NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 Review: SANADA vs Tetsuya Naito

Originally published at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 Review: SANADA vs Tetsuya Naito - POST Wrestling | WWE AEW NXT NJPW Podcasts, News, Reviews

John Pollock, Wai Ting & Bruce Lord review NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 in Tokyo Dome featuring SANADA vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP World Heavyweight Title, Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada, and the NJPW debut of Nic Nemeth (Dolph Ziggler).

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NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 18 in Tokyo Dome
January 4th, 2024
Tokyo, Japan

  • IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: SANADA (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito
  • Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada
  • IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship: Will Ospreay vs. Jon Moxley vs. David Finlay (w/ Gedo)
  • IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi (c) vs. El Desperado
  • IWGP & NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championships: Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) (c) vs. Hikuleo & El Phantasmo ©
  • NEVER Openweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs. Tama Tonga
  • Shota Umino & Kaito Kiyomiya vs. EVIL & Ren Narita
  • Yota Tsuji vs. Yuya Uemura
  • NJPW World Television Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
  • IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships: BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney) (c) vs. Catch 2/2 (Francesco Akira & TJP)
  • New Japan Ranbo: Participants TBA

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1 Like

I really enjoyed this show especially as it exceeded my expectations. A lot of the matches went by at a brisk pace and all-in-all the final three matches really delivered. I’d give the show an average of 3.5 stars out of 5. There were no real duds on this card other than the Rambo match at the beginning to kick of the KOPW title. I’d say the TV Champion title match went off very well with both wrestlers looking good and the show stealer would have to be the Takagi-Tonga match for the NEVER Openweight Title as I was not expecting such a great showing from Tonga but he thoroughly delivered. I’d say the same for the Global Heavyweight 3-way match. I almost never enjoy 3-ways and find it to be kind-of-a lazy booking angle but all three wrestlers more than delivered. And of course, you can never go wrong with Danielson or Okada and thoroughly enjoyed Naito being able to complete his story with a nice baby-face assist and send off for Sanada.