NJPW/GFW Wrestle Kingdom 9 Review

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The very highly-anticipated Wrestle Kingdom 9, from New Japan Pro Wrestling and Global Force Wrestling, has finally arrived, and it was exactly the spectacle that was promised.

reDRagon vs. The Young Bucks vs. Forever Hooligans vs. Time Splitters for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship

This was the prototypical NJPW opening match. All eight guys worked together to put on an impressive show. It was as high-flying and energetic as advertised, probably even more.

All four teams got to show off their personalities, and some of their best moves, and it all came together to make an excellent opening match.

As a fan of ROH, it was cool to see reDRagon retain with Chasing the Dragon, continuing their dominance of the world in tag team wrestling.

reDRagon defeats Forever Hooligans, Time Splitters and The Young Bucks via pinfall.

4 out of 5 stars.

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Bullet Club (Jeff Jarrett, Bad Luck Fale and Yujiro Takahashi) vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima and Tomoaki Honma

Karen Jarrett sure did make sure that her voice was heard during this one, and it really took away from my enjoyment of it.

She provided a distraction during the match, while her husband was in trouble, allowing him to go for his patented guitar, but he accidentally hit Takahashi, and Takahashi never really recovered.

Bad Luck Fale was the only member of Bullet Club that had any sort of success in this match. Jarrett and Takahashi had much more trouble.

Takahashi took the fall, he was pinned by Honma on the usually unsuccessful flying headbutt.

Honma, Kojima and Tenzan defeat Bullet Club via pinfall.

3 out of 5 stars.

Suzukigun (Takashi Iizuka, Shelton X Benjamin, Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith) vs. Toru Yano, Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste and Naomichi Marufuji

I’ve seen Benjamin, Archer and Smith before. I’ve seen Marufuji before, but not much, and I’ve never seen the rest of them. None of them disappointed.

I’ve heard a lot about the team of Nicholls and Haste, and they really delivered.

The finisher from Marufuji was vicious.

I expected to see the Noah guys win, but now, having seen it, and hearing the announcers make note of it, I feel even stronger about the coming angle between the two companies. Anything that could possibly give me Marufuji vs. Okada is fine with me. It’s too bad KENTA’s gone from Noah.

Marufuji, Nicholls, Haste and Yano defeat Suzukigun via pinfall.

3.75 out of 5 stars.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Kazushi Sakuraba in an UWFI Rules Match

I must say that I was pretty worried about this match, and I didn’t think I would enjoy it, but I did. The action itself was solid, and the pacing was very good.

I will say that, and a lot of the early matches suffered from the same problem, it seemed like the match was a bit rushed to make sure the main event had plenty of time, and that caused the comeback sequence to be rushed, and it felt like Suzuki turned the tide a bit too fast.

Other than that, I didn’t think I’d care much for this match, but they won me over fast, and kept me engaged the entire time.

Suzuki defeats Sakuraba via referee stoppage.

3.5 out of 5 stars.