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Wrestle Kingdom 18 (January 4) Preview 【WK18】
Wrestle Kingdom 18 (January 4) Preview 【WK18】
Full card final for Tokyo Dome
The full card is finally set for Wrestle Kingdom 18. The biggest event of the year sees the culmination of all that came before in 2023, and the start of a huge 2024.
Watch Wrestle Kingdom 18 LIVE and in English January 4 2024!
International tickets on sale NOW for Wrestle Kingdom!
Main event: IWGP World Heavyweight Championship- SANADA vs Tetsuya Naito
Singles record: 2-1 SANADA
The main event of Wrestle Kingdom 18 sees a match 18 years in the making for the champion, and a moment dreamed of for a lifetime for the challenger. Tetsuya Naito has had visions of bathing in the Tokyo Dome spotlight, the crowd chanting his name as he exits from the main event with head and championship held high, since he was a child. In 2020, he bet it all and won big, but his exultant rollcall and cry of ‘De Ja Pon!’ was cut off by KENTA. Since then, four years of struggle with injuries and the fates have brought him to this point, and an opportunity he has sacrificed nearly everything for, his own vision and long term quality of life included.
Champion SANADA has all that Naito lacks and vice versa- a balance that led both of them to IWGP Tag team Championship gold not that long ago. The credo of ‘to be the man, you have to beat the man’ is ingrained on the wrestler and fan psyche, but SANADA has proven the mantra to be only half true. SANADA has the world title having beaten the veritable last boss of professional wrestling in Kazuchika Okada to take it. Indeed, he has carried the top prize in professional wrestling around the world before cheering fans for nine months, an opportunity that Naito has never been able to seize. Yet in the mind of the masses, the champion is not ‘The Man’. As fans and pundits have questioned SANADA’s ability to check all the boxes in and out of the ring as a leading force in professional wrestling, SANADA has doubted himself, but tonight sees the chance to lay all the doubts to rest. Whatever may happen, the winner will truly be the driving force for professional wrestling at large, and complete a decades long destiny.
9th Match: Kazuchika Okada vs Bryan Danielson
Singles record: 1-0 Danielson
The most hotly anticipated rematch in professional wrestling sees Kazuchika Okada and Bryan Danielson head to head in a battle fueled by revenge. For Okada, losing to the American Dragon, and indeed via his first submission loss in seven years at Forbidden Door is something the Rainmaker can not easily get past. For Danielson, a broken arm sustained that night in Toronto, combined with a Rainmaker incurred fractured orbital in an AEW Dynamite tag bout has taken months off of what he has said will be his last year as a full time professional wrestler. Two men who have come to represent Strong Style, albeit in different forms, more than anyone in the US and Japan will square off in the Tokyo Dome once more, but who will have the upper hand- or arm?
8th Match: IWGP Global Championship- Will Ospreay vs Jon Moxley vs David Finlay
An inaugural IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion will be crowned when Will Ospreay, Jon Moxley and David Finlay face off in a three way bout. After Ospreay defended the IWGP United States and United Kingdom Championships against Shota Umino at Power Struggle, a face to face with Jon Moxley made it seem as if the two would settle business that stemmed from a controversial finish to their one and only singles match in the spring of 2022. Yet instead it would be David Finlay intervening with a massive sledgehammer, destroying the two title belts and the work that Ospreay had done to advance them on the world stage.
The Global Championship will indicate NJPW’s presence upon that world stage- where the world flocks to fight the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, the Global Champion will go out to fight the world. Ospreay has fit that bill in 2023, and Moxley’s global presence has been keenly felt over the years as well. Will the self proclaimed Rebel Savior Finlay take this chance to instantly shoot himself into the international spotlight?
7th Match: IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship- Hiromu Takahashi vs El Desperado
Singles record: 3-3-1
One of the most storied junior heavyweight rivalries of the decade lies between Hiromu Takahashi and El Desperado. One man driven to be the face of the junior heavyweight wrestling landscape against another who never desired that spotlight, but has grown within it, the two share a 2-2-1 record full of memorable battles. Desperado’s unintentional unmasking at Best of the Super Jr. 27, a time limit draw the next year, a Tokyo Dome defence for Despe tempered by another BOSJ final defeat months later, all have seen the two bring a competitive drive out of one another.
It’s a competitive history that began in earnest in the 2018 Best of the Super Jr., but be it injury or be it the pandemic, Hiromu and Desperado have yet to have a true marquee match on a big stage with a full cheering crowd until January 4 2024. Whether this new environment will bring an air of finality to this rivalry for now, or will trigger a whole new chapter remains to be seen, but a partisan crowd split between two of the very best in the modern era is certain to be a highlight of Wrestle Kingdom 18.
6th Match: IWGP & NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championship Double Title Match- Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Guerrillas of Destiny (Hikuleo & El Phantasmo)
Tag record: 1-1
We have become very used to setting our watches on a change of hands for the IWGP Tag Team Championships every January 4 for the last decade. More often than not, excepting a blip in 2017 during a three way, that has meant the World Tag League winners taking the gold. So what happens when the World Tag League winners are the IWGP Champions? Bishamon have defied convention by being the first ever threepeating WTL winners as well as the first set of champions to win the annual tournament. Able to pick their own shot, they nominated the team that beat them on the first night of the campaign before they leveled the score at the final. STRONG Tag Champions Hikuleo and El Phantasmo might be a fresh team, coming together in August, but their run as STRONG Tag Champions through the autumn and winter has been nothing short of impressive. Now they seek to win a rubber match for all the gold.
5th Match: NEVER Openweight Championship- Shingo Takagi vs Tama Tonga
Singles record: 1-0-1 Takagi
When Tama Tonga began his third reign with the NEVER Openweight Championship at Destruction in Ryogoku, he was clear, not just in the violent form he won the title from David Finlay, but in his actions afterward about the vision he wanted for himself as champion. Quickly calling out Shingo Takagi for closure following a draw during the G1, Tama was intent on showing himself as a fighting champion in the ‘BMF’ mould that Shingo had maintained during the pandemic, a vision of himself as champion he was unable to show in brief reigns cut short by outside challengers.
Yet while Tama rolled the dice on a hard hitting defence against the Dragon, he paid the price, falling at V0 to Shingo in a gripping bout in Las Vegas. Shingo publicly declared a hit list of people that he wants to face in his own third NEVER reign, but the Guerrilla of Destiny was quick to jump the line and request a rematch for the gold before that list of Shingo’s can be put into action. In what is sure to be an intense battle, will it be fourth time lucky for Tama for a sustained reign as the NEVER Openweight Champion, or will Takagi make his second defence in the Tokyo Dome?
4th Match: Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL & Ren Narita)
Ever since Ren Narita turned on Shota Umino and joined HOUSE OF TORTURE, frustration has only continued to mount as Umino has tried and failed to get his hands on his former friend long enough to hit the Death Rider. As H.O.T have continued to get between the two, it became clear that Umino could not enact the vengeance he felt he deserved unless he had some backup. That backup came from Pro-Wrestling NOAH’s Kaito Kiyomiya, who himself has been embroiled in a feud with EVIL that has stretched between the two promotions. After the two young stars join forces at NOAH’s New Year card January 2 for an elimination bout, they tag once again, two on two in theory, under the ceiling of the Big Egg.
Yota Tsuji vs Yuya Uemura
Singles record: 15-10-22 Tsuji
Fated rivals from day one in their respective careers, Yota Tsuji and Yuya Uemura wrestle one on one for the first time since April 2021 in a special singles match.
Their first 21 encounters resulted in a string of ten minute draws, and when they had the benefit of experience and more time alloted to them, Uemura and Tsuji traded wins as Young Lions. But as excursions beckoned, Tsuji seemed to be a step ahead, eventually reaching a 15-10-22 record.
Both took their own separate paths in excursion and returned in contrasting form, Tsuji adding spectacle to his offensive arsenal while Uemura solidified already impressive fundamentals. Tsuji’s showiness expressed itself in an instant desire to wrestle in main event spots, while for Uemura, Wrestle Kingdom will be his first singles match since return from excursion.
The points of comparison are numerous, but the one that Tsuji feels he has proven is that he’s the better hand than Uemura. A tag victory over Just Five Guys at Power Struggle had the exclamation point of Tsuji hurling Uemura outside the ring in as dismissive a form as possible, while criticising that Uemura’s red colour scheme and long hair was stealing from his own look. Now they finally go head to head, will it be Tsuji solidifying his advantage, or will Uemura make a huge statement on the biggest of stages?
2nd Match: NJPW World TV Championship- Zack Sabre Jr. vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
Singles record: 6-5 Tanahashi
One year ago, Zack Sabre Jr. became the first NJPW World TV Champion, and has held the title ever since. 16 defences has set him as comfortably the winningest champion of the modern era in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and as he looks to continue that reign into 2024, he’ll come up against Hiroshi Tanahashi.
The Ace is a different proposition to the youth oriented image that the World TV title was first introduced as, but with his own proven and at one time record breaking track record, he’s a fitting test for Sabre as he tries to complete a year as champ. The classical ideologies of both men should create a work of art in this title affair, but with only 15 minutes on the clock, can Tanahashi get the job done?
1st Match: IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships: Catch 2/2 (TJP & Francesco Akira) vs BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Drilla Moloney & Clark Connors)
Tag record: 3-0 War Dogs
Ever since Drilla Moloney turned his back on the United Empire to join forces with Clark Connors and BULLET CLUB War Dogs, Catch 2/2 have been looking for redemption, and always unable to attain it. A loss of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag titles at Independence Day was followed with another defeat during Sup[er Junior Tag League. TJP and Francesco Akira did go on to win that tournament, and declared to their adversaries that ‘Catch 2/2 would never die’ but the champions put that to a gruesome test December 22.
After a vicious first ever coffin match on December 22, TJP’s status in this match is in doubt. Will he be able to compete in the Tokyo Dome and bring his team to victory, or will this be a victory by forfeit for the champions?
Kickoff: KOPW 2024 New Japan Ranbo
As is NJPW January 4 tradition, the New Year kicks off with a New Japan Ranbo. The last four remaining in this times battle royal will head into New Year dash the next night in Sumida to comepete to be the first holder of the KOPW Championship belt in 2024. Who will it be?
The full card is finally set for Wrestle Kingdom 18. The biggest event of the year sees the culmination of all that came before in 2023, and the start of a huge 2024.
Watch Wrestle Kingdom 18 LIVE and in English January 4 2024!
International tickets on sale NOW for Wrestle Kingdom!
Main event: IWGP World Heavyweight Championship- SANADA vs Tetsuya Naito
Singles record: 2-1 SANADA
The main event of Wrestle Kingdom 18 sees a match 18 years in the making for the champion, and a moment dreamed of for a lifetime for the challenger. Tetsuya Naito has had visions of bathing in the Tokyo Dome spotlight, the crowd chanting his name as he exits from the main event with head and championship held high, since he was a child. In 2020, he bet it all and won big, but his exultant rollcall and cry of ‘De Ja Pon!’ was cut off by KENTA. Since then, four years of struggle with injuries and the fates have brought him to this point, and an opportunity he has sacrificed nearly everything for, his own vision and long term quality of life included.
Champion SANADA has all that Naito lacks and vice versa- a balance that led both of them to IWGP Tag team Championship gold not that long ago. The credo of ‘to be the man, you have to beat the man’ is ingrained on the wrestler and fan psyche, but SANADA has proven the mantra to be only half true. SANADA has the world title having beaten the veritable last boss of professional wrestling in Kazuchika Okada to take it. Indeed, he has carried the top prize in professional wrestling around the world before cheering fans for nine months, an opportunity that Naito has never been able to seize. Yet in the mind of the masses, the champion is not ‘The Man’. As fans and pundits have questioned SANADA’s ability to check all the boxes in and out of the ring as a leading force in professional wrestling, SANADA has doubted himself, but tonight sees the chance to lay all the doubts to rest. Whatever may happen, the winner will truly be the driving force for professional wrestling at large, and complete a decades long destiny.
9th Match: Kazuchika Okada vs Bryan Danielson
Singles record: 1-0 Danielson
The most hotly anticipated rematch in professional wrestling sees Kazuchika Okada and Bryan Danielson head to head in a battle fueled by revenge. For Okada, losing to the American Dragon, and indeed via his first submission loss in seven years at Forbidden Door is something the Rainmaker can not easily get past. For Danielson, a broken arm sustained that night in Toronto, combined with a Rainmaker incurred fractured orbital in an AEW Dynamite tag bout has taken months off of what he has said will be his last year as a full time professional wrestler. Two men who have come to represent Strong Style, albeit in different forms, more than anyone in the US and Japan will square off in the Tokyo Dome once more, but who will have the upper hand- or arm?
8th Match: IWGP Global Championship- Will Ospreay vs Jon Moxley vs David Finlay
An inaugural IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion will be crowned when Will Ospreay, Jon Moxley and David Finlay face off in a three way bout. After Ospreay defended the IWGP United States and United Kingdom Championships against Shota Umino at Power Struggle, a face to face with Jon Moxley made it seem as if the two would settle business that stemmed from a controversial finish to their one and only singles match in the spring of 2022. Yet instead it would be David Finlay intervening with a massive sledgehammer, destroying the two title belts and the work that Ospreay had done to advance them on the world stage.
The Global Championship will indicate NJPW’s presence upon that world stage- where the world flocks to fight the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, the Global Champion will go out to fight the world. Ospreay has fit that bill in 2023, and Moxley’s global presence has been keenly felt over the years as well. Will the self proclaimed Rebel Savior Finlay take this chance to instantly shoot himself into the international spotlight?
7th Match: IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship- Hiromu Takahashi vs El Desperado
Singles record: 3-3-1
One of the most storied junior heavyweight rivalries of the decade lies between Hiromu Takahashi and El Desperado. One man driven to be the face of the junior heavyweight wrestling landscape against another who never desired that spotlight, but has grown within it, the two share a 2-2-1 record full of memorable battles. Desperado’s unintentional unmasking at Best of the Super Jr. 27, a time limit draw the next year, a Tokyo Dome defence for Despe tempered by another BOSJ final defeat months later, all have seen the two bring a competitive drive out of one another.
It’s a competitive history that began in earnest in the 2018 Best of the Super Jr., but be it injury or be it the pandemic, Hiromu and Desperado have yet to have a true marquee match on a big stage with a full cheering crowd until January 4 2024. Whether this new environment will bring an air of finality to this rivalry for now, or will trigger a whole new chapter remains to be seen, but a partisan crowd split between two of the very best in the modern era is certain to be a highlight of Wrestle Kingdom 18.
6th Match: IWGP & NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championship Double Title Match- Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Guerrillas of Destiny (Hikuleo & El Phantasmo)
Tag record: 1-1
We have become very used to setting our watches on a change of hands for the IWGP Tag Team Championships every January 4 for the last decade. More often than not, excepting a blip in 2017 during a three way, that has meant the World Tag League winners taking the gold. So what happens when the World Tag League winners are the IWGP Champions? Bishamon have defied convention by being the first ever threepeating WTL winners as well as the first set of champions to win the annual tournament. Able to pick their own shot, they nominated the team that beat them on the first night of the campaign before they leveled the score at the final. STRONG Tag Champions Hikuleo and El Phantasmo might be a fresh team, coming together in August, but their run as STRONG Tag Champions through the autumn and winter has been nothing short of impressive. Now they seek to win a rubber match for all the gold.
5th Match: NEVER Openweight Championship- Shingo Takagi vs Tama Tonga
Singles record: 1-0-1 Takagi
When Tama Tonga began his third reign with the NEVER Openweight Championship at Destruction in Ryogoku, he was clear, not just in the violent form he won the title from David Finlay, but in his actions afterward about the vision he wanted for himself as champion. Quickly calling out Shingo Takagi for closure following a draw during the G1, Tama was intent on showing himself as a fighting champion in the ‘BMF’ mould that Shingo had maintained during the pandemic, a vision of himself as champion he was unable to show in brief reigns cut short by outside challengers.
Yet while Tama rolled the dice on a hard hitting defence against the Dragon, he paid the price, falling at V0 to Shingo in a gripping bout in Las Vegas. Shingo publicly declared a hit list of people that he wants to face in his own third NEVER reign, but the Guerrilla of Destiny was quick to jump the line and request a rematch for the gold before that list of Shingo’s can be put into action. In what is sure to be an intense battle, will it be fourth time lucky for Tama for a sustained reign as the NEVER Openweight Champion, or will Takagi make his second defence in the Tokyo Dome?
4th Match: Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL & Ren Narita)
Ever since Ren Narita turned on Shota Umino and joined HOUSE OF TORTURE, frustration has only continued to mount as Umino has tried and failed to get his hands on his former friend long enough to hit the Death Rider. As H.O.T have continued to get between the two, it became clear that Umino could not enact the vengeance he felt he deserved unless he had some backup. That backup came from Pro-Wrestling NOAH’s Kaito Kiyomiya, who himself has been embroiled in a feud with EVIL that has stretched between the two promotions. After the two young stars join forces at NOAH’s New Year card January 2 for an elimination bout, they tag once again, two on two in theory, under the ceiling of the Big Egg.
Yota Tsuji vs Yuya Uemura
Singles record: 15-10-22 Tsuji
Fated rivals from day one in their respective careers, Yota Tsuji and Yuya Uemura wrestle one on one for the first time since April 2021 in a special singles match.
Their first 21 encounters resulted in a string of ten minute draws, and when they had the benefit of experience and more time alloted to them, Uemura and Tsuji traded wins as Young Lions. But as excursions beckoned, Tsuji seemed to be a step ahead, eventually reaching a 15-10-22 record.
Both took their own separate paths in excursion and returned in contrasting form, Tsuji adding spectacle to his offensive arsenal while Uemura solidified already impressive fundamentals. Tsuji’s showiness expressed itself in an instant desire to wrestle in main event spots, while for Uemura, Wrestle Kingdom will be his first singles match since return from excursion.
The points of comparison are numerous, but the one that Tsuji feels he has proven is that he’s the better hand than Uemura. A tag victory over Just Five Guys at Power Struggle had the exclamation point of Tsuji hurling Uemura outside the ring in as dismissive a form as possible, while criticising that Uemura’s red colour scheme and long hair was stealing from his own look. Now they finally go head to head, will it be Tsuji solidifying his advantage, or will Uemura make a huge statement on the biggest of stages?
2nd Match: NJPW World TV Championship- Zack Sabre Jr. vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
Singles record: 6-5 Tanahashi
One year ago, Zack Sabre Jr. became the first NJPW World TV Champion, and has held the title ever since. 16 defences has set him as comfortably the winningest champion of the modern era in New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and as he looks to continue that reign into 2024, he’ll come up against Hiroshi Tanahashi.
The Ace is a different proposition to the youth oriented image that the World TV title was first introduced as, but with his own proven and at one time record breaking track record, he’s a fitting test for Sabre as he tries to complete a year as champ. The classical ideologies of both men should create a work of art in this title affair, but with only 15 minutes on the clock, can Tanahashi get the job done?
1st Match: IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships: Catch 2/2 (TJP & Francesco Akira) vs BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Drilla Moloney & Clark Connors)
Tag record: 3-0 War Dogs
Ever since Drilla Moloney turned his back on the United Empire to join forces with Clark Connors and BULLET CLUB War Dogs, Catch 2/2 have been looking for redemption, and always unable to attain it. A loss of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag titles at Independence Day was followed with another defeat during Sup[er Junior Tag League. TJP and Francesco Akira did go on to win that tournament, and declared to their adversaries that ‘Catch 2/2 would never die’ but the champions put that to a gruesome test December 22.
After a vicious first ever coffin match on December 22, TJP’s status in this match is in doubt. Will he be able to compete in the Tokyo Dome and bring his team to victory, or will this be a victory by forfeit for the champions?
Kickoff: KOPW 2024 New Japan Ranbo
As is NJPW January 4 tradition, the New Year kicks off with a New Japan Ranbo. The last four remaining in this times battle royal will head into New Year dash the next night in Sumida to comepete to be the first holder of the KOPW Championship belt in 2024. Who will it be?
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