10 Things NJPW Got Right At Wrestle Kingdom 12

by John Bills

1. LOL Okada Wins

Kazuchika Okada
Instagram, @NJPW1972

For the third straight year, Wrestle Kingdom ended with Kazuchika Okada retaining the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. For the second year running, the Rainmaker did so at the expense of someone who seemed ready to take over as the top dog in the company. Tetsuya Naito is clearly the most over wrestler in NJPW, and most fans are apoplectic with rage that he isn’t currently the IWGP Heavyweight Champion.

The truth is this match told a wonderful story that ended exactly as it should. Well, I shouldn’t be too hasty, as this story is far from over. Much like Okada’s feud with Hiroshi Tanahashi, this is a multi-year monster that fans need to be patient with. Regardless, Okada winning made sense because of what happened in the 36 minutes between bells in this match.

Tetsuya Naito had made it back to the top of the New Japan world by eschewing everything that got him there in the first place. No longer did he pander to the crowd, preferring to rebel against anything and everything instead. On January 4, 2018, Naito lost confidence in the new him and reverted to type, and it blew up in his face.

Naito tried to hit his old Stardust Press finisher, but was unsuccessful. After hitting a second Destino, the leader of Los Ingobernables de Japon decided to rally the crowd and hit a third, receiving a spinning tombstone and Rainmaker instead. This wasn’t the Naito of the last 18 months - this was a hybrid Naito.

And Okada is too good to lose to someone who is so unsure of themselves. This current championship reign will go down in history as one of the greatest of all time. The matches have been consistently excellent, and there may be months to go yet. Whoever beats him will get an almighty rub, but fans need to stop obsessing over that. Enjoy the reign for what it is, not how it might end.

Wrestle Kingdom 12 more than delivered. NJPW is on a roll the likes of which have not been seen in a long time, and as fans we are unimaginably lucky to be here to enjoy it.

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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.