IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title Match: Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) (c) vs. Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi
This was a decent tag team match. Typically fast paced for a Junior Tag Team match. Wato, despite his awkwardness, looked impressive and rose to the occasion, throwing out some wicked spinning dives and kicks. On the opposite side of the ring, Desperado looked good as well. The nearfalls finishing stretch was alright. ***
NEVER Openweight Title Match: Shingo Takagi (c) vs. Jeff Cobb
Finally, Shingo gets a singles match in the Dome (maybe for the first time, I'm not sure) and he definitely delivers as expected. But not just him, but Jeff Cobb as well. Jeff Cobb has gotten rid of any struggles he had in adapting to the style and looks good almost every time he wrestles. Especially when facing Shingo. Cobb’s size makes Shingo’s offence come off more impressive while Shingo’s style compliments Cobb’s. This is a pretty smash mount match with a ton of clubbing blows and elbow strikes that slowly escalate and escalate into a hot closing NG stretch. Cobb had some awesome suplex variations. One time, he grabbed a prone Shingo, twisted him around and scooped him up into a suplex in one motion. It was very impressive. In another spot in the match, Cobb teased powerbombing Shingo to the outside floor but Shingo escaped, knocked him down and then hit a killer tope con hilo. This match was filled with great little sequences like that. Awesome match. ***3/4
SANADA vs. EVIL (w/Dick Togo)
This was a huge shock. Why? It was actually really good. I like SANADA but EVIL has spent a whole year showing himself to be an absolutely terrible wrestler so my expectations were at an all time low for this, as you can imagine. But they went out and wrestled a competitive, exciting match that peaked with some really good nearfalls. Even with Dick Togo interfering, it was to the benefit of the match and gave us a brilliant (for comedic reasons) table bump. Both guys really went out of their way to have a great match on the Tokyo Dome. ***1/2
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Taiji Ishimori (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi
Shockingly standard. For 20 minutes, this came off like any other unspectacular Junior spotfest with a few cool sequences but nothing else. It was lacking in many ways. Both are quality wrestlers and have had a great match before but this wasn't it. Ishimori hitting punches and attacking the arm in the final stretch added something to the match but that's not nearly enough. Disappointing. **1/4
IWGP Heavyweight Title / IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Kota Ibushi (c) vs. Jay White (w/Gedo)
The longest main event in Wrestle Kingdom history. Now this was a great match, but it’s not perfect by any means. There was a little bloating in the body of the match where Ibushi made an initial comeback before White cut him off. Nothing that took away from the whole match because there was more than enough to keep this up there as a classic match. Jay White took Ibushi to the absolute limit, doing literally anything he can do to beat Ibushi. He neutralised Ibushi early in the match, being aware of his surroundings, using space to protect himself as well as trapping Ibushi into a false sense of security before then targeting Ibushi’s body - first his ribs then his legs. His deliberate pacing made for a slow and steady match with not much fast paced sequences unlike Okada v Ospreay but it was entirely compelling to watch. Ibushi complimented that perfectly as well. Ibushi was relentless in not giving up to White despite all of what he was doing. He kept on pushing and pushing White to the brink before finally winning and cementing himself as the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Champion. Not much else to say. Great match that pushed both wrestlers to their limits while combining the spirit of both. ****1/2
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