12 Biggest Stories From NJPW's Year-End Events And How They Affect Wrestle Kingdom
Wrestle Kingdom nears as champions are crowned, challengers emerge, and major bouts are previewed.
New Japan Pro Wrestling had a slew of events in December as they wrapped up their annual World Tag League and embarked on the Road to Tokyo Dome. The tag tournament began back in November but officially wrapped on 9 December after seventeen nights of competition. Then just one week later, on 14 and 15 December, New Japan presented their final two shows of the year.
The World Tag League saw all of the company's top teams compete for bragging rights and a chance at the IWGP Heavyweight Tag belts. Then last Friday and Saturday's shows in Tokyo featured major previews for Wrestle Kingdom -- including a blow-away main event of Will Ospreay and Hiroshi Tanahashi against The Golden Lovers.
The countdown to NJPW's biggest show of the year has begun with several noteworthy moments going down recently. Those happenings -- from Chris Jericho's return to the company to a new NEVER Openweight champion and challenger, among other tales -- have led to one of the most packed Wrestle Kingdom cards in New Japan history.
With that, let's breakdown all of the major stories from the past few weeks and look at what's in store come 4 January.
12. Violent Internal Battles Strengthen Suzuki-Gun
Suzuki-gun had three separate teams taking part in the World Tag League which led to multiple fights among stablemates. Furthermore, the pairings led to some interesting new partnerships, specifically that of Taichi and Zack Sabre Jr. While on the surface, the two wrestlers couldn’t be further apart, they quickly became fast friends. By the tournament’s end they finished with a respectable sixteen points, losing only five of their eleven bouts.
One of those losses came at the hands of the Killer Elite Squad of Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer. Not only did the KES duo overcome the new friendship of Taichi and ZSJ, but they also defeated Takashi Iizuka and their group’s leader Minoru Suzuki en route to their eighteen point total.
Despite the rough inter-stable bouts, Suzuki-gun showed no signs of true inner strife. If anything, the battles seemed to please Minoru and helped to prove his group may be the most fearsome stable in all of New Japan. At Wrestle Kingdom, Suzuki and KES will return to the same side of the ring as they participate in the NEVER Six-Man number one contender's gauntlet.