NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 19

Tokyo Dome

Attendance: 24,107

RAMBO (HIROOKI GOTO) (34:35): New Japan is back doing two straight nights of Tokyo Dome shows. That's a bit surprising considering the company isn't "hot" plus a lot of their big stars left to go to AEW. The second show was a NJPW/AEW/CMLL show. The second night was better only because it had an awesome Kenny Omega match. This show had a few good matches and it was mostly entertaining, though those days of Wrestle Kingdom being this show of the year, epic event are long gone. The show started, as usual, with this terrible Royal Rumble match with mostly has-been legends hobbling down to the ring and doing very little when they got inside the ring. The winner of this match would get an IWGP title match. Honma, Great-O-Khan, Josh Barnett, Sanada, Yuji Nagata, Taichi, Satoshi Kajima, and a few others were in this. Sanada was in the main event of last year's WK. How the mighty have fallen! Match was terrible. Kenta came out and did a funny fast walk to the ring. I guess he realizes this match is a joke. Yano was in there. Maybe if this match didn't go so long it'd be, like, fine. 1/2*

ICHIBAN SWEET BOYS (KOSEI FUJITA & ROBBIE EAGLES) vs. INTERGALACTIC JET SETTERS (KUSHIDA & KEVIN KNIGHT) vs. BULLET CLUB WAR DOGS (CLARK CONNORS & DRILLA MALONEY) vs. CATCH 22 (FRANCESCO AKIRA & TJP) "LADDER MATCH" (13:05): Match was entertaining though not as great as I thought it might be. They botched a lot of moves, sometimes bafflingly hilarious. Drilla Maloney tried to powerbomb someone onto a table at ringside and missed the table. Kevin Knight jumped off the top of the ladder in the ring and barely touched the person he was supposed to land on. Eagles took a rough slam onto a ladder bridge that cracked. You can tell they never do ladder matches in Japan because when someone would start climbing up the ladder everyone  "oohed" and "ahhed" like they'd never seen it before. Fujita and Eagles won the Jr. tag titles. **1/2

MAYU IWATANI vs. AZM (8:46): This match was fantastic. These two are in Stardom but this was for the IWGP women's title. I'm not sure why that title exists as there are no women in New Japan. Supposedly these two have had a heated rivalry in Stardom and Iwatani always beats AZM except during their tournament last year. They didn't get much time but it was all action. ***

EL PHANTASMO vs. REN NARITA vs. JEFF COBB vs. RYOHEI OIWA (10:04): ELP won the TV title. Match was fun but short. It was fast paced and all action. ELP looked great. Cobb broke Narita's stick in two and the crowd popped for that because Narita always cheats by using that in, like, every single match. **1/2

HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. EVIL "LUMBERJACK MATCH" (15:07): This is the start of Tanahashi's Retirement Tour. His last match will be at next year's WK show. It's funny, but the WWE is doing the same thing with John Cena this year. This was fine, nothing special. It had a lot of interference as usual. At one point, Dick Togo was jumping off the top rope to chop Tanahashi in the groin. Hopefully AEW's Death Riders doesn't ever fall to the absurd level of HOT's antics. Because Moxley and his gang is pretty much the same gimmick. *1/2

KONOSUKE TAKESHITA vs. SHINGO TAKAGI (12:42): This match was good but probably went too short to turn into anything spectacular. Takeshita vs. Ishii was actually better on Night 2. Takeshita retained his AEW International title and won the NEVER title. It was good while it lasted but seemed to end before it heated up. ***

EL DESPERADO vs. DOUKI (5:23): Douki jumped off the top rope down onto El Desperado and dislocated his elbow. The ref called for the bell and Desperado won the Jr. title because of a forfeit. Match was decent but obviously never got going. I feel so bad for Douki because this was the biggest match of his life. 

YOTA TSUJI vs. DAVID FINLAY (19:39): These two had two good matches in the G1 tournament last year. Tsuji beat him in the semi-final of the G1. They definitely have good chemistry together, and Finlay has definitely gotten better in the ring. Tsuji won the Global Heavyweight title. What the fuck does that even mean? ***

TETSUYA NAITO vs. HIROMU TAKAHASHI (17:08): Zack Sabre, Jr. won the G1. That means that the main event of this show should have been Zack winning the title from Naito. They decided to do that match in October, probably because Naito is old and can barely wrestle coherently anymore. That reason doesn't exactly make sense, though, considering Naito was in the semi-main event anyway. Zack winning the title in the main event of this show would have been a better ending than him beating Shota Umino. The match wouldn't have been as good...but they were putting on a bad match (this) anyway. This was slow and dull and not good. I guess they wanted to do this match at least once before Naito is in a wheelchair. 1/2*

ZACK SABRE, JR. vs. SHOTA UMINO (43:44): Shota is referee Red Shoes' son. Maybe that's one reason why he's been pushed as the next big star. I watched the whole G1, and when Shota would come out he came out through the crowd and would give everyone a fist bump and then give a kid a bracelet. NJPW is really pushing him hard. So it wasn't that surprising that he started getting booed late last year when the crowds found out he would be put into the Wrestle Kingdom main event for no reason. He didn't even make the semi-finals of the G1. The last big match he had was in 2023 in that 40 minute main event against Ospreay that he lost. They didn't boo him in this match until he kept kicking Zack after the ref (his dad) tried to stop him. That was the only time they booed him. Everyone complained that this didn't feel like a WK main event. I think the idea was to have a long, epic match that would get him over with the crowd for doing a good job. Match was good but wasn't excellent or anything. Sometimes these long matches don't feel long because they're good...but this one felt long. Shota is a good wrestler and they had some good, fast sequences of back and forth moves that were great. The drama wasn't there, though, and it never turned into an unforgettable classic. ***