Good evening, everyone! Hope you’re ready to stay up late! Because in mere hours, New Japan will be going live with a major event, New Beginning In Osaka! It’s a big double title match in the main event as Tetsuya Naito defends both main titles against KENTA! NJPW’s New Beginning tours effectively kick off the year on New Japan’s 2020 after Wrestle Kingdom capped off the prior year. While it’s a lengthy tour made up of many events, some bigger than others, it all culminates with this last big one here!
The way most New Japan Pro Wrestling shows work, the first half of the card will mostly consist of minor matches. These are often six or eight man tag matches, meant to get big names on the show and let them do their most popular spots without wearing themselves out. This leaves the latter half as the big stuff. So we’ll just be dealing with the last four in these previews.
IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Championships: Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. KENTA
After winning both of New Japan’s biggest prizes at Wrestle Kingdom 14, now Tetsuya Naito defends each of them in this big main event. This was setup on the night itself, when KENTA came in to spoil Naito’s big Tokyo Dome moment. Now the two will do battle in what has the makings of a monumental clash. The fact that KENTA went and ruined Naito’s celebration really is the only thing that gives me pause in what I’m about to say. But I think even with it, this all still stands.
Even leading up to Wrestle Kingdom, and the more I got behind the thought that it was Naito’s last chance to cement himself in the annals of the promotion’s history, I had a certain line of thought. The thought that, if he did this, the reign itself would not matter. He wouldn’t have to hold it for a year and challenge for Okada’s defense record, or even come anywhere close. I had the thought that if he won this crazy mini-tournament for both titles at the Tokyo Dome, he could lose them both the next chance he got and still, the job would be done.
Tetsuya Naito’s legacy has been sealed.
He’s now in that elite group of people that have held the IWGP Heavyweight title more than once. He now joins Shinsuke Nakamura, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada as the fourth man to have won the big singles main event at Wrestle Kingdom. (The first one was headlined by a tag match instead of an IWGP Heavyweight title bout for some reason.) He’s in that rarefied air now and will be forever, no matter what happens from this point forward.
And that’s why I’m comfortable saying that it is totally okay, and perhaps even a great idea, to put KENTA over here. This seems crazy, given how he hasn’t been here for a full year yet, and how his record isn’t stellar. That’s part of the story they’re telling in fact, that he probably doesn’t even deserve this title match at all. But that’s just gonna be part of the magic of him taking all the gold for himself.
KENTA has emerged as a magnificent heel coming out of 2019. Every new step of his angle just made him hotter and hotter. Even coming in, there was some bubbling resentment as he was the ace of NOAH at a time when they were the enemy. Then he joined the Bullet Club, and also attacked Shibata which, for those not in the know, was basically the same thing as Randy Orton’s assault on Edge. You just don’t do it, but he did. And you just don’t attack the guy who won at the Tokyo Dome either, but he did.
He’s primed now to be their top heel going forward and tonight seems like the night to pull that trigger. It feels bold, but this is the way I’m heading. Quite the journey from 205 Live to this… KENTA over.
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