10 Early Predictions For NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12

10. The New Japan Rumble

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The Wrestle Kingdom 12 pre-show will almost certainly feature the annual New Japan Rumble. This is a match that resembles WWE's Royal Rumble, but eliminations can also come via pinfall or submission. It is almost always a throwaway bit of fun, a way of getting everyone else on the card and warming up the crowd ahead of the main show.

The Rumble usually features a mixture of current performers and nostalgic entries, and predicting a winner is largely a futile task. Michael Elgin was a worthy victor in 2017, but Jado (of all people) stood tall the year prior. The winner usually gets a shot at a championship later in the year.

For the sake of conversation, let's go ahead and say that the 2018 edition of the New Japan Rumble will be won by a particularly grumpy Togi Makabe. With Honma out injured, Makabe's presence on the card is dwindling all the time. The man is still a star in Japan though, so don't expect him to come up short in a throwaway match.

Expect a strong performance from Katsuya Kitamura and surprise entries from Scott Norton, Lance Archer and others, including at least one ex-WWE star. Let's go with a random Bully Ray appearance.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.