Meltzer's rating for Wrestle Kingdom 9. 1st 5Star of 2015!

[cero2k]

Yuji Nagata won the New Japan Rumble in 26:09 *1/2

Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly retained the IWGP jr. tag team titles over Alex Shelley & Kushida, The Young Bucks and Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov in 13:01 ****

Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Tomoaki Honma beat Yujiro Takahashi & Jeff Jarrett & Bad Luck Fale in 5:35 **1/4

Toru Yano & Naomichi Marufuji & Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste beat Takashi Iizuka & Shelton Benjamin & Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Lance Archer in 5:15 **

Minoru Suzuki beat Kazushi Sakuraba in 9:21 ***3/4

Togi Makabe pinned Tomohiro Ishii in 12:23 to win the Never Open weight championship ****½

Kenny Omega pinned Ryusuke Taguchi to win the IWGP jr. heavyweight title in 13:20 ***3/4

Katsuyori Shibata & Hirooki Goto beat Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows in 9:00 to win the IWGP tag team titles ***½

A.J. Styles pinned Tetsuya Naito in 14:25 ****1/4

Shinsuke Nakamura retained the IC title pinning Kota Ibushi in 20:12 ***** (he called this an all-time classic match)

Hiroshi Tanahashi pinned Kazuchika Okada in 30:57 to retain the IWGP heavyweight title ****3/4

[Big Red Machine]

Kenny Omega pinned Ryusuke Taguchi to win the IWGP jr. heavyweight title in 13:20 ***3/4

I'm quite surprised Dave liked this so much, as he (and others contributors to their site) have been pretty down on Taguchi for a while.

[cero2k]

Kenny Omega pinned Ryusuke Taguchi to win the IWGP jr. heavyweight title in 13:20 ***3/4

I'm quite surprised Dave liked this so much, as he (and others contributors to their site) have been pretty down on Taguchi for a while.

the Omega effect i guess, i was actually expecting they would give it 4Stars

this show got me a bit hyped, several 4+star matches in one show and a 5 star just 4 days in on the year. especially considering all 2014 only had 1 5star match

[Big Red Machine]

Kenny Omega pinned Ryusuke Taguchi to win the IWGP jr. heavyweight title in 13:20 ***3/4

I'm quite surprised Dave liked this so much, as he (and others contributors to their site) have been pretty down on Taguchi for a while.

the Omega effect i guess, i was actually expecting they would give it 4Stars

this show got me a bit hyped, several 4+star matches in one show and a 5 star just 4 days in on the year. especially considering all 2014 only had 1 5star match

By Dave's count. This was a guy who didn't give ***** to AJ vs. Suzuki. And he appears to be the only one who didn't.
But I get your gist. The idea that the first big show of the year had TWO matches that a good chunk of people were giving ***** to is always something to get excited about.