Happy New Year Graps fans! It’s a new year yes it is!
As ever, the winter period is an extremely busy one as we hit the Tokyo Dome this weekend in Japan and the road to Wrestlemania begins in the U.S as WWE enters a brave new world now streaming on the Netflix platform. So let’s do it, to it!
Wrestle Kingdom 19 - Saturday 4th
So incredibly, Zack Sabre Jr. has (quite rightly) been trusted with the Wrestle Kingdom main event against a young up and comer which, to some extent, is a perfect embodiment of New Japan’s “new generation” era. All the same this is a huge achievement for ZSJ who is capping off an incredible and well deserved year which saw him finally climb the summit of professional wrestling while Shota is being given the opportunity of a lifetime headlining the Tokyo Dome so early in his career.
While this year’s WK is perhaps a bit low-key compared to previous installments (hampered slightly by some poorly timed injuries), there should still be some excellent stuff on display here with Takagi vs Takeshita especially mouth watering and the potential for EVIL to end Tanahashi’s final year unceremoniously early. It will never happen but could you imagine if John Cena and Tanahashi had a match on their respective retirement victory laps, think the world might implode if they ever crossed paths.
Anyway, elsewhere, Douki vs Despy should be some fun flippy nonsense, Yota Tsuji might finally end David Finlay’s reign of terror and the “Japanese headliner” as it were, between Naito and Himoru could have some intriguing story-line potential for LIJ going forward.
Wrestle Dynasty - Sunday 5th
So in a shake-up, what was previously night 2 of WK is now an inter-promotional event with AEW/ROH, Stardom & CMLL which serves as a way of getting some more big names on the card without disrupting NJPW’s storylines and adds a bit more jeopardy to night 1.
The obvious headline here is that it’s Kenny Omega’s in-ring return in over a year against mad bastard and friend of @jordan_229 Gabe Kidd. While perhaps a mismatch on paper I’m pretty excited to see what these two can do (just hope Omega doesn’t get injured before he’s even started his return) as Kidd has had an excellent year improving massively both in ring and character work and has been rewarded with a big time match.
Elsewhere, Sabre takes on Ricochet and Umino against Claudio which depending on the results of the night before, one of which will be a title match, though Umino’s prior association with Moxley means there’s already a decent deathriders arc to the latter match.
The Finlay vs Tsuji match will determine which of their respective second matches (vs Brody King & Jack Perry, respectively) will be for the Global Heavyweight title, while either Takagi or Takeshita will face Iishi. The Young Bucks go for Great-O-Khan and his mystery partner (due to HENARE’s injury) tag team belts, and Mercedes Mone has a very tasty looking match against Mina Shirakawa.
Overall, this looks like a very fun bill. Oh, Sammy Geuvara is tagging with Dustin Rhodes for some reason too.
Raw’s Netflix Debut - Monday 6th
A bumper card to celebrate a new era! This monday’s Netflix debut of Raw features the beginning of John Cena’s retirement run, a Travis Scott performance, Punk vs Rollins, Drew Mac vs Jey Uso, Liv Morgan vs Rhea Ripley in a last woman standing title match, and Roman Reigns vs Solo Sikoa (despite being smackdown talent) in Tribal Combat!
In just under a month we will have 2025’s edition of the Royal Rumble, featuring aside from the titular matches (say his name and, he appears…) Cody vs Kevin Owens for the WWE Championship in a ladder match.
AEW’s bigger events are a bit later on, including their first foray in Australia in Feb, and then the generally always reliable Revolution ppv in March.
Let’s Goooo!
