10 Early Predictions For NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13

5. IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship - Submissions Match - KUSHIDA (C) Vs. Marty Scurll

Marty Scurll KUSHIDA Wrestle Kingdom 12
NJPW1972.com

The junior heavyweight division is another extremely difficult one to predict. When Hiromu Takahashi dispatched KUSHIDA at the beginning of 2017, many predicted a changing of the guard and a potential move up to heavyweight for the Time-splitter. Neither truly came to pass.

Some fans may see KUSHIDA’s continuing presence in the junior division as stagnation, but that has more to do with WWE’s presentation of cruiserweight wrestling than anything else. KUSHIDA is the big native star of the division, and as such he will be sniffing around the title come 4 January 2019.

Marty Scurll will be the man opposite him, and The Villain will claim his second IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship in this match. Will Ospreay seems to be an integral part of New Japan right now, but it would be no surprise to see him turn up in NXT eventually. Scurll looks like he is following the path of his fellow Bullet Club members, and will be making more than enough outside of WWE to prosper.

New Japan rarely adds stipulations to junior matches, but lets go ahead and say that this one can only end via submission.

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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.