Last month New Japan Pro Wrestling held its biggest yearly event, Wrestle Kingdom, but in doing something new they held two events on different nights. The main events were matches for the IWGP title and Intercontinental titles. The second night was a match with those two champions facing each other with the winner becoming the double champion.
Since then NJPW announced they wouldn’t be doing that against for next year for the event in 2021.
Truthfully I am okay with that. Not that this year’s event was bad or I didn’t like it. Wrestle Kingdom 14 was amazing on both nights! But I look at it that you can put together a mighty single send-off for the previous year with a single show instead of doing a double show. It wasn’t like they had a huge amount of names and most of the wrestlers were on both shows and they were in good matches.
I’ll admit that the retirement matches with Jushin “Thunder” Liger made me cry. I have a long history of being a fan of his. It was a hell of a way to see him go.
Now, I’ll be honest and say while I am in favor of a single Wrestle Kingdom show, there are things I would change.
The 3 man team rumble for the 6 man tag team belts is something I never got into. It is usually teams representing the different factions and a team of the legends thrown in. That has been done before and didn’t really hold my interest. The pre-show rumble of years past held my interest more than that. Having a 6 man tag match between two teams would be fine enough for me.
Having 3 or 4 teams fight for the Junior heavyweight tag belts also seemed like too much and it never delivered on what was promised either. If you want to put a bunch of men on a single show, NJPW could do something instead of things like that and make things interesting even for a single event.
A regular battle royal could be an idea. Not one of those goofy style battle royals you see come from Japan a lot but something like in the United States with a lot of guys at once. Sure, Battle Royals may not be part of NJPW culture as much as it is in America but it is an idea. Or something really new to involve a lot of guys like that. Something that hasn’t been used before and completely new.
No matter what they do just make it the show that Wrestle Kingdom deserves to be. It doesn’t need to be a double show to make things special for the wrestlers competing and the fans watching the show.
