Ladies and gentlemen, after much wait and much hype, the time has come! New Japan Pro Wrestling brings you Wrestle Kingdom 14 – two days of it, in fact! The WrestleMania equivalent of Japan’s biggest promotion becomes all the bigger, starting tonight! This is sure to be one of the most incredible weekends in wrestling history! I’m Jordan Huie of the Overtimer and I’ll be here with my coverage of the shows as they happen!
With all my duties covering WWE and AEW I haven’t really had much time to talk about New Japan this past year, but I am a massive fan and I can’t let a stop at the Tokyo Dome go by without getting in on it! So let’s take a look at what we have on tap for Night 1!
Texas Deathmatch for the IWGP United States Championship: Lance Archer (c) vs. Jon Moxley
This should be a whole lot of fun. Violent, brutal, bloody fun, and I imagine it’ll end up spilling into every seat in the house before all is said and done. Texas Deathmatch in this context means the match can only end in either a 10-count knockout or a submission. In other words, a hybrid between a Last Man Standing match and an I Quit match.
Jon Moxley of course needs no introduction, the man had an absolutely stellar 2019. But there was one rocky situation in October, which saw him forced to vacate the US title after Typhoon Hagibis prevented him from making a scheduled title defense at King of Pro-Wrestling 2019. At this event, Lance Archer took advantage, defeating Juice Robinson in a No DQ match to take the gold.
Archer impressed a lot of people in 2019, one of the more unsung breakout stars of the year. He was clearly motivated going into his singles run and has found new life, being something of a destroyer for the brand. He’s earned the chance and I’m glad he got this run here, but ultimately it was never even meant to happen, atleast not this soon. Only by circumstance did he get involved in the scene that was meant for Moxley and Juice, and I think now that Mox is back, we’re gonna get back to where we were already headed.
Moxley to win and regain the US title here. No doubt he’ll be battered beyond belief afterwards though.
