4. Hirooki Goto
Whist we are on the subject of fairly obvious options, Hirooki Goto may as well change his gimmick name to 'The Gatekeeper' at this point. Goto is like a well-booked Dolph Ziggler in a number of ways. He's always hovering around the top of the card, occasionally wins a big tournament or multi-man match and can step up to the plate as a PPV IWGP Title challenger without ever truly being considered a threat. Goto was the last man to feud with Nakamura over the title, and also the only other man to have more than just the one reign with the title. He has enough name value with New Japan and its audience to be able to carry the strap, so in many ways he would provide the safe option until Gedo puts together a long-term booking plan. This seems unlikely, though, as Goto defeated Tetsuya Naito at Wrestle Kingdom and is on the road to a showdown with Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Title at New Beginning next month. See what I said above about the PPV title match and stepping up to the plate?
John Bills
Contributor
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.
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