10 Things WWE Can Learn From Wrestle Kingdom 12
1. Victory In Defeat
One of the biggest takeaways for first-time viewers of NJPW is often that even those who lose end up looking like a million bucks.
On Thursday, it was the turn of Tetsuya Naito, who saw his challenge for the IWGP Title come up just short; Chris Jericho, beaten after half an hour by Kenny Omega; and Jay White, undone by veteran Tanahashi after a valiant go the IC Championship.
The WWE creative team, for all of their sins, clearly know how to do this as well. Some of the most celebrated matches in the company's history - Stone Cold against Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13 and Benoit against Angle at the Rumble spring immediately to mind - have seen the loser emerge with more credibility than they had going in.
So, how come they manage to let us down so often? In the last year alone, we've seen the likes of Bray Wyatt and Shinsuke Nakamura suffer career-defining defeats from which it appears they may never recover.
The company has gotten into the unfortunate habit of putting over its current "projects" to the detriment of their opponents - and, in the long-term, it only serves to weaken the pool of main event players.