The full card for King of Pro Wrestling has been confirmed.
Coming out of Destruction of Kobe, two big championship matches were officially set. The first was Zack Sabre Jr’s third title defense against the G1 Climax winner Konosuke Takeshita. This is actually a rematch from their semi-finals bout in the G1 where Takeshita emerged victorious.
The second bout is the third match in the long standing rivalry between Gabe Kidd and Yota Tsuji. After Kidd’s grueling match against Shingo Takagi, Yota jumped into the ring and challenged the IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion and the 28-year-old happily. Accepted.
Now the entire card for King of Pro Wrestling has been confirmed.
While Kidd takes care of Tsuji, his Bullet Club War Dogs friends will be fighting Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi, and Titan in a six man tag team match. The War Dogs and Shingo, Hiromu, and Titan have been going back and forth over the past couple of months. The feud ignited during the G1 Climax and the two factions have been battling ever since.
But there are three other championship matches on the upcoming card.
The Knockout Brothers accomplished a tremendous feat by beating Tomohiro Ishii and Taichi for the IWGP Tag Team titles. Now the brothers will be quickly tested as Yuya Uemura and Shota Umino are their first challengers. Neither man has won the prestigious belts in the past so it’ll be interesting to see how well Yuya and Shota work as a unit on October 13.
Hiroshi Tanahashi may not be getting an opportunity at the IWGP World Heavyweight title at Wrestle Kingdom, but he’ll have a chance to walk around with some NJPW World TV Championship gold as he’ll take on El Phantasmo for the title.
Last, but not least, EVIL hopes to win the NEVER Openweight belt for the fourth time in his career as he’ll step into the ring against Boltin Oleg for the belt.
Check out the advertised line-up for NJPW’s King of Pro-Wrestling:
- Shingo Takagi, Hiromu Takahashi & Titan vs War Dogs (David Finlay, Taiji Ishimori & Clark Connors)
- Drilla Moloney vs SANADA
- YOH, YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto vs TMDK (Ryohei Oiwa, Hartley Jackson & Kosei Fujita)
- NJPW World TV Championship: El Phantasmo (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
- NEVER Openweight Championship: Boltin Oleg (c) vs EVIL
- IWGP Tag Team Championships: Knockout Brothers (OSKAR & Yuto-Ice) (c) vs Yuya Uemura & Shota Umino
- IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship: Gabe Kidd (c) vs Yota Tsuji
- IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs Konosuke Takeshita