Cero Reviews NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 16 - 1.5

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Cero Reviews NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 16 - 1.5

Post by cero2k » Jan 5th, '22, 23:16

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 16, Day 2
January 5th, 2022
Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan

**Pre-Show**

Great Bash Heel (Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma) & Yuji Nagata vs. BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Gedo & Jado) - 4/10
Ok match, a lot of people that don't move so well anymore, so it it wasn't all that action packed. Honma got the win over Gedo with a Kokeshi and the super Kokeshi.

Master Wato & TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) vs. Suzuki-gun (El Desperado, TAKA Michinoku & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) - 5.5/10
Another ok match, there was some focus between Wato and Despy before Wato won via submission, so we're most definitely getting that title match soon, most likely at New Beginnings. The rest was ok, I liked seeing TAKA and Kanemaru take on TenKoji, they didn't seem so mismatched.

Suzuki-gun (DOUKI, Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi) - 7/10
Kinda weird seeing Desperado, Hiromu, and Shingo all in the pre-show this time around, but it is a loaded card and for the sake of having the STARDOM wrestlers on the main show, I don't mind having this match on the pre-show.

This match was great, loved seeing Hiromu and Sabre mix it up and Shingo versus anyone is great. DOUKI had a chance to look strong in some spots right before he lost to Takagi's Last of the Dragons.

**Main Show**

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Match
Flying Tiger (Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask) (c) vs. Mega Coaches (Rocky Romero & Ryusuke Taguchi) vs. BULLET CLUB's Cutest Tag Team (El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori) - 7/10
Match started with ELP superkicking Tiger Mask with the loaded boot, so he was immediately out of the match for a while, forcing Eagles to fight on his own for a bit.

Match was mostly tornado action and all over the place, but it built to a good story where Flying Tiger and the Coaches had to team up to take out the Bullet Club, to the point that after some years now, they finally got ahold of ELP's boot and revealed the metal he had loaded the boot with, and as a result, he was removed from the match. After that, it came down to FT vs Coaches, Tiger Mask did a great dive and allowed Eagles to stay in the ring and take out Romero for the win.

I'm surprised that they didn't give the Coaches the 69th Champions' spot, but I guess there's still time.

Mayu Iwatani & Starlight Kid vs. Saya Kamitani & Tam Nakano - 7.5/10
As a loyal follower of STARDOM, I had to accep that Iwatani and SLK worked so well together and never turned on each other, but I guess those things are irrelevant when trying to introduce a product to a new fanbase. This year they put a lot of focus on the new White Belt champion Kamitani and SLK, who have been in a way, two of the most pushed last year. Nakano and Iwatani kept coming in and out as supporting roles, but at the end, it did came down to Kamitani and SLK, with the former getting the win with her Phoenix Splash.

As a showcase, this was a good match to show off some of the high speed work, but this is only but a glimpse of everything that STARDOM has to offer. They went for high flyers, but no strikers for instance.

2022 NJPW King Of Pro-Wrestling Championship Match
Minoru Suzuki vs. Toru Yano vs. CIMA (w/#STRONGHEARTS) vs. Chase Owens - 6/10
This was really fun and way better than I expected. We had comedy, but it was all wrestling based, no props used. Match was mostly CIMA and Suzuki going at it with Owens and Yano coming in and out, mostly because they kept getting knocked out by Suzuki or CIMA. The match wasn't long and soon enough, CIMA hit a meteora on Owens for a nearfall, only to have Suzuki jump in and hit the GSP for the win.

I love the idea of what Suzuki could do with this title in terms of 'stipulations', but I doubt that he'll have it for long.

Post-match - Suzuki attacked Yano, but Yano handcuffed Suzuki to the ropes to get an opening and run away. I guess we're headed to a Suzuki vs YTR feud with handcuffs.

NEVER Openweight 6-Person Championship Match
House Of Torture (EVIL, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi) (c) (w/Dick Togo) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, YOH & YOSHI-HASHI) (w/Tomohiro Ishii) - 5/10
Another total Dick Togo match. This had glimpses of potential when Ishii showed up to back up CHAOS, but things eventually dwelled down to the same shit. It wasn't as bad as when it's EVIL getting the win, but it still sucks the air out of the room when HoT gets the win. Again, the one and only saving grace is that having EVIL win these titles keeps him away from the main event of major shows.

NOAH Invasion - The whole NOAH roster came out through the back, led by Keiji Mutoh! Kiyomiya and Kenoh did the talking. They addressed NJPW and the NJPW fanbase, said that Noah will bring the fight to them all. NJPW is the top promotion, NOAH will take that spot from there.

Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi, and BUSHI came out to confront them. Shingo offended them and told them they had nothing to do in a NJPW ring. NJPW has nothing to gain from fighting them, but they're still putting it all on the line because that's how they play.

Kenoh challenged LIJ to get int he ring, and while I can't blame Shingo for dodging a 30-on-3 fight that includes names like Nakajima, Shiozaki, Kiyomiya, Kitamiya, Marafuji, Ogawa, Inamura, and Kenoh just to name a few. Shingo back away and left.

Kongo and NOAH agreed to work together to fight their greater enemy in NJPW.

As a side note, I switched to the English stream at this point because I missed a comment, and by God, KK and Chris are terrible actors. Like WWE commentary terrible. They couldn't express actual surprise if it was legit.

Wrestling Dontaku Announcements - Among other dates for New Beginnings, Anniversary Show, and the New Japan Cup, they announced that they're going back to the PayPay Dome in Fukuoka for Wrestling Dontaku.

SANADA vs. Great-O-Khan - 7/10
YES! New Look for SANADA! No more future crystal skull mask and jacket! Now he's more of a Samurai Oni.

Wrestling-wise, this was great, both SANADA and O-Khan are great wrestlers, but the match felt short and the story felt like a middle of a rivalry bout more than anything. O-Khan was mostly dominant, sometimes outwrestling SANADA, but at the end, SANADA won with the European Clutch, which kinda proves that O-Khan could indeed outwrestle SANADA any given day.

Tetsuya Naito vs. Jeff Cobb - 9/10
Awesome match! After dealing with Cobb's strength for a while now, Naito came in to this match with a plan, with a certain focus and game plan that we rarely see from Naito. Knowing that Cobb could easily block most of Naito's attacks, especially the ones that Naito relies on to end matches, Naito knew he had to take out Cobb's leg and break the stance that could allow Cobb to carry Naito during Destino.

IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship No Disqualification Match
KENTA (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi - 8/10
You know what pet peeve I have with wrestling? That every time someone has a 'sword' fight with either chairs or kendo sticks or whatever, they ALWAYS do the same crisscross moves, no one ever innovates and choreographs a cool exchange.

Anyway, the match started slow since matches like this usually take a while to set up all the weapons they'll be using, and also tend to have a lot of dead time in between spots in order to set up such weapons for whatever spot comes next. The thing that made me like this match a lot was that it wasn't KENTA and Tana suddenly wearing jeans because they're going to be hardcore for one night, this was a Tana vs KENTA match were there happen to be weapons and they used them as they came available, but they were still doing their usual moves in addition to sometimes adding weapons to their normal moves.

The match eventually escalated to some really big spots and a really high ladder, where KENTA nearly killed himself after Tana wobbled the ladder so much that KENTA straight up crashed. That was followed by Tana hitting a huge High Fly Flow onto KENTA through a table for the win.

By the way, KENTA destroyed his nose on that last spot where he fell from the ladder into the garbage can, he was bleeding all over the table, but fortunately for him, it was the final spot. Not sure if Tana was selling, but he also seemed a bit off after the match.

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Match
Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Will Ospreay (w/United Empire) - 9.5/10
Of course Ospreay went and made himself a video of the people he has defended the "real" World Championship against. People in Japan were probably wondering who the fuck Scotty Davis is. Also, kinda disrespecting that Ospreay would wear the RevPro title on his waist and not the IWGP title that he supposedly is the champion of. I loved it when Red Shoes is going to present the title and rejected Ospreay's.

This match felt like they took one of their previous matches and when they already ready to take it home, they took it another gear up and brought out some heavy suspense into the story. They started with some back and forth until Ospreay got the upper hand catching Okada with a kick midair through a dive, followed with a huge moonsault from the lighting rig structure. Okada came back and soon after went into the signature move tease and exchange, it all started to seem like Okada was getting closer and closer, dodging the necessary, countering and even hitting a Stormbreaker, but then Ospreay came back and nearly felt like Okada has completely lost control of the match and it was inevitable that he'd lose, but at the very end, Okada was able to escape the Stormbreaker attempts, hit the piledriver and Rainmaker and finally defeat Ospreay.

My feeling was similar to yesterday's, where I knew that Okada was 99% surely winning, but the 1% was so strong that I most definitely thought that Ospreay was getting the win at some points.

Post-match - Okada was cutting his winner's promo about successfully defending the proper IWGP World title, when Naito came out to interrupt Okada. Naito put over Okada and nominated himself as the next title challenger, and Okada accepted after asking the fans.

Okada finished his winner's promo thanking the crowd for being there knowing that they can't scream and shout. Okada sent a message to Antonio Inoki, hoping he can come and see him wrestle.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Another great show, better than yesterday, as this show had bigger matches than yesterday's card. I did like that this show had a wider variety of matches, and not just because of the STARDOM and the No DQ match, but the 4-way had some light comedy, the Junior match felt like a style that had been taking a step back in NJPW, and even having non-title single matches helped.
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