One could argue that with the exception of WrestleMania, the biggest pro wrestling event of the year is the 1/4 show at the Tokyo Dome.
While it’s called Wrestle Kingdom 11, since that name started in 2007, the tradition of pro wrestling at the Dome on 1/4 dates back to 1992, and has been uninterrupted, even in the darkest years of the promotion when they had to give tickets away just to draw more than 10,000 fans.
Things were growing almost every year, with strong showings of more than 36,000 in 2014 and 2015, before falling to 29,000 (25,204 paid) last year.
This year’s show looks great on paper as far as match quality, but is missing that something new or special that would capture mainstream attention. If you look at the matches, it should be a great show, but as far as the excitement leading into the show, it feels the flattest in several years. The fallout with Pro Wrestling NOAH hurt, but even though they pulled Suzuki-gun, booker Jado and Toru Yano from NOAH, none are booked on this show unless it’s the pre-match Battle Royal, where actually I could see Yano and Jado fitting right into. They did a great build for a Katsuyori Shibata match with Katsuhiko Nakajima or a rematch with Go Shiozaki, but with that falling through, went to Shibata against Hirooki Goto.
This year’s show will air live starting at 2:30 a.m. Eastern time and 11:30 p.m. Pacific time late Tuesday night. The show will be live on New Japan World with Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino handling the broadcast, and then will be broken up into four one-hour shows on AXS TV.
The Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega IWGP title match will air on AXS on 1/13, and the Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi IC title match will air on 1/20 in the new regular time slot of 8 p.m. Eastern on Friday nights. The rest of the card will air over the next several weeks. What that pretty well tells you is that both main events are going to be very long matches since they are right now planned to be one match television shows.
Takaaki Kidani, the president of Bushiroad, the card company which is the parent company of New Japan and has been heavily invested in the growth of the company, did an interview this past week where he said New Japan is targeting the U.S. market in 2017. This has been said before and they have had a presence through their partnership with ROH and AXS, but he specifically talked about going into the market on their own. There had already been talk of doing a G-1 Climax show in 2017 in the U.S., with the leading candidate being Long Beach, CA, which would be the opening night or even nights of the 2017 G-1 Climax. Since they do split blocks, most likely this would be an A block night and a B block night, and by tradition, the first two nights usually have some of the best matches of the tournament.
AXS also announced this week that they have renewed New Japan for 2017 and will air 50 episodes during the year.
Okada vs. Omega will be the first time the two have ever met in a singles match. Okada was one of the most consistent big match performers in the world in 2016, and has been in that category for the past five years. Omega and A.J. Styles are usually talked of as the best big match performers over this past year, but looking at Okada’s record, and it’s hard to argue against him in that category as well.
The complete lineup is:
1) The annual New Japan Rumble. This is more a comedy match to get all the guys on the roster who aren’t otherwise booked, like Yoshytatsu, Bone Soldier, Manabu Nakanishi, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Yuji Nagata, Ryusuke Taguchi, Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask on the card along with a number of surprises and returning stars. The names are kept secret but stars from the 80s usually highlight the match. From a wrestling standpoint, the match is never very good as Japan isn’t good with Battle Royal type matches.
2) Tiger Mask W vs. Tiger the Dark. This is a special attraction match out of the Tiger Mask anime on TV-Asahi. Tiger Mask W will likely be Kota Ibushi, and Tiger the Dark is expected to be ACH. On paper, that sounds outstanding, but on the first show, because of the size and awkwardness of the giant Tiger head, Ibushi struggled with Juice Robinson as Red Death Mask.
3) Young Bucks vs. Rocky Romero & Baretta for the IWGP jr. tag team titles. This match will be all action, but it’ll be a challenge because junior heavyweights and foreigner vs. foreigner matches often struggle to get any heat at the Tokyo Dome. Plus it’s weird because of the size and how bad the sound carries, the audience is almost intimidated into being quiet for early matches, yet usually warm up as the show goes longer, as if they get less intimidated as they spend more time in the building.
4) A gauntlet match for the Never trios championship. It will be a series of trios matches. Champions Satoshi Kojima & Ricochet & David Finlay will likely get the bye to the final match. The other three teams are the LIJ reps, Seiya Sanada & Evil & Bushi, the Bullet Club trio of Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi & Hangman Page, and the Chaos trio of Tomohiro Ishii & Yoshi-Hashi & Will Ospreay.
5) Cody the American Nightmare vs. Juice Robinson. This is heel Cody Rhodes as a Bullet Club member, making his New Japan debut. I believe Robinson is in the position that Michael Elgin would have been in but he wasn’t able to return in time for this show after his recent eye surgery.
6) Kyle O’Reilly vs. Adam Cole for the ROH title. This is a tough part of the show because you’ve got two straight singles matches without a Japanese performer. O’Reilly’s singles matches usually get over great in Japan.
7) Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa defend the IWGP heavyweight tag team titles against Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma. The match doesn’t sound great on paper, but these four tore the house down in the tag team tournament finals that Makabe & Honma won to set up this match.
8) Kushida vs. Hiromu Takahashi for the IWGP jr. title. Takahashi is the former Kamaitachi. He became the newest member of LIJ this past week. That probably means lots of outside interference. Takahashi will no doubt do some crazy things to get over and this should be a highlight match. The interference spots could weigh it down and it is a junior heavyweight match at the dome.
9) Shibata vs. Goto. The match will probably be great. These two are high school best friends who started out together, and had a great feud a few years ago. They went back to it as Shibata needed a new opponent. They set it up with an angle this past weekend but it just felt like something that wasn’t fresh.
10) Naito vs. Tanahashi for the IC title. This is another match that will be great. With Tanahashi banged up, it may have a hard time topping the standard of the matches these two have had in the past. But on a big show, Tanahashi has been the most consistent best wrestler in the world going the last seven or so years.
11) Okada vs. Omega for the IWGP title.
Sadly this could and probably will happen
