Wrestle Kingdom 12 was a wrestling storytelling event of the ages

Stories are important. No matter the context or setting, the story of a thing can often tell you more about it than what that thing is actually doing. That’s definitely true in wrestling, where the stories in and around a given match lend so much meaning and context that a well-executed story can sometimes be more valuable and complete as an experience than what actually happens inside the ring.

New Japan Pro Wrestling have become masters of the storytelling art in professional wrestling, and that art was on full display at Wrestle Kingdom 12, the promotion’s biggest show of the year. From start to finish, there were cohesive stories that were easy to follow, and it made for compelling viewing all night long. The storytelling took an already-high technical level of wrestling throughout the card and elevated it to a level that’s going to make this show a tough one for any promotion to beat this year, and Wrestle Kingdom 12 is going to go down as an utterly fantastic night of wrestling.

In November, legendary WWE superstar Chris Jericho made a shocking appearance at the end of the NJPW Power Struggle show to issue a challenge for Kenny Omega’s IWGP United States Championship. What seemed at first to be a friendly contest between one of the all-time best in the industry and one of the current top stars quickly became a much more heated rivalry when Jericho assaulted and bloodied Omega in December, eventually turning this match into a No Disqualification bout that is incredibly rare in Japan.

With Jericho seeming offended that people felt Omega’s star had eclipsed his own, he seemingly became unhinged. Declaring himself the “Alpha” of professional wrestling, he and Omega had a fiery and physical press conference confrontation, and had a massive war of words in the buildup to this match. Once both men were in the ring, it was little different — Jericho attacked Omega before the bell even rang while he was getting good luck hugs from his Bullet Club and Elite partners the Young Bucks, and his early flurry of attacks once the bell did ring seemed to keep Omega on the back foot.

In fact, the shocking aggression of Jericho would be a hallmark all match long. At one point, he repeatedly mashed Omega face-first into a chair hung up in the corner ropes, going several strikes past the point of Omega’s forehead being busted open and bleeding. And that was after a brutal attack that saw Jericho counter a tope dive out of the ring to drive Omega into the announcing table, then put him into the Walls of Jericho on the ruins of the table before assaulting him with remains of the announcers’ equipment, including throwing a monitor directly under Omega’s belt.

But Omega’s athleticism couldn’t be denied, and the defending champion finally started to make his presence felt with his own offense. Jericho’s incredible veteran ring presence let him pull out several incredible counters to Omega’s varied and normally impactful offense, but eventually Omega started hitting his patented V-Trigger knee strikes, and started trying to hit the One-Winged Angel finisher that no one has yet kicked out of. Jericho rolled through the first one in a beautiful counter to lock in a Walls of Jericho that nearly forced Omega to tap out, then hit a second one a little too close to the ring ropes, allowing Jericho to grab one to force a break.

But after countering an attempted chair-aided Lionsault from Jericho, Omega put down that same chair and hit the One-Winged Angel once more, this time driving Jericho into the chair originally meant to end his title reign, and there was no doubt as to the result of the move this time around. It was a massively impressive win from Omega, beating a cagey veteran that had him on the ropes so many times. The win only added to a legacy for Omega that’s fast approaching legendary status, and added all the more value to the IWGP United States Championship that he’s helped establish since becoming its inaugural champion last summer. Overcoming such a wild and driven Jericho on the biggest stage

The Tetsuya Naito lead Los Ingobernables de Japon faction in NJPW made their impact by being a disruptive, corner-cutting, and incredibly aggressive group of men who weren’t afraid to attack anyone in their way, even if it was against the rules. Heck, breaking the rules almost seemed to be an encouragement to them at times, as we saw when Bushi, Evil, and the then-debuting Sanada continuously interfered on Naito’s behalf when their leader faced and — thanks to their help — beat Kazuchika Okada to win the NJPW Heavyweight Championship in April 2016. That’s not even mentioning the rampant disrespect Naito showed to the IWGP Intercontinental Championship belt when he held it as the champion, something seen as utterly loathsome in Japan.

But recently, they’ve been starting to turn over a new leaf. When Tetsuya Naito won the G1 Climax to earn this Wrestle Kingdom main event spot — the first he’s had after a fan vote stripped him of the main event the first time he won the G1 — and an IWGP Heavyweight Championship opportunity against hated foe Okada, Naito’s focus has earned the respect of the fans more than ever before. He’s even started pulling out his old high-flying Stardust finisher in recent months, something we hadn’t seen from him since before he became one of wrestling’s premier bad boys.

This match really helped cement Naito’s turnaround, as we saw a very different side to him. Yes, he still used his signature tranquillo tactics to slow the match down to his advantage at times, and he focused heavily on the injured neck that’s plagued Okada over the last six months. But this time, that wasn’t an underhanded move — he wasn’t dirty about it in any way, instead using the injury to execute a smart game plan. Naito wasn’t cutting any corners this time; he wanted to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on his own merits, forcing Okada to bring out an aggressive side of himself that we rarely see.

This is the fourth time that Naito and Okada have faced off with the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on the line, including two such matches last year that the pair split wins in. They’ve learned a lot both from and about each other in that time, and that was on full display in this match. Not only were they countering so many of each other’s best moves, they were both pulling out all kinds of new tricks to keep each other off balance.

This match was very much about the evolution of both wrestlers, though the drive of Naito to be the absolute best in New Japan Pro Wrestling had him pushing Okada to the absolute limit. This match was Naito at his very peak, and after a brilliant late series of finishers and counters, Naito hit an absolutely devastating Destino finisher — but just a hint of his former arrogance came back in that crucial moment, and instead of going for a cover that could have won him the match, he went for a second straight Destino. Okada had just enough left in the tank to counter it into a leaping Tombstone Piledriver, while Naito had nothing left to resist the follow-up Rainmaker clothesline, allowing Okada to finally put him away to retain his title.

Naito walked away with plenty to be proud of, though. Yes, he’d failed in his mission, but he showed everyone who watched just how good he can be. He even earned words of respect and praise from Okada and his manager Gedo as he walked away from the ring, something you don’t always see after a match like that. We’ve seen a new side of Naito, and where he goes next will bear close scrutiny.

Naito wasn’t the only Ingobernable to show a different side, either. After two years of using underhanded tactics to beat their foes, Evil and Sanada let their skill do the talking during the World Tag League tournament in 2017, ultimately beating the tournament’s Bullet Club representatives, the Guerillas of Destiny in a straight-up battle of wills to earn a match against the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, Suzuki-gun representatives Davey Boy Smith, Jr. and Killer Elite Squad. That will was put to the test when KES jumped them before the bell, with Evil eating their Killer Bomb finisher just seconds into the match. Archer and Davey Boy dominated for almost all of the first ten minutes of the match, utterly pounding Evil into the mat before turning their attention to Sanada, and even to the Young Lion ring attendants at times.

Finally, though, the Los Ingobernables members made an opening for themselves, with Evil managing to assert himself into the match before Sanada finally got to start showing off his athleticism. And once the powerful duo really got rolling, that was it for the once-arrogant KES — Smith and Archer had lost their momentum, and Sanada and Evil were able to show just why they make such a good tag team. Sanada’s overwhelming athleticism and Evil’s surprising explosiveness spelled doom for the Killer Elite Squad, and Los Ingobernables de Japon came away hold the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship title.

New Japan Pro Wrestling always makes headlines with their Best Of The Super Juniors tournament every year, but Wrestle Kingdom 12 put on a display in an IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match that topped anything we’ve seen in that tournament in years, and it was a story unto itself. NJPW’s three biggest stables were represented, with the Bullet Club’s Marty Scurll coming in as the defending IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, Chaos’ explosive aerial artist Will Ospreay, and Los Ingobernables’ always-odd Hiromu Takahashi filling three corners of the four-way matchup.

The fourth man was, of course, Kushida, the defending BOSJ winner and one of the most successful junior heavyweights in recent NJPW history. While all four men have been NJPW Junior Heavyweight Champions in the last year, Kushida has been at the heart of it all, with an amazing months-long war against Takahashi, before battling with Ospreay and Scurll over the last half of the year ahead of this match.

If you came into this match expecting something high-paced and exciting, that’s exactly what you got. They were flying at full speed almost from the moment the bell rang, and none of the four men let up for even a moment until it ended.

But it wasn’t just about the high-flying moves, though, because the sheer aggression between these four men — with Kushida and Takahashi renewing their rivalry and two of the top English stars in Scurll and Ospreay battling once again — came out in some truly eye-opening ways.

The action just wouldn’t stop. There were so many near-falls that were either fought out of or desperately broken up at the last moment. All four men looked incredible — Scurll was at his villainous best, Ospreay was showing new dimensions of of toughness and drive that we haven’t seen from him before, Kushida was pulling out all the stops to stay in the match, and Takahashi was constantly fighting his way into the center of the match and making huge impact after huge impact on the proceedings.

It was almost a shame that it finally had to end. The story the match told in among the frantic pace of all the action was fantastic — Scurll getting more and more desperate as he realized he was facing three elite wrestlers, Takahashi looking to reclaim the belt that he’d held so jealously after winning it a year ago, and Kushida realizing he had to take a step or two up to stay relevant in a rapidly improving division of NJPW.

Above it all, however, was Will Ospreay. Over the last two years, he’s been on a rapid ascent in the wrestling world, and at Wrestle Kingdom 12 he may have taken his biggest step yet. He was knocked down and put on the ropes so many times throughout this match, but he constantly found ways to dig deep and fight through. He wasn’t just doing the ”flippy shit” that put him on the map — Ospreay was fighting tooth and nail all throughout the match, including pulling out some incredibly physical counters and smart moments that we haven’t typically seen from the young Englishman. It was fitting, then, that he would finally break his years-long drought against Scurll, hitting a huge Oz Cutter springboard stunner on the defending champion to win the pinfall and become a two-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, and assert himself as the man to beat in the division.

For years, one of the biggest rivalries in NJPW’s junior heavyweight tag team division was the Bullet Club’s Young Bucks against Rocky Romero. Whether it was part of Forever Hooligans or Roppongi Vice, Romero constantly found the Bucks in his way, and he and the Jackson brothers put on some absolutely tremendous matches. Now mostly retired from the ring, Romero is leading Roppongi 3K, the young tag team of Sho and Yohthat’s taken NJPW by storm, winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship on their first night back in Japan after more than a year away from the company.

With the Bucks looking to win the Junior Heavyweight belts for a record seventh time to cement themselves as arguably the best junior tag team in Japanese history, they had to get past the man who knows them best once more. Rocky Romero’s team stood in their way, and the Young Bucks were eager to get one over on their old rival again. They went to work fast, riling up Sho and Yoh, then using an injury to Yoh to take out Romero himself with a running powerbomb on the entrance ramp while the attention was on the fallen tag champion.

That back injury to Yoh, and one that Matt Jackson would suffer several minutes later, would become the story of the match, with the Bucks doing everything they could to add to Yoh’s misery, while smartly keeping the top-shelf talent of Sho outside the ring, knowing that with Yoh hurt, Sho was the much bigger threat to them in this match.

But Yoh kept fighting out of whatever the Young Bucks threw his way, and every time Sho got into the ring he did significant damage to the Bucks, especially to Matt’s own injured back. Roppongi 3K had answers to most of the Bucks’ tricks thanks to Romero’s coaching — but the Bucks had a few more tricks up their sleeves that Sho and Yoh weren’t ready for. After Matt blasted Sho out of the ring, the fourth Sharpshooter that Yoh found himself in during the match was the last one. The youngster’s hurt body finally overriding his near-bottomless will to keep fighting and tapping out to give the Young Bucks their seventh IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship win.

That kind of in-ring storytelling was on display again as another Bullet Club member, Cody Rhodes, took on Kota Ibushi. This was a match about the arrogance and deviousness of Cody against the heart and passion of Kota, and it played out in every part of this match like chapters in a book. Cody and his wife Brandi took every advantage they could by hook or by crook, with the former Ring of Honor World Champion frequently attacking Ibushi’s surgically repaired neck, while Brandi distracted him at every opportunity.

Ibushi never stayed down for long, though, pulling out one brilliant counter after another to keep Cody off balance and do as much damage as he could. But that all seemed to be at risk after Cody hit a jaw-dropping Cross Rhodes — his finishing maneuver — off the ring apron, driving Ibushi’s head onto the floor.

It looked like that would be it for the match — Kota beat the referee’s 20 count to return to the ring by slimmest of margins, and seemed completely out of it for several minutes, but Cody’s next attempt at a Cross Rhodes saw Ibushi dig deep to find an escape out of nowhere, sending Cody face-first into the corner padding. Cody kept Ibushi on the ropes for a short time, but you could tell the momentum was shifting, and Kota started looking for his Kamigoye knee strike finisher as Cody started to turn to more and more desperate attempts to finish the match. He would finally catch Cody off-balance and hit Kamigoye cleanly, leaving Cody face-down on the mat — but Ibushi decided that wasn’t enough, deciding to add an exclamation mark and show off his athleticism in the face of all the damage he took in the form of a huge Phoenix Splash to put Cody away.

In the end, the story of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 12 was one of triumph. It was a fantastic show on a technical level, but every match told a clear and concise story. We didn’t even touch on everything in great detail, because there’s simply not enough time or space to go over everything.

But when you look at Omega’s tenacity, Naito’s drive, the juniors’ passion, the Young Bucks’ mission to take down an old rival, and Cody’s arrogance, and you add it to things like Hirooki Goto’s honor beating Minoru Suzuki’s unhinged aggression and Hiromu Tanahashi proving that the former ace can still beat a young upstart, and you have such a complete storytelling experience that even if you somehow didn’t enjoy the technical product, it’s almost impossible not to understand and appreciate the full range of the story on display in NJPW’s biggest event of the year.