NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades

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IWGP Tag Team Championship

Killer Elite Squad (Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr.) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL & SANADA)

Result: Los Ingobernables de Japon defeated Killer Elite Squad via pinfall to become the new IWGP Tag Team Champions

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

After the insanity of Cody vs. Ibushi, this one didn’t really click for me. I totally get the story of the match. It was well executed. The match itself was objectively good. But It’s not my cup of tea.

LIJ earned the title shot by winning the 2017 World Tag League. But their feel good story almost ended in seconds when KES hit the Killer Bomb on EVIL more or less right as the bell rang. From there, the whole match was basically KES just picking apart and dominating LIJ.

I’m not super familiar with Archer, but he comes across like a monster. Smith, on the other hand, reminds me so much of his dad. As a pair, Archer and Smith seem like they should be unstoppable. For the first three quarters of the match, they were unstoppable.

But then everyone got to bust out their “Golden State blew a 3-1 lead” jokes, because LIJ had a comeback for the ages. SANADA is a stud, and showed a lot of great heart. EVIL is, well, evil.

I really don’t have much to add about this one. Three for three on title changes in the first four matches of a show is a bold move. But LIJ deserved this win for withstanding that beating from Archer and Smith.