New Japan Pro Wrestling 1/4/2020 WrestleKingdom 14

New Japan Pro Wrestling 1/4/2020 WrestleKingdom 14

I've only seen a few matches, but I wanted to comment before the thoughts got out of my head.

NJPW Japan Dojo vs NJPW LA Dojo 8-Man

As always, these are pre-show matches with tons of people in them and not enough time. They are doomed and a waste of time. It's just weird seeing "the future of New Japan" being a bunch of non-Japanese guys. The big takeaway I had is that while undersized and easy to confuse between themselves, at least the LA Dojo guys have been hitting the gym. I thought Henare looked pretty good here and despite him also being undersized, he just looks really big. I didn't have any issues with this at all.

Will Osperay vs Hiromu Takahashi

This was the first time I saw Hiromu and likely one of the last. This was your typical indy stuff where they do a million big moves that don't mean anything.

Jay White vs Tetsuya Naito

You can look around here and you will see I've never been a big fan of White or White/Naito. I didn't like White/Naito from August and I didn't like White/Okada from MSG. This match followed the usual White heel formula with the frequent cheating. I didn't have too many issues with it, but I just didn't think it was great and I think any of the NJPW main eventers probably could have put out a similar quality if not better match. Jay White is just not there as a worker or personality, and I'm doubtful if he ever will be. I did like them setting up Naito's knee injury which hopefully will play a large role in tommorow's 1/5/2020 match vs Okada. But I still thought White should have worked it more if that was the story. This also went too long for what they can do.

Kazuchika Okada vs Kota Ibushi

There was no clear story. The only story I came up with was Ibushi was powering-up I guess you could say and giving Okada a whooping. But if that was the story, it failed, because Okada got a ton of stuff in and won. The match was also heavily reliant on big moves, which you all know I'm not a big fan of. Finally, this match went way too long with the first part of the match being a waste of time.