In the opening match on Night 2 of Wrestle Kingdom 14, during the pre-show, a gauntlet match was held in which five teams of three competed for the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championships. The match saw Los Ingobernables de Japon – represented by Bushi, Evil and Shingo Takagi – take the titles. They were by far the most high profile team in the match, so it’s not particularly surprising.
The gauntlet order went as follows:
- Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi) & Chaos (Tomohiro Ishii, Yoshi-Hashi & Robbie Eagles) started the match.
- Chaos eliminated Bullet Club after Tomohiro Ishii hit a Brainbuster on Chase Owens.
- Suzuki-gun was Team #3.
- Chaos also defeated Suzuki-gun after a lengthy cradle sequence between Eagles and Kanemaru ended in the former’s favor.
- Los Ingobernables were Team #4.
- LIJ eliminated Chaos. The finish was botched with an early bell ring after Evil hit Ishii with a Fireman’s Carry Sit-Out Spinebuster. He hit his usual STO finish on Ishii swiftly after anyway.
- That left the defending champions, Taguchi Japan (Ryusuke Taguchi, Toru Yano & Togi Makabe) as the last team in.
- Los Ingobernables took the titles after Shingo Takagi pinned Taguchi with the Last Of The Dragon.
Whilst the result by itself is not surprising, it is interesting that after WK 14, Sanada is now the only member of Los Ingobernables without a title to his name. With Hiromu Takahashi claiming the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title and Tetsuya Naito winning the IWGP Heavyweight & Intercontinental Championships, Sanada’s failed attempt at the RevPro British Heavyweight title sticks out in a way that feels intentional.
Wrestle Kingdom 14 is in the books, an unbelievable historic weekend that shall be looked back on fondly for a lifetime to come. I’m still stunned by much of what I saw over these past two days. Emotional highs and lows in addition to some truly fantastic action. In my estimation, there are few things in the big world of entertainment more worth investing your time into than New Japan Pro Wrestling. It’s easy enough to turn on your first show and be impressed by the presentation, skills and styles. But the journey that is being a long time fan of this company is an absolutely mind blowing one. If you’re a wrestling fan and you aren’t atleast casually following New Japan, you should really give it a shot.
