New Japan Pro Wrestling Wrestle Kingdom 14 Night One

New Japan Pro Wrestling

Wrestle Kingdom 14 Night One

January 4^th 2020

Tokyo Dome

Naoki Sano, Shinjiro Otani, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, and Ryusuke Taguchi defeat Jyushin Thunder Liger, Tatsumi Fujinami, The Great Sasuke, and Tiger Mask in 8 minutes and 52 seconds when Taguchi pins Liger

New Japan has such a large core roster that they very rarely have occasion to do this type of nostalgia tag match that is so prevalent on big shows from other puro companies. But this was a very fun way to kick off Jyushin Thunder Liger’s retirement, as he stood next to childhood idols, friends and rivals from throughout his career (plus the somewhat out of place Ryusuke Taguchi). Bringing back old school New Japan ring announcer Kero Tanaka was an awesome touch. Ultimately the match was little more than a nostalgia trip, but it had a lot of charm and felt well-earned given Liger’s legendary career. None of the old legends were in the ring long enough to embarrass themselves, and there were enough bodies to keep this surprisingly high paced for an old guys match. ***

Zack Sabre Jr, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, and El Desperado defeat SANADA, EVIL, Shingo Takagi, and BUSHI in 8 minutes and 39 seconds when Sabre forces BUSHI to submit

A thoroughly average eight man tag. LIJ and Suzukigun tend to have great chemistry in these multiman matches, but there was ultimately very little that stood out in this match, and certainly nothing to make it seem worthy of this huge stage. The Korakuen tag matches from the end of 2019 were actually much more effective in terms of hyping up the following night’s ZSJ/SANADA showdown than this match was, and were better matches to boot. That said, this was short enough to be inoffensive, and there was at least a bit of continuity as Sabre got revenge on BUSHI after the LIJ pineater upset him at the end of the last Road To show. ** ½

Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano, and YOSHI-HASHI defeat KENTA, Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, and Yujiro Takahashi in 8 minutes and 17 seconds when Goto pins Yujiro

Another “get everybody on the card” tag match that was ultimately even less noteworthy than the previous eight man. Ishii hitting a brainbuster on the massive Fale was the only real highlight. The match was compact and competently worked but also totally inconsequential. **

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Finjuice (Juice Robinson & David Finlay) defeat Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) to gain the titles in 13 minutes and 25 seconds when Finlay pins Tama

One of the problems with the World Tag League tour is that it’s final match tends to suck all of the feel good momentum out of the Tokyo Dome Tag Title bouts, which are inevitably shorter and less dramatic than the tournament finals that come a mere few weeks beforehand. It was great to see the long-neglected David Finlay pick up a big pinfall over EVIL at the end of that tournament, and still kind of cool to see him cleanly defeat Tama Tonga here, but the earlier match felt like the real crowning achievement. Of course it doesn’t help that this time Finjuice were facing the ultra-bland G.O.D. tag team that has done so much to weigh down this division in recent years with their tepid crowd brawling, lame Jado interference spots, and general disregard for match structure, all of which were in evidence here. Hopefully the new charismatic babyface tag team can lead this stale division in a better direction in 2020. **

Texas Death Match for the United States Heavyweight Championship: Jon Moxley knocks out Lance Archer to gain the title in 14 minutes and 26 seconds

The competitors could only win here via submission or when their opponent was so incapacitated that they could not answer a 10 count. Moxley and Archer thankfully avoided the typical Last Man Standing match pitfall of the referee counting after every clothesline, and smartly paced the counts so that they only happened after big spots that looked like plausible match-enders. They also laid the match out well enough that there was very little downtime spent searching for weapons under the ring or setting up convoluted spots. The weapons used mostly seemed realistic in this context, with Archer’s use of a plastic bag to smother Moxley being particularly vicious. There was a very awkward moment where Moxley threw some terrible looking knee strikes that Archer sold despite Moxley clearly missing his head by at least a foot on all of them, but outside of that this was a pretty terrific match of its type. The ending, with Moxley giving Archer the Death Rider DDT from the apron through two tables was a great and convincing knockout finish, leaving Archer’s arm soaked in blood. *** ½

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi pins Will Ospreay to gain the title in 24 minutes and 33 seconds

There was a great story leading into this match, with Hiromu struggling with ring rust during the last set of Road To shows and Ospreay continuing his post-Best of the Super Juniors run as the dominant world beater of the Junior division. This story of Hiromu struggling to return to his pre-neck injury glory days made the match much more interesting and meaningful than it would’ve been had it simply been a collection of high octane and incredibly athletic spots. Those amazing spots were still there throughout the match, with one sequence involving Ospreay missing a Sasuke Special, flipping out of a Hiromu German Suplex attempt, and then diving back into the ring to successfully hit a Sasuke Special being a particular mind-blowing highlight. But neither performer ever lost sight of the narrative of the match, which found Ospreay ruthlessly targeting Hiromu’s previously injured neck, which made sense both as a way to get crowd heat and to set up Ospreay’s Hidden Blade-into-Stormbreaker finishing sequence. However in the end it was Hiromu who dropped Ospreay on his head, with a brutal new Emerald Frosion-style finisher called the Time Bomb II. **** ½

IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Tetsuya Naito pins Jay White to gain the title in 33 minutes and 54 seconds

The highly methodical pace, extreme length and predictability of this match made it rather difficult to get into, especially after the excitement of the previous match. This felt more like a post-G1 briefcase defense than it did the semi-main event of Wrestle Kingdom. It did its job of putting the pieces in place for Naito to finally triumph over the dastardly man who had previously cost him a spot in the G1 finals and the IC Title, but that story could have been more effectively told in half the time.

The structure of this match, which found White (sometimes with help from a tediously interfering Gedo) slowly grinding down Naito until the LIJ leader managed to find an opening for a comeback, was simply not interesting, and only added to the feeling of inevitability that the hero would come back and triumph in the end. White often gets slagged for having somewhat dull offense, but he’s certainly proven in the past that he can effectively and creatively target a body part. (See last year’s Anniversary Show match against Ospreay, the Best of the Super Juniors Finals show match with Tanahashi, and the G1 Finals bout with Ibushi for examples of great ruthless beatdowns from White). However his attack on Naito’s knee here really was quite pedestrian. It was helped by some great selling from Naito, particularly during a moment where he failed to springboard on his trademark DDT spot. But it was never enough to make me not just want to get on to the next phase of this Double Gold Dash story. ** ½

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada pins Kota Ibushi to retain the title in 39 minutes and 16 seconds

Okada’s glow in the dark robe entrance was truly epic, and a great visual cue for fans new and old that this guy is the number one star in the company. That said, his long match formula has been wearing a bit thin for me over the past year, and this match was partially a victim of that. This match started out so slowly that really nothing of note happened for basically its first half. Prior to Ibushi’s brutal Bastard Driver (which occurs nearly 20 minutes after the bell rings) there is really no sense of either man attempting to actually win the match or even set up a strategy for winning the match down the line. There’s no sense of urgency or of a story being told, and nothing that happens in this early portion the match has any real bearing on how the match ends. It’s just two guys slowly grappling and feeling each other out as a way to pad time and bring this match to the requisite epic length.

That said, the second half of this match contains some of the very best wrestling that you will ever see anywhere, with each man throwing bombs at the other and executing some dazzling counters to signature offense. Ibushi’s closed-fist strikes after going into dead eyed murder mode felt real, and while the match overall would have been more effective if it felt like Okada had really done something in the first half to push Ibushi to this point (say by dominating him rather than going 50/50 in the early grappling portion) there’s a certain visceral thrill to seeing the dominant champ getting rocked by real-looking punches that works regardless of context. Okada’s beautiful dropkick escape from Ibushi’s Kamigoye and Ibushi’s ecstatic clothesline reversal of Okada’s Rainmaker also stand out as amazingly crisp counters. The whole lengthy closing stretch was really so incredible that it brought the whole thing to borderline greatness, but the totally uneventful first half of this match can’t be entirely ignored, and for me disqualifies this match from Match of the Year consideration. ****