After all the hype of the Wrestle Kingdom 12 intro, bored Jim Ross welcoming ya to the show is disappointing.
1. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title: Roppongi 3K (SHO & YOH) [c] w/ Rocky Romero vs. The Young Bucks
This was like a half your usual crowd-pleasing sometimes impressive but ultimately empty Young Bucks match and half a straight-up junior heavyweight battle with a crowd that was HOT and biting for near falls during a junior heavyweight match in the Tokyo Dome. Back in the day they’d barely care about LIGER, but here we are. And outside of that weird-ass near fall with everybody shoved into the corner, it was very good. All four tacked on way more intensity than these matches usually have and they also decided to sell the shit out of body parts which was either a deliberate choice to make the match interesting OR a deliberate choice to make the Internet talk. Matt Jackson in particular was selling his back so much that he might be legitimately hurt, and it added this interesting dynamic to the match.
Roppongi 3K meanwhile continues to deliver on their potential – Sho had an impressive run and did some wild strength spots, while Yoh’s cool skin-the-cat spot made me happy. Some of the exchanges towards the end with superkicks were completely insane too. Nice near fall off the cradle and the one Buck being held on the top rope, nice insane Nick Jackson dive to the outside, nice wrestling. ***1/2
2. 4-Way Match – IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Marty Scurll [c] vs. KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu Takahashi vs. Will Ospreay
Alright. The wings were cool. You won that round, Marty Scurll. Otherwise – I can see arguments for why this match was good, but it didn’t do a thing for me. It continued the variety show theme, with a ton of dumb turn-off-your-brain spots and a lot of just plain cool stuff, but it was just STUFF. It weirdly felt like a comedown match, and it came nowhere close to blowing my mind like the 4 “top” juniors colliding at the Dome might promise. It just never seemed to click, and that’s especially glaring when everything else before it clicked so much. They went for something special and it just didn’t deliver – it happens. The cool stuff was cool, though: the rana by Ospreay off KUSHIDA’s back onto Scurll, Ospreay’s big moonsault off the steel column, Hiromu’s big run, Ospreay’s SSP on the outside. They did manage some solid drama towards the end and got it bumping, but this was classic good not great and stuff along with a few too many things that bothered me. Also, the slapfights look stupid. Stop doing those. **3/4
