NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13: Every Match Ranked By Level Of Hype

By Jack Robert / January 2, 2019

Well, we did it lads and lasses. We somehow managed to survive another onslaught that was a year in the 21st century. For our endurance and perseverance, the wrestling gods are rewarding us with New Japan's annual 4 January Tokyo Dome show: the 13th instalment of Wrestle Kingdom.

Admittedly, while New Japan have assembled one of the deepest wrestling cards in history, there isn't quite as much giddy anticipation for this year's show in comparison to others, at least among the New Japan faithful. Part of it has to do with the white hot excitement that preceded last year's Wrestle Kingdom, with Chris Jericho making his shocking return to the promotion, and Tetsuya Naito being the hottest act in the world at the time.

But another part is that over the past year, New Japan fans have been left with more questions than answers. As the company continues to restructure and refocus their efforts on appealing to a global audience, the feeling among NJPW diehards is that there's been a shift in soul for the company. The shows still have the best wrestling in the world, but fans like to know where a promotion is heading in terms of creative and philosophical direction, and in terms of this year's Wrestle Kingdom, we have no idea what's going on in their mind.

But that's all high-minded philosophical jargon. This 10-match card is still amazing on paper, and we're gonna tell you what to be most excited for, darn it!

10. Pre-Show Gauntlet Match

New Japan fans like to positively compare the company's cards to that of WWE, and in terms of main event matches, Vince's Meatshack is absolutely blown out of the water. But let's be real: by design, the majority of matches on an average New Japan card are meant to be forgettable toss that kill time and get a bunch of people on the show. For big shows like Wrestle Kingdom, they tend to go for an All Killer, No Filler Mentality, and so the past few years, only one or two matches have been used in this capacity. This year, New Japan is kind enough to keep it to one match, on the pre-show, no less.

Instead of the traditional "New Japan Rumble" (which is a meaningless Rumble match that's just used to get cheap pops), WK13's pre-show will be headlined by a multi-team gauntlet match to determine the #1 contenders for the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Championships (currently the Guerrillas of Destiny and Taiji Ishimori). They will do battle the following night at New Year's Dash (AKA: NJPW's answer to the RAW after WrestleMania).

While most of the teams in this match are assembled from factions (Suzuki-gun, CHAOS, The Elite), there's one motley team that is actually compelling. Teaming with Ryuske Taguchi will be Togi Makabe and Toru Yano. Despite being CHAOS's comedy stalwart, Yano has formed an unlikely alliance with former stablemate Makabe recently. If there's any "story" in this match, it will be whether or not there's still bad blood so many years after Yano betrayed Makabe to form CHAOS with Shinsuke Nakamura.