At the finals of World Tag League, following Lance Archer & Minori Suzukis victory over KENTA & Yujiro Takashi, a song New Japan fans haven’t heard in a while sound off with a wild guitar riff. It was that of ‘The Death Rider’ Jon Moxley. He made his way through the screaming crowd, to come face to face with current IWGP United States Champion Lance Archer.
He laid out both Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki with his Death Rider DDT (fka Dirty Deeds), before lifting the title he never lost above his head to huge applause. They brawled through the crowd after Moxley intitally laid out Archer, and the match is set to be a Texas Death Match. They are going to bring wrestling violence to the Tokyo Dome.
Jon Moxley and His Bad Luck As Champion
Jon Moxley came into NJPW earlier this year and his first bit of action was unseating Juice Robinson as IWGP United States Champion. He would then enter the G1 Climax, finishing with a respectable 8 points.
One of the men who earned a shot at his title during the tournament was former champion Juice Robinson. He evened up their feud to 1-1, and the blow off was set for King of Pro Wrestling in October. It was to be a No Holds Barred match.
Unfortunately Jon Moxley was unable to make it to Japan for the title defense due to a typhoon hitting Japan just before the show. With him unable to defend his title, NJPW was forced to strip him of the title. We got Lance Archer vs. Juice Robinson instead, with Archer overwhelming Robinson.
Lance Archers Time As Champion
Lance Archer, much like Jon Moxley entered a tournament nearly immediately, but he was able to defend his title against Juice Robinsons tag team partner David Finlay. This happened at Showdown in San Jose.
While Lance Archer has become a solid singles wrestler in the past year, with impressive runs in the New Japan Cup & G1 Climax, he spent most of his career in NJPW as a tag team with Davey Boy Smith Jr. as Killer Elite Squad. Moxley is much more established as a singles competitor, giving him an edge in their upcoming matchup. Add in the anger of having to regain a belt he never lost, and you can imagine that on January 4th or 5th we are going to see a very vicious Jon Moxley.
Are you looking forward to this upcoming match? What is your most anticipated match set for Wrestle Kingdom? Let us know in the comments down below, and stay tuned for more NJPW news!
