7 Ups & 5 Downs From NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 (Review)
Kenny Omega & Will Ospreay steal the show, TAFKA Sasha Banks makes a bold new statement...sort of.
It is pointless and insincere to suggest that New Japan Pro Wrestling is just as hot across the wrestling world going into Wrestle Kingdom 17 as it was for Wrestle Kingdom 11, 12, 13, 14 or really any January 4th card that came before an ongoing global pandemic that's not yet over and remains acknowledged as such by the company itself.
But those ones between 2017-2019 specifically are notable for a reason - those were the editions headlined or co-headlined by Kenny Omega.
Breaking through as the company's joint top star following a legendary and plate-shifting headliner against Kazuchika Okada in 2017, Omega and Chris Jericho "changed the world" a year later, before 'The Best Bout Machine' bowed out of NJPW by looking at The Dome lights for Hiroshi Tanahashi in 2019 before the formation of All Elite Wrestling. Will Ospreay dutifully stepped in his place almost immediately, but the landscape was changing beyond The Elite giving their notices at the same time.
January 4th 2020's event was the last major stadium wrestling show before before the pandemic closed everything down, and up until January 4th 2023, fans were - at best - only to allowed to clap in support of the action in order to express their emotions.
The buzz on both sides of the Pacific was palpable - fans in Japan were finally going to be able to cheer again, on a card that theoretically gave them multiple opportunities to do so. Meanwhile, western fans were keen on the Omega/Ospreay generational bout, Kenny's return to NJPW in general, and something resembling the audio/visual experience that has been gone from New Japan for far, far too long.
Could the card - headlined not by Ospreay and Omega but the prestigious IWGP Championship bout between Jay White and Kazuchika Okada - meet or exceed these lofty expectations?