NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling Results (10/8): Kenny Omega vs Cody Rhodes vs Kota Ibushi

NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling
October 8, 2018
Ryogoku Sumo Hall, Tokyo, Japan

— Kevin Kelly, Rocky Romero and Chris Charleton are our three-man English commentary team. Before they can even introduce themselves, Suzuki-Gun ran out to attack Tiger Mask and Jushin Thunder Liger.

(1) El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (c) def. Tiger Mask & Jushin Thunder Liger to retain the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championships. Lots of Suzuki-Gun shenanigans throughout. The legends looked great, with Tiger hitting all his big moves including the Tiger Driver and bridging Tiger Suplex, but there was a ref bump. Kanemaru spit whiskey into Tiger’s eyes and smashed him with the bottle, dragged the ref back into the ring and Desperado hit the Angel de Oro to retain.

(2) Tomoaki Honma & Togi Makabe def. Juice Robinson & Toa Henare. Pretty basic match with Henare getting into a slugfest with two great apes every chance he got. Both guys were good individually, but he and Juice had no synergy as a tag team. The most downright shocking part of the match is that Honma hit three out of the four Kokeshis he tried for, which has to be some kind of record. Henare got squashed with double lariats, Honma hit a running Kokeshi, and Makabe came off the top with a King Kong knee drop to score the win.

(3) Bullet Club Firing Squad (Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Bad Luck Fale & Taiji Ishimori) def. Bullet Club Elite (The Young Bucks, Hangman Page & Chase Owens). This was a really fun match. Hangman was the absolute show-stealer, while the Bucks kept their stuff fairly limited, and seemed to be selling the effects of last weekend’s matches. In the end Chase tried to go it alone and did a decent job taking the fight to the Guerrillas of Destiny, but Tama eventually caught him with a Gun Stun.

(4) CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii, Goto & Will Ospreay) def. Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & Takashi Iizuka). Another fun match. Suzuki and Ishii traded a ton of shots early on while everyone else brawled all around the ring. They’re pushing a title match between them at Rev Pro coming up. Lots of work between Will Ospreay and Taichi, as the Brit actually managed to make him look halfway decent. An excellent finish as Suzuki-Gun triple teamed Ospreay after dispatching of the others. Ishii recovered and cleared the ring, Kushida dodged a blast from the title belt, turned it into a standing Spanish Fly. Goto hit the Ushigoroshi on Taichi, and Ospreay hit Stormbreaker for the win.

— Los Ingobernables de Japon came out and Naito welcomed the crowd to Sumo Hall. Their brand new member, which they have been teasing all week, is none other than Dragon Gate ace Shingo Takagi.

(5) Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, Sanada, Bushi & Shingo Takagi) def. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Toru Yano & Roppongi 3K). They kept this short after a long entrance and reveal for the new star. Okada and Naito did a lot of the work for their teams actually. Some comedy early on and tons of spots for Shingo to show off his skills. Okada threw defense dropkicks everywhere and blocked the Destino, but Shingo eventually came in, took out everyone and pinned SHo with the Last Falconry.

— EVIL vs. Sack Sabre Jr. never happened because Chris Jericho ran out and attacked Evil before the match could get started, hitting him with multiple Codebreakers. Eventually Y2J left and ZSJ came back, freaking out because he wasn’t awarded the win via forfeit and started beating down EVIL. Naito ran out and chased him off.

(6) Kushida def. Marty Scurll to become the new IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion. A bit of a slow match to start with Scurll targeting body parts and manipulating joints. The story of the match was essentially Kushida being able to counter into the armbar at will, but Scurll had been weakening his hands and fingers, so by the end of the match he couldn’t keep the hold locked in. The Villain hit a huge powerbomb right into a package piledriver for an extremely close nearfall. In the end it was Kushida who dug down deep, countering a Chicken Wing into Back to the Future, then rolling through into a second Back to the Future to win.

(7) Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Jay White to retain his G1 Climax briefcase. Sort of your standard Tanahashi big main event style match where he sells an injury, plays babyface all match and then comes back with a ton of heart and passion at the end to win. White mugged him almost the entire match, working over his leg, ankle and knee while mocking the Ace relentlessly. An amazing nearfall spot where Tanahashi came back and hit Dragon Screws, then went up and hit the High Fly Flow crossbody, went back up and hit the final High Fly Flow that always does the trick, but Gedo pulled the referee out of the ring and the very last second. White got a bit too cocky and had the ref totally against him by this point, and Tanahashi ended up winning with a surprise small package rollup.

— After the match White and Gedo brutally attacked Tanahashi until Okada ran out to make the save. He started beating the hell out of Gedo until Jado returned wearing a Rainmaker t-shirt and tried to make peace between the two. While they were talking the Firing Squad had snuck into the building and surrounded the ring. Jado turned and they all beat down Okada and Tanahashi endlessly. It would appear that the Switchblade, and more importantly the booker of NJPW is now Bullet Club…

(8) Kenny Omega (c) def. Cody Rhodes and Kota Ibushi in a triple threat match to retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Holy hell what a match. The triple threat meant the work rate was insanely high and there was almost always constant action, which is already something you get from a normal Omega and Ibushi performance, just kicked up a few notches. They did big spot, signature kickout and tease humanly possible to make it look like Kenny was dropping the belt. Cody and Ibushi came close so many times, and Ibushi and Omega actually beat the crap out of each other at the end pulling no punches. Omega retained with the One Winged Angel, which Ibushi is still the only man to ever kick out of.

— Tanahashi came down after the main event, broken down and beat up after what happened about an hour ago. He traded insults and quips with Kenny Omega for a moment, but the message was very clear. It’s Tanahashi/Omega for the title in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 13.