10 Things NJPW Got Right At Wrestle Kingdom 12

6. A New Beginning

EVIL SANADA Wrestle Kingdom 12
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NJPW’s heavyweight tag team division has been severely lacking for years now. Gaijin teams have dominated without inspiring any excitement, and the lazy booking remains the black mark on Gedo’s report card. 2018 could be the year that changes, but there is a long way to go yet.

The Wrestle Kingdom 12 title match between Killer Elite Squad and the Los Ingobernables duo of SANADA and EVIL was the right way to kick off what needs to a renaissance year for the division. Archer and Smith looked like absolute beasts from the get-go, destroying the challengers along with everything else in their path. The two looked like genuine monsters, harking back to the glory days of gaijin teams in Japan.

The Los Ingobernables team put on a great performance too, especially the man with the tallest hair in professional wrestling. SANADA is another one who is gearing up for a huge 2018, and at WK12 he once again showed that there is a babyface megastar in him. If you’re going to put money on a new individual main-eventing the Dome within five years, put the house on SANADA.

To top it all off, the heavyweight tag division now has a credible homegrown team on top and a somewhat fresh look to it. It has been a long time since there was this much optimism in the New Japan tag ranks.

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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.