NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13 in Tokyo Dome 1/4/19

[Beech27]

Jericho has arrived in Japan really early—and pretty suddenly—and has a press conference at 11 et, on Word. That is, in 45 minutes. I bet someone throws a chair.

[Jiji]

Table, baby. It's all about the table toss with Jericho in NJPW.

[Craig H]

YA FUCKFACE

[Jiji]

"I'm not tranquillo... I'm fucking crazy." I like that.

[Beech27]

Chris Jericho dressed like Rob Halford and talked me into being excited for his match.

Watched the first road to show also: Umino/Shingo was as good of a YL singles match as we’ve had in forever, and Shingo was really generous; Okada/Gedo was fuckery filled fun, and thank god Jado and Gedo are heels again; the main was cool too, and I’m stoked for the teased matches. Ospreay’s hair is very bad, though.

[Jiji]

Jericho's latest character transformation into the IWGP Intercontinental Championship is something else. lol, dude mixed up "champion" and "championship" at most every opportunity.

I am a happy boy because he dropped "ya stupidsonuvabitch" in there multiple times.

[Jenalysis]

Lovers vs Tana/Ospreay just now is a must-watch and a top-5 NJPW match this year.

 

[Beech27]

I don’t know what Kenny’s future plans are, but I hope they result in more of a focus on tags. For all that his title reign has left people feeling a bit eh, every Golden Lovers match has been great.

[Jiji]

I'm only on night one but that Taichi vs. Ishii six man tag was borderline great, the crowd ate it all up (particularly the Taichi/Ishii interactions), AND we got Christmas Miho Abe. More of that please. No Taichi in the G1 next year would be the ultimate travesty. 

Also, I hope they don't ditch the omnipresent intermatch theme song with the dramatic synthesized sounding vocals in the new year. 

Last random thought: I love SANADA's mask as much as I dislike the bleached beard. 

[FlaeBlazer]

So the Golden Lovers finished the show in the snow. If history’s any indicator, that likely means they’ll lose. Seriously. Go look back at like the last 4 Road to Tokyo Dome shows. The one who is the lasting image at the end of the year. The one celebrating in the snow always loses in the Dome match.

[Jiji]

Okay, that was fucking spectacular and as much as a I loved the Bucks/GL match for sentimental and, uh, theoretical (?) reasons, this was tighter, better executed, and without the affectations. Unreal quality of tag matches the Lovers have strung together this year. Charlton did a fantastic job of breaking down the psychology of all the stories involved. I've got this as third behind Dominion and Omega/Ishii. 

[The Natural]

[Curt McGirt]

The gloves are a great addition to that ensemble. 

How long is it until Jericho joins LIJ in some kind of senior member capacity? He's got all of the qualifications. 

[Beech27]

So Hiromu is, per his own blog, about 3/4 “back”, but maybe could show up for a roll call after Naito wins? Probably won’t happen! But if it does, it’s a good thing Tana would be the next guy to enter, since he’s about the only one who could get keep the crowd on that level.

[Jiji]

Dragon Lee vs. Hiromu at Fantasticamania!!!~!

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I would love to see LIJ in full force with Naito as IC champ, heavyweight tag champs; Evil & Sanada, and Jr. heavyweight tag champs; Shingo & Bushi.

[Sublime]

I'm pretty bummed that Taichi isn't even on the pre-show NEVER 6man Gauntlet as of right now.

[Raziel]

Man, they only put up 5 teams in the Gauntlet match, this is going to be the first Wrestle Kingdom in a while that a LOT of guys are getting left off the show without that Rumble to toss guys in.

[Sublime]

I thought there would be more teams to get more guys on. Figured we would of got Fale with some combination of Jado, Gedo or Robbie Eagles and atleast one team from the pool of Liger, Tiger Mask, TenKozy, Nagata, Nakanishi, Henare and Honma.

[Archibald]

Finally caught up with last NJPW stuff and some random thoughts:

I hope that Kenny loses, Ibushi can lose as well so that they could win tag titles and have a good run with it. Their tag team matches tend to always deliver while individually both guys sometimes end up annoying me.

I think that Sanada/Evil did some kind of Meltzer driver variation on Chase/Yujiro? Small thing really, but for some reason it stuck to me.

Looked over the pre-show gauntlet and I kinda think that Suzuki/KES should win? KES were protected in their semi-final WTL loss and Suzuki is Suzuki so I think they'd make most sense.

On the other hand I don't entirely see the reasoning behind putting Cobb, Marty and Page in pre-show. Do they have contracted dates that they have to fulfil even if they don't have anything for those guys? Because economically I don't see what sense does that make.

Hiromu should totally be special referee for Kushida/Ishimori.

Taichi not being on the card sucks, but him not being in G1 lead to some entertaining stuff (asides of Goto matches) so I'm hopeful that him not being in WK will also lead to some fun stuff next year as well.

[Jenalysis]

They did the Indytaker followed by the Magic Killer to shout out their opponents at WK.  (GOD and EVIL/SANADA also have a beef over the Magic Killer with GOD thinking they stole it from Bullet Club)

As for Cobb/Marty/Page maybe they'll feature in NYD?  There's also a big show the next night- could also be an angle involved.

 

[Pete]

Just throwing this out there...

[Archibald]

Omega does an interview with Japanese Rolling Stones, twitter thread with translations:

You know if he talked like this from the beginning then maybe he wouldn't have received as much pushback as he did.

[Doragon]

Tanahashi had a philosophical war with Nakamura before, this is playing out similar promo wise.

[Archibald]

He kinda had same thing with Shibata as well with saying, if I remember right, that his style is dead end. Which I guess he was proven right when Shibata almost killed himself.

And this being end of the Heisei era also plays into it. More I think about this Tanahashi/Omega feud more I like it. As I said, I just wish that Omega would have been more consistent from the start. But if match delivers then I think that in few years this will look great despite shaky start. Opposite of BC civil war that started hot and ended (?) on a whimper.