10 Things That Must Happen At NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12

8. The Gauntlet Match Is Quick And Painless

NEVER Openweight 6way Bullet Club Taguchi Japan CHAOS Bad Luck Fale Tanga Loa Tama Tonga
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WWE has the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, New Japan has this. For the second straight year, the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships will be defended at Wrestle Kingdom in a gauntlet match. Five teams will do battle, but only one will come out with the title belts.

I’m a little bit annoyed that the Third Generation isn’t involved in this match. Kojima, Tenzan and Nagata are an obvious trio to hold the belts, but all three have seemingly been put out to pasture. As a result we get four teams from the factions of New Japan, and a gaijin trio that surely won’t be able to co-exist.

Picking a winner is a fool’s game. Elgin and War Machine aren’t likely to feature for the company much throughout the year, so can be ruled out here. The Suzuki-gun team has one of the best wrestlers (Zack Sabre Jr.) teaming with two of worst (Iizuka and Taichi). The last thing NJPW needs is more Suzuki-gun gold.

Bullet Club should retain the belts, if only because they are the most natural team on show. What is clear is that Tomohiro Ishii and Juice Robinson deserve so much better.

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Contributor

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.