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

3. Kushida Vs. Taiji Ishimori

It really speaks to the depth of New Japan's roster when one of the guaranteed show-stealers for Wrestle Kingdom was a Plan B in New Japan's grand scheme for this PPV.

In the spring of 2018, the company finally strapped the rocket to Hiromu Takahashi. After an excellent showing in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament, LIJ's resident catboy won the final against Taiji Ishimori (Bullet Club's newest recruit) in what was considered one of the greatest Juniors matches of all time. A week after this victory, Takahashi won the Junior Heavyweight title from Will Ospreay in an equally stupendous match at Dominion. Everything was put in place for the Time Bomb to have a long, fruitful title reign.

Unfortunately, just a month later at the G1 Special in San Francisco, Takahashi suffered a terrible neck injury in a defense against Dragon Lee. He miraculously finished the match, but his future in wrestling is uncertain.

With that roadblock, New Japan moved the title belt over to Kushida, the former ace of the division. The Time Splitter has always been regarded as one of the company's best in-ring workers, but because of his small stature and overall generic persona, he's clearly hit a ceiling in the New Japan hierarchy. At this point, the rumor mill surrounding Kushida has many suspecting he's on his way out of the company to head for greener pastures in WWE.

While this match with Ishimori will be spectacular, everyone's focus will mainly be on the result and what it will mean for the immediate future of NJPW's junior division.