New Japan Pro Wrestling Released The Full Cards For Both Nights Of Wrestle Kingdom 14

After a dramatic last night of World Tag League, New Japan Pro Wrestling held a press conference at which they revealed the full card for Wrestle Kingdom 14. Both nights (January 4 -5, 2020) at the Tokyo Dome now include eight matches, some of which were challenged for this weekend.

Two consequential new matches on January 4 were set up on December 8: World Tag League winners FinJuice challenging G.o.D. for the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship and Jon Moxley challenging Lance Archer for the U.S. title he had to vacate this fall (“You didn’t beat me for that belt. Delta Airlines stole that belt from me,” in Mox’s words).

A more unexpected development is a second U.S. title match on January 5, in which Juice Robinson will challenge the winner of the previous night’s U.S. title, which means Night 2 of Wrestle Kingdom 14 could now easily crown two double champions. Another singles title match will see Kenta and Hirooki Goto, whose very personal feud escalated throughout the World Tag League tour, finally go one-on-one with the NEVER Openweight Championship on the line. January 5 now also includes Zack Sabre Jr. defending his RevPro British Heavyweight Championship against Sanada, who pinned the champ multiple times this tour and who ZSJ attacked backstage on December 8.

Jushin Thunder Liger‘s second retirement match was also officially set. When Dragon Lee, now going by Ryu Lee, challenged Liger on December 8, Liger responded that he wanted to take on Lee and Hiromu Takahashi at the same time. Some fans believed this meant Liger’s second retirement match would be a three-way, but backstage, the junior heavyweight legend brought up the possibility of a tag match in which he and Naoki Sano would take on Lee and Takahashi, and that’s now the opening match of NJPW’s January 5 show.

In order, here are all the matches for both nights of Wrestle Kingdom 14:

January 4:

• Jushin Thunder Liger Retirement Match I: Tiger Mask, The Great Sasuke, Tatsumi Fujinami, and Jushin Thunder Liger (with El Samurai) vs. Ryusuke Taguchi, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Shinjiro Otani, and Naoki Sano (with Kuniaki Kobayashi)
• Los Ingobernables de Japon (Bushi, Shingo Takagi, Evil, and Sanada) vs. Suzukigun (El Desperado, Taichi, Minoru Suzuki, and Zack Saber Jr.)
• Chaos (Yoshi-Hashi, Toru Yano, Tomohiro Ishii, and Hirooki Goto) vs. Bullet Club (Chase Owens, Yujiro Takahashi, Bad Luck Fale, and Kenta)
• IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match: The Guerillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa) (c) vs. FinJuice (Juice Robinson and David Finlay)
• Texas Deathmatch for the IWGP United States Championship: Lance Archer (c) vs. Jon Moxley
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match: Will Ospreay (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi
• IWGP Intercontinental Championship match: Jay White (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito
• IWGP Heavyweight Championship match: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Kota Ibushi

January 5:

• Jushin Thunder Liger Retirement Match II: Jushin Thunder Liger and Naoki Sano vs. Hiromu Takahashi and Ryu Lee
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match: El Phantasmo and Taiji Ishimori (c) vs. Roppongi 3K (Sho and Yoh)
• RPW British Heavyweight Championship match: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Sanada
• IWGP United States Championship match: Juice Robinson vs. winner of Jan. 4 U.S. title match
• NEVER Openweight Championship match: Kenta (c) vs. Hirooki Goto
• Match between the losers of the Intercontinental and Heavyweight Championship matches on Jan. 4
• Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Chris Jericho
• IWGP Heavyweight and IWGP Intercontinental Double Championship match: competitors TBD on Jan. 4

The press conference also included the announcement of the cards for New Japan’s last remaining shows before Wrestle Kingdom, the Road to the Tokyo Dome tour on December 19-21. These shows are mostly made up of tag matches with WK opponents on opposite sides and include Hiromu Takahashi’s return to the ring after almost a year and a half out of action when he teams up with Bushi against Will Ospreay and Robbie Eagles in the main event on December 19.