Wrestle Kingdom 14: Night 2 predictions
With this year's historic Wrestle Kingdom taking place over two days, New Japan Pro Wrestling prepares for a bumper start to the Japanese new year with a stacked card for night two. The Gold Rush tournament to crown the company's first double champion concludes, as does the career of Jyushin Thunder Liger.
NJPW is pulling out all the stops, including the intriguing additions of Chris Jericho as well as possibly Jon Moxley to night two. Considering their affiliation to upstarts AEW and in particular Jericho as its champion, there is a rumble in the air as to what else NJPW might have in store for their fans at the Dome as well as New Years Dash after the event.
Meanwhile, there are big championships and future implications on the undercard, but also some unfortunate apathy over NJPW's resistance to balk at their card tradition. Regardless of night two being the grand weekend finish to Wrestle Kingdom 14, this one is stacked and a difficult road to predict to a new year for New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Yet, here we try and predict the
A Star-Studded Pre-Show
Gauntlet Match for the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championships: The Most Violent Players (Togi Makabe and Toru Yano) and Ryosuke Taguchi (c) vs. CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii, Yoshi Hashi, and Robbie Eagles) vs. Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, and Yujiro Takahashi) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Shingo Takagi, Bushi, and EVIL) vs. Suzuki Gun (Taichi, El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru)
When it was announced at Wrestle Kingdom 13 last year that their annual Tokyo Dome event would be two nights in 2020, it felt like vindication for superstars left out of the big card. Unfortunately out of habit despite the expanded card as well as the absence of the ELITE that dominated 2019, NJPW has once again left some of its big stars in a lurch.
With the kind of year Shingo has had, the effort to improve put in by Taichi and Robbie Eagles, not to mention the fact that EVIL and especially Ishii are beyond the pre-show, this is disappointing. Still at least this year they are competing for the titles unlike last year, at least NJPW remembered the championships after all this time.
This one will excite the crowd for a good portion, particularly if Ishii and Shingo come to blows. The real question remains how big the win will go over for their teammates later on the card, with the most convenient account allowing for a clean LiJ sweep to end the night on a perfect roll call. NJPW meanwhile has to consider to do more or at least do right by its stars if not this paperweight championship.
Result: Los Ingobernables de Japon break CHAOS's gauntlet streak with Shingo getting the pin to win the match and become the NEW NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Champion