NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 16

NIGHT 1

Tuesday, January 4th

Attendance: 12, 047

RAMBO MATCH (CHASE OWENS, MINORU SUZUKI, TORU YANO & CIMA) (27:14): It probably tells you something about the state of New Japan these days when a WWE match this week was better than anything on this show, night 1 of Wrestle Kingdom 16. That match was a fatal 5 way title match on the PPV Day 1 that Brock Lesnar won. WWE not only had a PPV this week but NXT had a major show, New Year's Evil, where Ric Steiner's son won the NXT title from Ciampa. Tomorrow is Adam Page vs. Daniel Bryan II for the AEW title as is night 2 of WK16. All of the Japan promotions all had major shows as well. I didn't watch them all, but I did see Nakajima defend his title against Go Shiozaki in Noah (match was mediocre) and I watched Kento Miyahara lose in a tag title championship match in AJPW (match was just okay). Small crowds in Japan have definitely made the product worse. This show only had 12 thousand people. The last Dome show pre-pandemic had 40 thousand. I'm not sure if a 40 thousand person crowd would have helped this show, though, as the booking lately has been fairly atrocious. It wasn't the end of the world, but the best match at WK15 last year was Ibushi vs. Jay White and both guys weren't on either show this year. Besides the main event and Shibata's match, this show was pretty bad. It all started with the annual Rambo match, which is basically a Royal Rumble match except you can also pin people. The final four guys are facing each other for the coveted King of Pro-Wrestling belt on night 2. Cima was a surprise winner, as I haven't seen him in New Japan in years if ever. The other surprise was 68 year old Tatsumi Fujinami, who apparently held the IWGP title 6 times. Funny that I never even heard of him. Sting is in his early 60's and actually wrestled in a match last week on Dynamite, so I suppose seeing a 68 year old in a match shouldn't shock me. Fujinami did a bunch of leg screws and that's about it. Chase Owens started the match and lasted until the end. The rest of the B-level dudes were all there; Honma, Kanemaru, Fale. This match was not good. In fact, the Rambo is never good. Why do they even do it then? 1/2*

YOH vs. SHO (12:32): This match just reminded me of how the WWE loves to break up tag teams just so that they can feud against each other. It's always a mistake to do it, yet they fucking love to do it and always do it early when the tag team is still hot. Sho and Yoh were a good tag team but apart they're forgettable and purposeless. One of these guys was actually in the Super Jr.'s tournament final against Hiromu. It was the good one. The bad one is in Bullet Club. No, I have no idea who is who. And yes, this match wasn't good at all. 1/2*

KENTA, TAIJI ISHIMORI & EL PHANTASMO vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI, RYUSUKE TAGUCHI & ROCKY ROMERO (8:40): New Japan never does DQ's but they did one here when Tanahashi was hitting Kenta with a Singapore cane. This was to set up Kenta vs. Tanahashi in a No DQ match on night 2. Honestly...what's the point of having two nights of big shows if you're just filling them with set up matches like this? This was truly a waste of all the talent in this match. *

WILL OSPREAY, GREAT O'KHAN & JEFF COBB vs. TETSUYA NAITO, SANADA & BUSHI (9:27): Ospreay returned to wrestle in a New Japan ring for the first time since last May. Fuck...it's been too long. Sadly he did barely anything in this match. This was also just a set up match for night 2 as Great O'Khan is wrestling Sanada and Cobb is wrestling Naito. We did get to see Khan do those stupid chops and he yelps before he does them. He also tried to pin Sanada by sitting on Sanada's ass like a seat and folding his arms. It didn't work. Ospreay oozed charisma in this match. I really can't fathom how this company existed so long without him. *1/2

KATSUYORI SHIBATA vs. REN NARITA (11:46): This match started as a grappling match but eventually involved Shibata doing some offense like running kicks. This match was actually awesome after it heated up. It seemed like Narita wasn't allowed to do much against Shibata, though, so this was just Shibata beating the shit out of Narita. Narita was also the surprise opponent which was a total letdown. If you're going to have a "surprise" opponent...don't let it be a fucking nobody Young Lion. ***

EVIL vs. TOMOHIRO ISHII (12:10): Someone online mentioned that this was the worst Dome match in New Japan history. I don't think it was that bad...but it was just a typical Evil match with a bunch of interference. Dick Togo, Ishimori, the evil Sho/Yoh (whichever one that is)...they all came in to interfere. The ring bell guy was knocked over like he was in every G1 match. That made me chuckle. Evil retained the NEVER title. *1/2

HIROOKI GOTO & YOSHI-HASHI vs. TAICHI & ZACK SABRE, JR. (15:27): Goto and Yoshi-Hashi shockingly won the World Tag League to get this title shot match. Shocking because...are they even a tag team? Eh. They won the titles here. This match was very dull and same-old early but the last few minutes were dramatic and exciting and a lot of fun. I never want to see a Goto/Yoshi-Hashi defense ever, though. **

EL DESPERADO vs. HIROMU TAKAHASHI (16:18): This was surprisingly kind of stale. These two had a 30 minute draw in the Super Jr.'s tournament recently. It also seems like they wrestle each other all the time. Hiromu has not been that exciting lately for whatever reason. And this just felt like a regular match instead of a Wrestle Kingdom match. *1/2

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. SHINGO TAKAGI (35:44): These two put me to sleep at Dominion, so thank God this was a lot better. Because they went long, though, the first 20 minutes of this match were totally forgettable. Finally they started wrestling fast and doing big moves and kick outs and finally it turned into a really good match by the end. Okada won the title here and will face Ospreay on night 2 where he will retain. Shingo had a great 2021, but his title reign seems kind of circumspect. I remember he had that Dome title defense against Tanahashi in the summer. Was that his only successful defense? I guess I can't complain because we are getting Okada/Ospreay at the Dome, a match scheduled last May but did not occur. The problem in all of this is that in my heart I know a Shingo/Ospreay match on night 2 would be a better match. ***

NIGHT 2

Wednesday, January 5th

Attendance: 6,379

TOGI MAKABE, YUJI NAGATA & TOMOAKI HONMA vs. BAD LUCK FALE, GEDO & JADO (6:40): Adam Page retained his title in a thirty minute blood bath against Daniel Bryan to open AEW Dynamite tonight. Honestly? That match was better than this entire show. Besides the great main event on Night 2, this was a fairly awful show. New Japan really has to cut this show back to being one night. This show opened with three straight meaningless, pointless, superfluous multi-man matches. We already have those shitty matches on every New Japan show. Why are they on what's supposed to be the biggest 2 shows of the year? Ugh. I guess I can complain that a pretty non-existant crowd for these 2 shows were the reason they weren't that great...and, sure, that was a problem...but the booking has been very, very bad. It doesn't help that Evil's House of Torture group is never in a good match and Great O'Khan is putting us to sleep every time he gets in a ring. And with Okada being the champ now, this company feels like Vince McMahon is running it. His idea when ratings plummet is to bring back the old ideas that worked. Okada was champ when New Japan was fucking awesome so, uh, make him champ again! Unfortunately, that means having the two best wrestlers in New Japan, Shingo & Ospreay, lose in the main event on consecutive nights. I don't think that's good for the future. It's really sad, though, seeing New Japan put out a dumpster fire of a show. They used to be the king. Sad to see it fucking dying before our eyes. Oh, and this opener was totally forgettable, forgotten. 1/2*

HIROYOSHI TENZAN, SATOSHI KOJIMA & MASTER WATO vs. EL DESPERADO, YOSHINOBU KANEMARU & TAKA MICHINOKU (9:23): This match was action packed and great. Shocking, really. They're setting up Wato vs. Desperado. Unfortunately, that match won't be good. **1/2

SHINGO TAKAGI, BUSHI & HIROMU TAKAHASHI vs. TAICHI, ZACK SABRE, JR. & DOUKI (10:28): Shingo lost his title in the main event last night and now he's in a tag match on the fucking pre-show. Jesus! Quite the fall from grace. I think, honestly, Shingo should have beaten Okada and Ospreay and stayed champion. With the pandemic, who knows if Ospreay will stick around...but Shingo will and if he was champ every main event would be awesome. Will every Okada main event this year be awesome? No. The only thing I remember from this match is Douki doing a top rope dive onto everyone. **

ROBBIE EAGLES & TIGER MASK vs. RYUSUKE TAGUCHI & ROCKY ROMERO vs. TAIJI ISHIMORI & EL PHANTASMO (12:07): Are Eagles and Tiger Mask really a tag team? I'm not sure I've ever seen them wrestle. Well, they won the Jr. tag titles here. When Eagles found a piece of metal in Phantasmo's boot, Phantasmo was kicked out of the match. Rocky Romero was wrestling in AEW in a few matches last month. I guess he does whatever he wants? Weird. This match wasn't boring...so there was that. It wasn't worthy of being a WK match, though. **

TAM NAKANO & SAYA KAMITANI vs. MAYU IWATANI & STARLIGHT KID (9:14): This was the Stardom match. It was all action and big moves. For whatever reason it seemed like all four women were screaming the whole match. Not sure if they always do that. Stardom had a match of the year in June 2021 that everyone was talking about. So of course neither of those women were in this match. **

MINORU SUZUKI vs. CHASE OWENS vs. CIMA vs. TORU YANO (6:08): Suzuki won the King of Pro-Wrestling title here. I thought that every KOPW match had to be a stipulation match. This didn't. Oh, well. *

EVIL, YUJIRO TAKAHASHI & SHO vs. HIROOKI GOTO, YOSHI-HASHI & YOH (9:37): The House of Torture won the 6 man titles here, a title that, realistically, should be called the 3 man championship since only 3 men hold the title, not 6. This was a typical Evil match with tons of interference and Dick Togo choking out Yoh when the ref wasn't looking. I finally realized which one was good and which one was evil. Sho is the bad one. Yoh is the good guy. Why they broke up is beyond me, as it hasn't led to anything entertaining or interesting. 1/2*

SANADA vs. GREAT O'KHAN (13:21): I fell asleep watching this match. I didn't even watch this show live in the early morning hours, I watched a replay in primetime after Dynamite. So it wasn't like I was tired, it was just that the match was yawn inducing. The big moment came when O'Khan was tempted to jump over the top rope and onto Sanada on the floor. I'm not entirely sure why they played this out like it was this huge deal. I guess because he never does top rope dives? Eh. He did it. Sanada eventually won. Match sucked. 1/2*

TETSUYA NAITO vs. JEFF COBB (15:34): I was also pretty bored by this match. Naito said during the week that he was contemplating retirement. I'm guessing he said that to trick people since at the end of this show he was challenging Okada for the title. Well, he should retire. I can't even remember the last great match he was in. He got hurt in the G1 and only ended up wrestling once. I think this might have been his first match back. With O'Khan losing, Cobb losing here, and Ospreay losing in the main event, every member of their team lost. I still don't think Ospreay turning heel was the right move. And now it's a group of losers. **

HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. KENTA "NO DQ MATCH" (22:40): This match was like 70% the wrestlers looking under the ring for something. Finally this match got interesting at the very end when Kenta brought a big ladder into the ring and climbed it and Tanahashi shook the ladder and Kenta fell off. Kenta fell head first onto a trash can and his face was pouring blood. Then Tanahashi put Kenta on a table and did a High Fly Flow from the top of the ladder onto him. That was great. Besides the end of this, though, this was an awful match. **1/2

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. WILL OSPREAY (32:52): This was a great match that probably would have been better if there was a bigger crowd and/or it took place in a smaller building. This show apparently had 6 thousand less people than night 1, which is kind of a surprise since the card for night 1 wasn't exactly better or anything. And while my match of the year for 2021 was Shingo/Ospreay, that match was also held in a building with a sparse pandemic crowd...so maybe I can't blame the small audience too much on this not being as great as, say, Omega/Okada or Shingo/Ospreay. The big move was Ospreay doing a moonsault off a lighting scaffold. Ospreay also did a lot of his high flying that lately he's curtailed a bit. Ospreay also did some ingenious counters here, one inparticular being a Rainmaker attempt reserved into a Spanish Fly. Ospreay also kicked out of a Rainmaker. I think the only reason this wasn't as great as an Omega/Okada match was simply because Okada is older and a bit slower now than he was then. Because while Okada was good here, this was all Ospreay and Ospreay's show. He looked incredible and did everything and everything flawlessly. I actually think last year's Jay White/Ibushi match was better. And that's saying something because I don't even like Jay White. Maybe if Okada hadn't had a 35 minute match last night this could have been a 45 minute epic. And, yep, I would have loved this even more if Ospreay had won. Okada's been champ, multiple times, forever, it's all been done. Naito came out to challenge Okada. Ugh. It's time for the new people to reign. And New Japan needs something, anything, to get out of it's slump. ***1/2