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NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 2022: 1/4, 1/5 and 1/8

Archibald

By Archibald
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Archibald

Archibald

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Ok, since it looks like I'm only person still fully watching NJPW in the current year then I'll try to explain what, in my opinion, is going on and whats the plan for ending this "season". Obviously this will contain spoilers.

Since we started getting double domes NJPW started booking "gimmick matches". First time we had double dash tournament. Last year we had "Jay cheated" storyline. With Ospreay being back and declaring that he is real champ who never lost its fairly obvious that the plan here is to do "fake vs real" champ. 1/4 is likely to be champ vs G1 winner because thats the tradition. Ospreay wanted to beat Okada in the dome before shows got cancelled so thats likely going to be his match. Maybe it is semi-main on 1/4, maybe it is main on 1/5 and we get "fake vs real" on 1/8. Either way I feel like we are 100% getting Ospreay vs someone in main WK main event.

This means that Okada is likely not winning G1. He rolled up Cobb at the Dome, then got beaten by him at Grand Slam. Now they are in same G1 block. I think that Cobb is going to beat Okada again and maybe screw him out of the finals. They have one final singles match at Power Struggle where Okada finally convincingly beats him. This would be traditional NJPW booking with challenger beating #2 guy and going to face the faction leader.

Shingo is walking into G1 as the champ, but my suspicion is that he is not walking into WK as one. I think he is dropping it at Power Struggle to Ibushi because to me it looks like the overall plan is for Ibushi to beat Ospreay in main WK main event. If I'm not mistaken Power Struggle never had heavyweight title change so it has to happen at some point and now is as good opportunity to do it as ever.

Who wins G1? I think it doesn't really matter in this situation since I have Ibushi being the champ and beating G1 winner. So can't Ibushi just win G1 then? I think its unlikely that he'd win 3 in a row. My wild guess would be that its either Naito or Sanada.

So thats what my view is on main WK matches. Maybe later I'll try to write up what I think is going on with other titles.

 

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Archibald

Archibald

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17 hours ago, Raziel said:

Do we need a show thread 4 months out?

Maybe, maybe not. I guess mods could merge it to general discussions thread if they feel like it.

Anyway, some more of my thoughts and where I think things are going.

With addition of Bey in USA and Sho in Japan, Bullet Club now has 16 members. It was too big last year and this year it got even bigger. But I think that things might finally be changing with the addition of House of Torture. Asides of guys involved it does sound like The Elite/Firing Squad situation. White does not have an obvious opponent for WK and he is one of the main guys. Evil does not have obvious match either and he is not really pushed down the card since he just got a title match and looking at G1 blocks it is plausible that he makes the finals.

There were lots of talking last year how Evil does not really fit Bullet Club and should have created his own faction. Well maybe House of Torture was that, but due to Covid and them being short on guys (even more than now, I know, hard to believe) they possibly delayed formation of this new faction. So you know, White/Evil for NEVER title and Bullet Club leadership at WK. White wins and Evil leaves with few guys to form a new faction that does lots of bullshit in their matches.

On another side we have GoD and Good Brothers doing obvious work on Twitter and Resurgence show. In a way this does feel like a continuation of half-finished Bullet Club/The Elite feud since GB are associated with Kenny and Bucks now (or at least where when I last saw them). Big question here is can they get GB to Japan, if they can then I think that GoD/GB is happening at WK. Since GB are Impact tag team champions and we have multiple days to fill I think its likely that we'll also get some mini tournament for tag team titles that ends with GoD being double tag team champs just like they did after MSG, hopefully no Enzo/Cass this time. But as I said, if they can't get Good Brothers into Japan then none of it happens.

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Spontaneous

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I could see Night 1 with Ibushi defeating G1 winner Sanada and Ospreay defending the real world title vs Okada. Night 2, Ibushi vs Ospreay. Night 3, Ibushi vs whomever challenges after 1/5, Tanahashi?

I wonder what titles end up defended. Maybe they could work out Moxley for a stretch, vs Tanahashi for the IWGP US title? I imagine the tag belts are candidates to be defended at least twice. 

Hiromu-Ishimori was second from the top, could Hiromu-Desperado headline a show? That and Ibushi-Okada are the only simmering feuds they have.

Getting Lawlor over to defend the Strong Openweight title one of the nights would be awesome. 

A lot depends on restrictions on travel in the months leading up to this. 

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Archibald

Archibald

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13 hours ago, Salads said:

I'm not confused at all by the current belt-holding situation, but I'm wondering how many consecutive years they'll feel the need to keep setting up these double night title match scenarios.

Probably as long as we get double dome shows. Which makes me wonder, what was the original plan? Because surely they didn't plan that Ospreay is going to vacate the title, or did they?

Anyway, to me it looks like Goto/Yoshi/Yoh vs Evil/Yujiro/Sho is going to be WK title match for trios belts.

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Salads

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On 11/15/2021 at 8:55 AM, Archibald said:

Probably as long as we get double dome shows. Which makes me wonder, what was the original plan? Because surely they didn't plan that Ospreay is going to vacate the title, or did they?

I'm assuming not, because I don't think they've had the luxury of being able to follow through any long term plans over the last two years. They may not have known who was going to win the G1, for example.

It would be fascinating to see all of what could possibly be tens of booking revisions that have had to be made to date what with covid cases, covid regulations, injuries, title vacations etc. Every now and then Tony Khsn mentions how he's in regular contact with NJPW - speculation on my part but assuming there's a desire for talent to move both ways across the Pacific there may have been a plan early on that's had to be  kciked down the road from 2020 to 2022 with amendments needed each time.

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Eivion

Eivion

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1 hour ago, matt925 said:

Will be the first of many “dream events” for the 50th anniversary.

Won't happen, but I would love it if these dream events were NJPW vs. other promotions in general. One for AJPW, WWE, AEW, and maybe CMLL.

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matt925

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1 minute ago, Eivion said:

Won't happen, but I would love it if these dream events were NJPW vs. other promotions in general. One for AJPW, WWE, AEW, and maybe CMLL.

To me that implies more crossover shows. There’s no way wwe could happen, maybe a few years ago nxt but not now, but I think there will be more. And it might not make sense for aew to co-promote a show with new japan here in the us, but maybe an aew vs new japan show in japan could happen. Tony said he’s been in talks with gedo and new japan about future plans, and it was assumed it was about Okada, but what if aew could go to japan next year?

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