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

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.