NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 16 Preview: Night One (1/4)

Once upon a time in Japan, there were three title belts. One belt was won by Will Ospreay, when he defeated Kota Ibushi in Ibushi’s first defense of the newly-minted IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. While Ospreay managed to defend the title, misfortune struck, as Ospreay suffered a neck injury in the match and had to fly back to his native Britain to get the wound dealt with.

With Ospreay injured, and across oceans, he was stripped of the title by New Japan Pro Wrestling. Shingo Takagi defeated Kazuchika Okada in the main event of June’s Dominion event, and was crowned the new IWGP World Heavyweight Champion. As of the writing of this piece, Takagi has remained champion for over two hundred days, with three dominant defenses to his name.

But while Takagi was carrying the standard for NJPW, Ospreay re-emerged in Los Angeles, CA at NJPW Resurgence with a second IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. He declared himself the “real” champion.Save for the occasional NJPW Strong appearance, Ospreay has essentially wrestled elsewhere since his injury. He proceeded to collect titles from Warrior Wrestling, as well as RevPro’s British Heavyweight Title to go along with Ospreay’s Undisputed British Heavyweight Title. He wrestled for House of Glory and is supposed to debut for MLW at some point. The one-time franchise player, now a foreign invader.

So busy was Ospreay’s 2021, that he didn’t even have time to enter this year’s G1 Climax tournament. The tournament was won by Kazuchika Okada, who began carrying around the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt that preceded the World Title belt held by Ospreay & Takagi. Takagi declared both men’s belts “forgeries.”

These three belts cast a long shadow across two nights of Wrestle Kingdom 16, set to begin on January 4th at 2am ET on NJPWWorld.com. Before the long-winded preview, here is the full card for Night 1 of Wrestle Kingdom 16:

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 16

Night 1

2am ET on NJPWWorld.com

Opening Match*: New Japan Rumble (Final four wrestlers advance to Four Way Match on 1/5)
SHO vs. YOH
Bullet Club (KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Rocky Romero & Ryusuke Taguchi
United Empire (Will Ospreay, Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & BUSHI)
Catch Wrestling Rules Match (Grappling & Submissions Only, No Strikes): Katsuyori Shibata vs. X
NEVER Openweight Championship Match: Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. EVIL
IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Match: Dangerous Tekkers (Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr.) (c) vs. CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI)
IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship Match: El Desperado (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi
IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Match: Shingo Takagi (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada

*possibly starting earlier than 2am, will update when I know more

It's almost time!

Start the #njpw50th celebrations! Wherever you are- be there live in English for Wrestle Kingdom 16!https://t.co/cEFFsYKcrQ #njwk16 #njwk16day2 pic.twitter.com/ScOgbNjApV

— NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) January 1, 2022