrestle the IWGP Intercontinental Championship away from the man who has been synonymous with it, Shinsuke Nakamura, by defeating him at Wrestling Dontaku in May and retaining it at Dominion in June. But a victory by Nakamura in the G1 meant he got another shot, one he made the most of by beating Goto to become a 5-time champion. Also having similar poor luck is his regular tag partner, Katsuyori Shibata, who came out of a great showing in the G1 with a red-hot feud with Tetsuya Naito, which ended with he too coming out on the losing end. And lastly there's Kota Ibushi, who began the year with a five-star spectacular against Nakamura at Wrestle Kingdom 9, leading to victory in the New Japan Cup, and has seen his stock steadily decline, most recently losing in his challenge to NEVER Openweight Champion Togi Makabe in a result that puzzled many fans. So this should be an opportunity to get back on the winning track, right? Unfortunately, they chose perhaps the worst possible tag partner, perennial joke Captain New Japan, perhaps the only man who has jobbed more than Honma. I want to remain unbiased, so I will leave things at that.
Match 4 - IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
reDRagon (Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish) (c) vs. Roppongi Vice (Rocky Romero and Beretta)
One of the biggest storylines in New Japan for 2015 has been the hotly-contested Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team titles, which began the year around ROH's reDRagon who successfully defended them in a four-way match at Wrestle Kingdom 9. The next month, they lost the titles in a 3-way match to the Young Bucks, but still staked a claim to the belts as they weren't the team pinned to lose their titles. The titles were hotshotted around in a variety of tag and 3-way matches until August, when the G1 Climax Finals saw the Young Bucks face reDRagon in a title match, where Fish and O'Reilly came out victorious and regained the gold they never lost.
One of those teams that got a reign during the hotshotting was Roppongi Vice, representing CHAOS. While Rocky Romero began the year as one half of the Forever Hooligans, his partner, Alex Koslov decided to take an indefinite sabbatical from wrestling, splitting the two up. Fortunately, somebody remembered that former WWE wrestler
Match 5 - IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship
Kenny Omega (c) vs. Matt Sydal
After his shocking turn to the Bullet Club late last year, "The Cleaner" Kenny Omega ruled over the Jr. division in NJPW, until he hit a snag in the form of the winner of the 2015 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, KUSHIDA. At Dominion in June, KUSHIDA achieved his second Jr. heavyweight championship, and many felt that his time as face of the division was about to begin. However, nobody told that to Omega, who bounced back three months later and defeated KUSHIDA to regain the title. However, he was quickly challenged by a man looking to plant his flag in Japan, Matt Sydal.
Already a legend in the Amercan independents working for practically every promotion in the country (including his time in WWE as Evan Bourne), Sydal is known as one of wrestling's best risk-takers, with arguably the best Shooting Star Press in the business. Needless to say, this is an absolute dream match, and one which could define the career of Omega, and begin a new chapter for Sydal.
Match 6 - Special Six-Man Tag Team Match
The Bullet Club (Karl Anderson, Doc Gallows, and Bad Luck Fale) vs. CHAOS (Shinsuke Nakamura, Toru Yano, and Kazushi Sakuraba)
Of all of the performances in the 2015 G1 Climax, perhaps none was more surprising than "The Machine Gun" Karl Anderson's, whose stunning upset of Shinsuke Nakamura led him to be in contention to advance from his block at the end of the tournament. Best known as a tag team wrestler who holds the IWGP Tag Team titles with his Bullet Club partner "The Outlaw" Doc Gallows, Anderson quickly targeted Nakamura after the G1, as he had barely finished winning back the Intercontinental championship before Anderson challenged him. And while that match will likely main event November's Power Struggle event, fans will get a six-man preview as both men captain their respective teams, with Anderson joined by his partner Gallows and the monstrous Bad Luck Fale, the Bullet Club's "Underboss"
Meanwhile, the "King of Strong Style" Nakamura will be joined by one of the most unique alliances in wresting today, as Toru Yano, known for his extreme rulebreaking tactics who has made a career out of winning as cheaply as possible by doing as little as possible, is joined by former MMA superstar Kazushi Sakuraba, known for his time in UWFi and PRIDE before coming to NJPW. With Nakamura considered among the best wrestlers on the planet today, he intends to make sure Anderson's challenge never happens.
Match 7 - NEVER Openweight Championship
Togi Makabe (c) vs. Tomohiro Ishii
At the beginning of the year, "Stone Pitbull" Tomohiro Ishii has defined the fledgling NEVER Openweight Championship, transforming it from essentially a vanity belt into a title for some of New Japan's hardest hitters. And nobody hits harder than "Unchained Gorilla" Togi Makabe, who captured the title from a heavily injured Ishii at Wrestle Kingdom 9. Thanks to a stroke of luck, however, a sudden onset of influenza sidelined Makabe from his rematch against Ishii, who regained the belt in the aformentioned MOTY candidate against Honma.
Makabe instantly set out to regain the belt from Ishii, and did so in another hard-hitting brawl at Wrestling HINOKUNI in May, with Ishii failing to regain it in a rematch at DOMINION in June. Then, after Makabe's sucessful defense at Destruction against Kota Ibushi, he was once again face to face with Ishii, who made his challenge for one more match against the man he has yet to beat for the title he defined. If you want hard-hitting action, you need look no further.
Match 8 - Tokyo Dome IWGP Heavyweight Championship Challenge Rights
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tetsuya Naito
After winning the G1 Climax four years ago, Kazuchika Okada made a stunning declaration that rather than immediately challenge the IWGP champion, he would save his championship opportunity until Wrestle Kingdom, wanting to dethrone the champion on the biggest stage. Apparently New Japan loved the idea, as now that has become the standard for G1 Climax winners, with the added caveat that they must defend their title shot against anyone who defeated them during the tournament.
This year, the G1 winner was the man who has been New Japan's biggest star of the last ten years, Hiroshi Tanahashi. After an incredible finals where he defeated long-time rival Shinsuke Nakamura, Tanahashi first had to defend his title opportunity over the Bullet Club's Bad Luck Fale. After dispatching him last month at Destruction in Kobe, he set his sights on the other man who defeated him, "Stardust Genius" Tetsuya Naito.
Naito was once considered the heir apparent to Tanahashi, with many feeling he would become the next ace of the company. However, after a lukewarm reception to his G1 win in 2013 and little success afterwards while other stars rose around him, jealousy bloomed, which was acted upon in Mexico for CMLL, where Naito is also a huge star. Joining up with fellow good guys La Sombra and Rush, Naito formed "Los Ingobernables", a faction of good guys that acted like heels. Upon returning to New Japan, Naito became an island unto himself, not joining any of New Japan's heel factions, but not helping his fellow New Japan stars in tag team matches, quickly making him the most hated man in the company. This grew in his actions during the G1 Climax, where he regularly attacked referees and cameramen, but also picked up multiple major victories, including a win over Tanahashi.
Now, Naito has a chance at what he believes is rightfully his, an opportunity to become IWGP Heavyweight champion and biggest star in the company. However, the legendary Tanahashi stands in his way, and the two will battle with the soul of New Japan hanging in the balance.
Match 9 - IWGP Heavyweight Championship
Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. AJ Styles
At the beginning of 2015, "Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada suffered a heartbreaking loss in his title challenge in the Tokyo Dome, leaving the arena in tears after he was defeated by Hiroshi Tanahashi. This put Okada in a major slump, losing multiple matches, including his first round match in the New Japan Cup to Bad Luck Fale. To compound the pain, "The Phenomenal One" AJ Styles did what Okada could not just one month later, knocking off Tanahashi to regain the IWGP Heavyweight Title.
Okada needed to turn himself around, and after defeating Fale at Invasion Attack in April, announced that the Rainmaker was back, and coming for AJ Styles. At DOMINION, after an incredible, hard-fought battle, Okada finally exorcised his demons and won his third IWGP title - but his end goal has still not been achieved. Okada not only wants to be the biggest star in New Japan, but the biggest star in New Japan HISTORY.
However, Styles was undaunted, and pinned Okada in a tag match during the G1 Climax Finals, earning him another title opportunity. Now, in the final IWGP title defense of the year, one of these two men will walk out champion, and also know who they will face at the Tokyo Dome in January in a true date with destiny.
