NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13 Preview and Predictions

from njpw1972.com

RevPro British Heavyweight Championship: Tomohiro Ishii(c) vs Zack Sabre Jr

Over the last two+ years, this championship has essentially become a midcard belt for NJPW as much as it is RevPro’s top prize, with the last five champions being AJ Styles, Zack Sabre Jr, Katsuyori Shibata (sobs uncontrollably), Minoru Suzuki, and Tomohiro Ishii; all of whom have worked at least part time for the King of Sports. Additionally, four of its last five title changes have gone down at NJPW associated events, so this match taking place at Wrestle Kingdom is the natural progression of things.

The Stone Pitbull ended The Technical Wizard’s most recent reign at RevPro’s Wrestlemania weekend show in New Orleans, but ZSJ got revenge a few months later in the G1. Overall, This will be the fifth singles match between Ishii and ZSJ in either NJPW or Rev Pro, with the pair splitting the previous four matches 2-2.

Sabre Jr and Ishii are two of the finest professional wrestlers in the world, and they’ve put on great matches each time they’ve met one on one in the squared circle. However, none of their bouts have ever quite reached five star territory. They’ll try to reach those legendary heights at the show that’s known to deliver some of the greatest wrestling matches each year.

I expect the rivals to continue their pattern of trading wins with Ishii riding the home-field advantage to his first ever singles victory in the Tokyo Dome.

Prediction: Tomohiro Ishii