10 Early Predictions For NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12

by John Bills

1. IWGP Heavyweight Championship - Kazuchika Okada (C) Vs. Tetsuya Naito

Tetsuya Naito New Japan Pro Wrestling
facebook.com/newjapaneng

All of which leaves only the main event - the IWGP Heavyweight Champion against the winner of the 2017 G1 Climax. Kazuchika Okada's current reign as champion is one of the great championship reigns of all time. Okada has put on incredible matches with opponents as varied as Omega, Bad Luck Fale, Minoru Suzuki, Katsuyori Shibata, and Tiger Mask W during this reign. If 2017 ended tomorrow, Okada would be wrestler of the year without doubt.

Tetsuya Naito was fancied by many to win the 2016 G1 Climax, and everything seemed to be going according to plan going into the final night of B Block. Kenny Omega upset the leader of Los Ingobernables on that night, and Naito's path back to glory was postponed for another year. Victory awaits the former champion in 2017.

The immensity of Okada/Omega has led to many fans forgetting just how important Tetsuya Naito is to the current product. Naito is the biggest merchandise seller in the company, and his Los Ingobernables de Japon faction is arguably the most popular act in the entire company. Naito's career is at its peak.

All of which makes an Okada vs. Naito Wrestle Kingdom main event something of an inevitability. The two were intended to headline Wrestle Kingdom 8, but fate decided against that. Four years later the situation is very different. No fan vote will stop this match from headlining the biggest show of the New Japan year in 2018.

Advertisement
Contributor
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.