The card for NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20 officially has a new addition.
NJPW has confirmed that NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Champions YOH, Master Wato & Toru Yano will defend their titles in a multi-team ranbo at the January 4 Tokyo Dome show. The match was set up this week with an angle where YOH staged a protest at an NJPW show, demanding that his team get a spot on Wrestle Kingdom. YOH said they would take on any number of challengers.
The ranbo match has a tornado stipulation where there are no tags and eliminations can occur via pinfall, submission, or being thrown over the top rope. Once one member from a team is out, the whole team is eliminated.
“The NEVER Openweight 6 man Champions were created at Wrestle Kingdom 10, and their tenth anniversary is being marked in this first time ever team ranbo,” NJPW wrote. “In the match, an as yet unknown number of teams will make their entrances at one minute intervals. Tornado rules mean there are no tags, and when one member of a team is pinned, submitted or thrown over the top rope, that entire team is eliminated, with the last trio standing the NEVER 6 Man Champions. Who will be victorious in this new twist on a Ranbo Tokyo Dome tradition?”
In another Tokyo Dome announcement, NJPW has confirmed that Kaisei Takechi of DDT Pro Wrestling and pop group The Rampage will be competing at Wrestle Kingdom. It’s not been announced which match he’ll be wrestling in.
Here is where the Wrestle Kingdom card stands with more than a month to go:
NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20 (Sunday, January 4, 2026 on NJPW World) —
Winner-takes-all match: IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Konosuke Takeshita vs. IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji
Hiroshi Tanahashi’s retirement match: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada
NEVER Openweight Champion EVIL defends against Aaron Wolf
Four titles changed hands at NJPW Dominion in Osaka-jo Hall.
Great-O-Khan started the night of new champions, defeating Yuya Uemura to regain the KOPW 2024 provisional championship, pinning Uemura following a slam. The match had been held under storm catch rules, where there was a two rope break/ring escape limit.
Yota Tsuji won his first championship in NJPW on Sunday, with him, Hiromu Takahashi, and BUSHI defeating Hiroshi Tanahashi, Oleg Boltin, and Toru Yano to become the new NEVER Six-Man Tag Team Champions. Tsuji pinned Tanahashi after hitting the Gene Blast, ending the reign of the champions after 56 days.
Shane Haste and Mikey Nicholls of TMDK ended up leaving Osaka-jo Hall with both the IWGP Tag Team titles and the New Japan Strong Tag Team titles, defeating Bishimon (Hirooki Goto and YOSHI-HASHI) to become double champions. Strong champions Hikuelo and ELP were the first to be eliminated, followed by the IWGP champions Chase Owens and KENTA.
The two other title matches of the night saw Shingo Takagi and Aaron Henare go to a draw for the NEVER Openweight title and Jon Moxley defeat EVIL to retain the IWGP World Heavyweight title.
New NEVER Six-Man Champions will be crowned in Taiwan.
NJPW announced on Tuesday that a one-night tournament to crown new champions will take place at Wrestling World 2024 in Taiwan on April 14 at the Zepp New Taipei in New Taipei City.
The titles have been vacant since the end of January, when Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Tomohiro Ishii successfully defended the titles against The Mighty Don’t Kneel (Kosei Fujita, Mikey Nicholls, and Shane Thorne). With Okada announcing his departure from the company, the titles were vacated following the title defense. Okada has since joined All Elite Wrestling.
Wrestling World 2024 will be a collaboration of the Asia-Pacific Federation of Wrestling group, which consists of NJPW, Stardom, Dragon Fighting Wrestling (China), Puzzle (Taiwan), SetUp (Thailand) and GrappleMax (Singapore). On Monday, it was announced that a match featuring Stardom talent will take place on the show.
This will be the first time NJPW held a show in Taiwan since Wrestling World 2016.
The NEVER Six-Man Tag Team title match has been moved to this coming Friday.
NJPW announced on social media Sunday night that the title match, which originally was set for Saturday in Beppu as part of the Burning Spirit tour, will now be held on Friday, September 23 in Kagawa at the Takamatsu City General Gymnasium. The match will have Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI, and YOH defend the titles against House of Torture’s EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, and SHO in a Tornado Dog Cage Survival match.
Despite the cancellation of last night's Burning Spirit event in Beppu, CHAOS and HOUSE OF TORTURE's NEVER 6 Man Championship match will take place!
The match in Beppu was canceled out of concern for Typhoon Nanmadol, which made landfall in southern Japan on Saturday. NJPW canceled both the show in Beppu and their card for Monday in Fukuoka. They are currently set to resume their tour on Wednesday, when they run in Kumamoto.
Also scheduled for the Kagawa show is an elimination tag match, with David Finlay, Ryusuke Taguchi, Master Wato, and The DKC facing off against United Empire’s Will Ospreay, TJP, Francesco Akira, and Aaron Henare.
Two title matches are set to take place at NJPW’s Golden Fight Series event on April 25.
In the main event, Taichi will defend the KOPW provisional trophy against Shingo Takagi. The NEVER Openweight Six-Man titles will also be on the line, as champions EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, and SHO of The House of Torture will take on Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, and Hiroshi Tanahashi.
Taichi defeated Toru Yano to win the KOPW provisional trophy at NJPW Hyper Battle this weekend in a sumo match. After the match, he said that he wanted to face Shingo Takagi next.
Meanwhile, Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa have been feuding with The Bullet Club, specifically House of Torture members, since they were ejected from the group back in February. At Hyper Battle, Tama Tonga attacked EVIL after he successfully retained the NEVER Openweight Championship, indicating he wanted the next shot at the title.
Here is the full card for Golden Fight Series, which will be held at Hiroshima Sun Plaza Hall:
Taichi vs. Shingo Takagi for the KOPW 2022 provisional trophy
EVIL, SHO, and Yujiro Takahashi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tama Tonga, and Tanga Loa for the NEVER Openweight Six-Man titles
Kazuchika Okada, YOH, and Toru Yano vs. Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI, and Hiromu Takahashi
YOSHI-HASHI and Hirooki Goto vs. Bad Luck Fale and Chase Owens
Taka Michinoku and El Desperado vs. Taiji Ishimori and Gedo
Ryusuke Taguchi, Master Wato, and Ryohei Oiwa vs. Zack Sabre Jr., DOUKI, and Yoshinobu Kanemaru
Tomoaki Honma and Togi Makabe vs. Tiger Mask and Yuto Nakashima
The first of three Kizuna Road shows aired earlier this morning at Korakuen Hall. The show had a big main event as Los Ingobernables de Japon defended their NEVER Six-Man tag titles against KUSHIDA, Ryusuke Taguchi & Juice Robinson. We also found out who will be in this year’s G1 Climax.
Korakuen Hall looked particularly empty this morning — some visible empty seats could be seen in wide shots.
Tomoyuki Oka defeated Tetsuhiro Yagi
Oka worked over Yagi a ton of the match. Yagi did a good job in playing the babyface in peril. He kicked out of a running powerslam, but Oka immediately locked in the Boston crab and submitted him.
El Desperado, Taka Michinoku & Yoshinobu Kanemaru defeated Shota Umino, Tiger Mask IV & Jushin Thunder Liger
Umino worked a lot of this match and looked pretty good — the crowd got into him and he was great in his selling and execution of moves. Really good performance from him. Desperado submitted him with the stretch muffler.
Liger and Tiger Mask posed for fans after the match.
This was just there. Kitamura is very green, but he’s perfectly decent for his experience level. Nakanishi seems to move slower and do less the more I see him in the ring. Nagata controlled Kitamura for a lot of the match and ended up pinning him with the backdrop driver.
This was a solid six-man bout. There was a lot of brawling outside of the ring and through the crowd early. Ishii worked a lot of the match and looked good, so did everyone else here really.
Kojima and Tenzan hit the 3D on Jado, then Makabe followed with the King Kong knee drop for the win.
The participants in this year’s G1 Climax tournament were then announced. The field is:
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe, Michael Elgin, Kazuchika Okada, Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI, Kenny Omega, Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, EVIL, Satoshi Kojima, Yuji Nagata, Juice Robinson, Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr., and Kota Ibushi.
The blocks will be announced on June 26th, with matches revealed the next day.
Takahashi came to the ring with a stuffed cat doll. He treated it like it was a living thing. Naito even fist-bumped it. His name is Darryl, if you were wondering.
This was Kawato’s big test, being in a more higher profile match than usual and he ended up scoring pretty well. He did great in his selling and has such great natural intensity that it resonated with the fans, so they got into him early, especially when he ran out and jumped Naito before the bell.
He still lost the match for the team, with Takahashi submitting him with the Boston crab.
A female interviewer talked with Taguchi Japan before their title match. Taguchi talked about the team and their match tonight for a bit.
YOSHI-HASHI, Kazuchika Okada & Hirooki Goto defeated Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & Davey Boy Smith Jr.
YOSHI-HASHI jumped Suzuki right at the bell and kept hammering at him until the ref had to pull them apart. It then turned into a solid back-and-forth match. I think this is Smith’s first time on a tour in ages and he looked really good both physically and in the ring.
Suzuki and YH had a great back and forth towards the end of the match. Suzuki laid him out as Taichi went to get a chair, but Okada broke it up. YH came back and locked in the butterfly lock for the submission.
Suzuki-gun tried to clear house after the match, but Okada and YH fought back, enabling YH to apply the butterfly lock on Suzuki for a long time until Okada finally broke it up.
The interviewer tried to talk to the NEVER Six-Man tag champs, but none of them seemed all that chatty. BUSHI did end up saying a few words.
NEVER Six-Man Tag Team Champions SANADA, EVIL & BUSHI defeated Ryusuke Taguchi, KUSHIDA & Juice Robinson to retain their titles
This was good, and it was easily the best match on the show. It wasn’t out of this world, but for a Korakuen Hall house show main event it delivered.
BUSHI and KUSHIDA started the match. They looked really good against one another, a positive sign for their match on the 27th. There was a cool spot where KUSHIDA struggled to get the armbar on BUSHI, so Robinson responded by headbutting BUSHI to execute it properly.
Everyone cleared each other out of the ring as Robinson cleared house. Taguchi did a Doomsday hip attack from the top rope. Robinson then went for the Pulp Friction, but when SANADA countered he hit a powerbomb instead. He went for it again, though SANADA kept escaping.
SANADA tripped him on the rope, which allowed EVIL on the outside to wallop him with a steel chair shot. SANADA threw him into BUSHI, who hit the MX, with SANADA following with his Skull End submission and leaving Robinson no real alternative but to tap.
