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What did you think of Wrestle Kingdom 13?
0 voters
A show that felt brisk and never too long, I was very invested in Kenny so I was sad about the finish but the main event was tremendous. Is Ibushi okay? All titles changing lent the main event an air of unpredictability. Top three matches delivered in a big way, and there was a vey high average quality despite the lack of a clear MOTY contender.
Andrew Bates
Saint John, N.B.
Tyler from Orlando,
I’ve now been watching NJPW for a full year, definitely a fun & fulfilling product to follow. Although I think I liked last year’s show better, this one was definitely worth staying up for. Jay White beating Okada was the only result that surprised me, I’m completely sold on White I think he’s legit & the future of that company. Some of the under card matches felt like they needed more time, but I still enjoyed the card as a whole. Interested in New Year’s Dash to see some of the new angles, particularly to see if Jericho sets something new up.
Mj Live in NY
Great show. Tremendous showings by almost the entire roster and in my opinion some great booking decisions - LIJ reigns supreme and Jay White with the huge upset.
Based on the body language and comments picked up on the camera mics it would appear The Elite are leaving another territory.
The show felt more concise than last year and no part dragged. They signed off at exactly the 4 hour mark.
I was loving every bit of Ibushi and Osprey but that ending left me in real dismay. I have a hard time loving what was an incredible match not knowing if a guy is okay. There was a picture where his teeth looked broken. He is still handsome.
I love Wrestle Kingdom. So many people online chatting about it and knowing people are watching at all kind of weird hours makes it a real global experience.
Louis from Long Beach. It’s 4am here but I’m glad I stayed up for this show.
A great Wrestle Kingdom as always but I have to say I would put this behind last year’s as far as the quality of matches. I think Ibushi vs Osprey was good but not the blow away match that I think most of us were expecting. Also is Ibushi legitimately hurt? It’s always hard to tell with injuries in wrestling but there were some really scary spots in that match so just want to know if John has any update. The Sabre/Ishii match was really good as well and was a good palette cleanser after the jr tag match.
The biggest shocker on the show was the Jay White/Okada match. Okada comes out in his original entrance and brings back the tights(To the appreciation of WH I’m sure) and Jay White beats him clean. I was l legitimately shocked and I have to say when you compare last years’s WK match to this year it’s night and day the comfort that Jay White has in his Character and the reaction’s he’s able to garner from the crowd.
The Main Event was great but I would say it brought to an end a pretty disappointing championship run for Kenny Omega. What felt so transformational and world changing at Dominion ends with New Japan going back to it’s old guard and seemingly discarding the Elite with all of them losing their matches tonight.
New Years Dash will tell us all we need to know about the future of New Japan and where the ELITE fit in if at all.
Matthew from Australia here, finishing the show at 11PM my time this year, much different to a mid-day show. Show flew by. Live tweeted all night so here’s a summary of what I thought:
Dave from Sydney
Talk about a new era!
Sensational card with the under card flying by before the final 3 matches. Every match was great in its own way and it never felt like I saw the same thing twice throughout matches. A big plus for being able to watch this in a time slot of 7pm till 11pm on a Friday night was bliss, sorry to rub it in.
Ospreay and Ibushi felt a touch shorter then it should have been and just slightly missed that slide in the next gear, however these things aside this match was great.
Little Kushida freaked me a out a little too much.
Main event stole the show for me and I loved every minute of it.
Naito and Ace becoming champs felt like the right direction for the company and that we are in for a very solid year of wrestling from New Japan
Jalen from Pickering,
Firstly, I hope Ibushi is okay, seeing that really brought me down.
I gotta give props to New Japan on their production, beautiful stuff. Everything from the Okada/White VTR onward felt exactly as it should’ve. I believed in every babyface and wanted them to win, even Okada who I had pegged as losing, until he came out.
The reactions that Okada, Naito, and Tanahashi generated from the crowd were incredible and shows what genuine longterm investment from the company and crowd can lead to.
LIJ is the best faction in the world for my money, and 2019 looks poised to be their year. I can’t wait to see where the group goes, especially when Takahashi returns.
While not the best WK ever, this show was a bold statement on New Japan’s part, and sets themselves up perfectly for a massive 2019. 17/20
Edward from London, ON
As a member of Post Wrestling since day 1, I never leave feedback as I enjoy John and Wai’s perspective on the shows they watch. Having said that, if I got up at 1:50AM to watch this show I should leave some thoughts.
I’m sure the matches you will discuss as being excellent I will agree with you (Ospreay/Ibushi, White/Okada, Naito/Jericho and Omega/Tanahashi), however the other matches on the card, by no means bad matches, had finishes that left me wanting more. It’s possible that from years of watching all kinds of wrestling to expect plenty of false finishes and near-fall/counter spots in big time matches, but I felt most of the other matches on the card had the winners give their finish, 1 2 3, and it was over. Add to that most of those same matches were relatively short on time made those matches feel a little weird.
Having said all that this show was a total breeze to watch, and never really dragged at all. I’m hoping to catch New Year Dash!! tomorrow as well, I’m interested where they go from here, especially with the MSG show looming.
Thank you for everything guys, keep up the great work in 2019!
Charles from Virginia
After being turned on to NJPW by your coverage over the last year, I started considering a trip to Tokyo for WK13. After the WWE’s handling of Crown Jewel, I decided to scrap any plans to go to ‘Mania and go to Japan instead. Super happy about my decision. The show was incredible start to finish. The crowd really came alive for the last three matches. For most matches, there was sections pulling for each combatant. Except for Jay White. I think he had only one fan. I assume he’s up next for Tanahashi based on tonight’s result. Could that main event MSG? I don’t think so but I’m not intimately familiar with their schedule so I don’t know what’s next. The MSG show did get the third loudest pop of their show schedule at the beginning of the night (after WK14 and Dominion) I’d go into more detail but heading back to hotel to try and listen to your show live. Thanks for bringing NJPW to the casuals like me.
Matt from Melbourne
One of the few times I can recall getting to watch a live PPV during peak hour with a Melbourne start time of 7pm!
Again NJPW deliver a great night of wrestling! From the red hot and brutal opener, the surprise of Jay White’s victory, another classic reborn New Japan Chris Jericho performance and a main event that got better the longer it went.
The inclusion of Don Callis to the commentary team really adds a great dimension. He’s very unique and adds a hell of a lot of colour.
So many question coming out of the show with AEW. 2019 is going to be a very interesting year!
Omri from outside the Tokyo Dome,
This show was amazing. Everything was good and the crowd was amazing and I feel like everything hit. This is my first Wrestle Kingdom ever and I’m so glad I got to watch it live.
From the moment the graphic for the White Vs Okada match came on the crowd was electric and didn’t go down until the end of Tanahashi’s speech.
The one down speck of a point was that all the matches before the semi final felt a bit short. They didn’t feel rushed at all and that’s why it didn’t bother me much.
Even without the wrestling the were a lot of big news on the show including that part of the G1 will take place in the US and that mercy year New Year Dash will happen in the Dome.
The show ended more than 20 minutes ago but my hat is still teaching and I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight from the excitement.
19 Elite losses out of 20
Chris for Carlisle, England
So my entire work morning was spent glued to my phone watching the show (shh don’t tell anyone) and it was so good. From the opening bell there wasn’t a bad match on the show. A good morning for us Brits with Osprey and ZSJ winning titles in fantastic matches and those final 3 matches were all engaging made me bite on so many near falls. If you’d told me during the G1 I’d feel that way about a Jay White match I’d have told you to f off.
Question:
What are your expectations for tomorrow’s show? I’m expecting more on Omega’s future and White challenging Tana for a title match
Probably the weakest WK in years, but this is still some of the best stuff NJPW has to offer, and is still totally worth wrecking my sleep cycle (again).
To get the negatives out of the way - some of the matches, at least to me, didn’t feel like they were necessarily “ready” to be finished at the time they were, though I can imagine the Kota thing may have messed with some of the time given to other matches. I also feel as though the director missing spots dragged the show down for me a bit. Nothing too major otherwise.
Everything else is absolutely fucking great as per normal. I was sort of expecting Tanahashi to kick out of a One Winged Angel, but as cool as I thought that would have been, it didn’t mess that main event up in the least - I can still appreciate it when finishers are protected.
It was insane to see the old Okada getup with the old music, and even more insane that Jay White won. Nevertheless, I think White handled his match very, very well and he really stepped up in the face of the pressure of having to deliver a great performance.
MOTN: Omega/Tanahashi
Anti-MOTN: Juice/Cody [kinda wish it had more time, and the crowd didn’t really help]
Scott from Tokyo (via Toronto)
Attended the show live and went to the TGI Fridays brunch with Joel and Damon from the Super J Cast and of course WH Park. He’s a stand-up guy and a great host.
Taking in the sheer spectacle of Wrestle Kingdom live was incredible. They didn’t really go overly long on any of the matches outside of the main event, and the show felt very crisp as a result of it. Biggest pop of the night outside of Tanahashi’s victory was Okada revealing he left the longboys at home. Very curious to see how this will unfurl at Dash. I give the show 4.5 Meltzers out of 5.
Lara from Vancouver
This was not the run away show of the year, before the year even starts, event the card had a chance of being. It was however an excellent show. Nor is there a runaway Match of the Year yet… which actually is exciting.
Ospreay vs Ibushi was the greatest example of the so great it’s too dangerous style. Zack Sabre cemented himself as the most unique wrestler in the company. The rest of the undercard undelivered though.
That said the top 3 were possibly the 3 greatest trio of matches ever to follow each other. White beating full on Rainmaker Okada clean in what was one of the greatest finishes I’ve ever seen was the moment of the night.
Naito vs Jericho was the best Jericho match in New Japan and Naito’s belt shot into a disdainful tossing of the IC title was Naito at his best.
Omega vs Tanahashi was a classic, at times approaching the best of Omega/Okada… but I have serious issues with the finish. Tanahashi took a top rope dragon, a vicious V-Trigger but then essentially no sold it all with a quick reversal of the One Winged Angel, a hopping to the top rope with ease and an effortless High Fly Flow. The finish was weak and it brought the match down, to simply a 5 star match… hahaha. We’re spoiled.
No One Winged Angel kickout leaves me hopeful Kenny is still part of NJPW’s long term plans. New Year’s Dash is going to be exciting
Chris from Queensland, Australia.
Wrestle Kingdom was an amazing card on paper that mostly delivered in ring. The fact the AEW was announced did make for some lacklustre Elite matches, most notable “Cody vs Juice Robinson” just seemed to fall apart and dragged for the live crowd. Also with all of the Elite (along with Kota & Jericho) all losing do you expect them to be done with New Japan and heading to All Elite Wrestling.
Also was Kota knocked out, I’ve now seen conflicting reports from wrestling news sites. Nice to see Will Ospreay win the NEVER Openweight Championship given his passion when he won his number one contender match back on October 8th, I’m hopefully that Will tours Australia & New Zealand this year defending the championship.
Lastly, when asking WH PARK on twitter about if “Okada’s gear, (was) a Ruben?” he responded “4 pickles on the goddamn side”.
17 “Already booking my Wrestle Kingdom 14 tickets” out of 20!
If we just saw Becky get a real concussion from a similar facial injury. And Kevin Kelly said immediately he was busted open when he hit the ring post hard way. All those blows at the end, this body coulda easily shut down and he passed out
EDIT: looks like Ibushi suffered concussion.
I just finished watching a little while ago. Knowing that that a title was at stake in all but one of the matches, there should have been at least a few title retentions, since the constant changes got predictable after a while. That said, I was definitely caught by surprise when Tanahashi pinned Omega. Also, this is still light years better than the current WWE product.
If I would rank my top 3 matches:
