10 Early Predictions For NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13

10. New Japan Rumble

Katsuya Kitamura
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It is fair to assume that this is going to be a staple of Wrestle Kingdom for the next few years, if not until the event comes to an end. This is a wrestling pre-show match done right, an action-packed and fun-filled riot of a bout that gets everyone on the show in some form or another. It also allows for legends to return for one night only, and yes Cheeseburger is now surely a Tokyo Dome legend

Guessing the winner of the match is borderline pointless. Who could have foreseen Masahito Kakihara entering last and winning the Wrestle Kingdom 12 Rumble? Nobody, that’s who. The same could be said of Jado’s victory at Wrestle Kingdom 10. The New Japan Rumble isn’t about winners and losers.

Even so, let’s go ahead and predict a winner. Could a member of the Third Generation pull out the victory? Satoshi Kojima is usually among the favourites, but a win is yet to come his way. There hasn’t been a heel winner as of yet, so could that honour fall into the lap of Yujiro Takahashi or a member of Suzuki-gun?

Quite possibly, but I’m going to go ahead and say that Katsuya Kitamura returns from excursion at next year’s Wrestle Kingdom and takes the New Japan Rumble. NJPW obviously has high hopes for the beast, but his age is working against him. He will go to North America on excursion in 2018, ready to return with aplomb at the Tokyo Dome.

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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.