NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12: Match Card Predictions After G1 Climax
By Tim Sherry
IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs Tetsuya Naito
As noted, this is the idea of a story coming full circle. Well, the Naito/Okada program has that in spades. The pairing have squared off 8 times in singles matches and have split the series 4 and 4. They’ve also traded the IWGP back and forth once. So they know each other well and have had a number of outstanding tilts. Now, after winning the 2017 G1 Climax, Naito will get a shot at the IWGP title once again. And although a match with Okada would mean that the current champ would have a record-breaking title reign of about 550 days by Wrestle Kingdom, it seems too fitting not to happen.
What makes this story what it is today, is the character progression of Naito and how his title match with Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 8 has shaped what he has become. After winning the 2013 G1 Climax, Naito had punched his ticket to the following Wrestle Kingdom. Okada, also champion at that time, looked prime to take Naito on in the main event of the show. However, after a ho-hum crowd reaction to the two squaring off a few months prior to the event, NJPW decided to conduct a poll to its fans asking if they’d rather see a Hiroshi Tanahashi/Shinsuke Nakamura main event for the Intercontinental title at Wrestle Kingdom. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of the IC title main event and Okada and Naito were moved to the pre-main event where Okada got the victory.
In the Fall of 2015, Naito, after a brief hiatus, returned to NJPW with a new stable, Los Ingobernables, and a chip on his shoulder. Gone was the old Naito and in was the brash, disrespectful, bitter one. He used that anger towards the fans and the company to fight his way to a NEVER Openweight title, and Intercontinental title, and a Heavyweight title, although the latter reign only lasted 70 days. But something else started happening with Naito and the fans. With his belt destroying, cocky, middle-finger waving at authority self, he has slowly but surely become something that is so hard to become in the wrestling business: an anti-hero. And the NJPW audience is eating it up.
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Naito has never been more ready than now for this moment. He’s more over than he’s ever been, and if his performances in the G1 are a precursor for what he can do in the main event of the biggest show of the year, then this ought to be must-see TV. When it’s all said done, this main event could cap off what may be the best show of all-time, and continue to move NJPW further into becoming the best promotion on a global scale.