Four Matches Announced For Wrestle Kingdom 13: Chris Jericho vs. Tetsuya Naito For IWGP I.C. Title, Jay White vs. Okada, More
The card has just got a little bit bigger!
On January 4th New Japan Pro Wrestling continues with their tradition of presenting the biggest show of their calender year – Wrestle Kingdom 13 inside of the Tokyo Dome. At ‘King Of Pro Wrestling’ on October 8th, Kenny Omega retained the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in a Three-Way match and as soon as the referee’s hand hit the mat for the third time, the match between G1 Climax 28 winner Hiroshi Tanahashi and Omega was locked in for Wrestle Kingdom 13.
– This morning at the Wrestle Kingdom 13 press conference, four new matches were announced for the show and the first of four matches announced was a rematch of the finals from the 2018 Super Junior Tag Tournament. Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado will be defending their IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships in a Three-Way against BUSHI and Shingo Takagi, and Roppongi 3K. SHO and YOH scored the victory the last time these three duos met and at Wrestle Kingdom 13 they will meet once again with gold on the line.
– The second match announced was an IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match between KUSHIDA and “Bone Soldier” Taiji Ishimori. Ishimori has been tied up in the middle of the Bullet Club civil war that has seemingly come to an end and is now more-so about Bullet Club versus ‘CHAOS’. At Wrestle Kingdom 13 Taiji will look to make Tama Tonga and Bad Luck Fale proud when he hopes to leave the Tokyo Dome as Junior Heavyweight Champion.
– At ‘New Years Dash’ in January of this year, Jay White sat next to the then-IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada and accepted an invitation into ‘CHAOS’. Over the course of the year, Jay White has shifted the entire landscape and followed up on everything he said he was going to do and come January 4th, Kazuchika Okada will have the chance to right all the wrongs of this year when he goes one-on-one with the “Switchblade”.
– At ‘Dominion’ in June, Chris Jericho shockingly defeated Tetsuya Naito in dominating fashion to become the new IWGP Intercontinental Champion. In the months following his loss, Naito seemingly shook off the defeat due to the fact that he does not care for the IWGP I.C. Title. Chris Jericho successfully defended the belt against Naito’s L.I.J. stable-mate EVIL at ‘Power Struggle’ and in the post-match press conference, Jericho stated that Naito would never get another shot at the title but Jericho spoke a little too soon because he will be making his second consecutive Tokyo Dome appearance to defend that Intercontinental Championship against the tranquilo Los Ingobernables de Japon leader Tetsuya Naito.
To watch the full Wrestle Kingdom 13 press conference, click here. Also, to stay up to date with the matches occurring at the Tokyo Dome show, head over to Fightful’s “events” section.
