13 Ups & 4 Downs From NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13

3. Gauntlet Tedium

There's more to unpack when it comes to NJPW's decision to reshuffle the WK card and throw the NEVER Openweight contendership gauntlet on the pre-show. We'll get to that later, but the match was, for long portions, a struggle to get through, and a lot less fun than the New Japan Rambo that made way for it.

NJPW gave these guys more time than usual. Appropriate, considering big stars like Hirooki Goto and Minoru Suzuki were involved, but there was little to get excited about outside a handful of early dives. David Finlay scoring two consecutive pinfalls is significant, as is the apparent dissent between former Bullet Club bros Hangman Page, Marty Scurll, and Yujiro Takahashi. These things aside, the gauntlet offered little excitement outside the final fall.

Skip to said closing stretch if you plan on watching WK13 on demand; the rest isn't worth your time.