On Sunday, New Japan Pro Wrestling held a press conference regarding Wrestle Kingdom 15 taking place on January 4 & 5, 2021, at the Tokyo Dome.
Stemming from the result at Power Struggle, Jay White will challenge for the Double Championship on the second night of Wrestle Kingdom while taking the first night off.
This follows White’s victory against Kota Ibushi on Saturday in Osaka where he used the rope for leverage to pin Ibushi and take possession of the briefcase that earns him a title shot at Wrestle Kingdom.
At the press conference, Tetsuya Naito stated White would receive the title match on the second night but he will defend the Double Championship on January 4th against Ibushi.
Naito’s statement:
For a few years now we’ve had this system of the G1 winner holding the right to challenge contract. The holder of the contract should have his wishes respected. Wrestle Kingdom 15 will be held once again over two nights on January 4 & 5, so whether the contract holder gets his match on night one or night two shouldn’t matter. Therefore, I have no issues with facing Jay White in accordance to his wishes on January 5 2021.
However, if Wrestle Kingdom is being held over two nights, I want to wrestle twice. I want to have two main events, two title matches. So I will wrestle on January 4 against an opponent of my choosing. Jay White is getting his wish of a title match on January 5 so he should have no issues. I’ll be worn out wrestling two main events in a row, but I feel it’s on me to show the world what I can do. So I want to have two title matches, and I will have two title matches.
On January 4, I want to face Kota Ibushi. Yes, Ibushi put his contract on the line and lost to Jay White. So he shouldn’t have a right to a title match at the Tokyo Dome. Yet both of us were in the G1 Climax, and he won it, not me. He won it back to back, not me. That hurt, and I want to get revenge for that. I think jay should respect that. I beat Ibushi January 4 and face him on January 5. There should be no problem with that. Sorry to Jay, but I want to face Ibushi more. So that’s my official request.
How about it? Thing is, I want NJPW to carefully consider this. If I get what I want here, what does that say about the contract concept? If this is the case surely we don’t need a contract at all? That might become the case. So I want the company to very carefully take everything into consideration.
NJPW chairman Naoki Sugabayashi spoke at the presser noting they planned to make several announcements for Wrestle Kingdom but deferred and said they would be made at a later date.
Sugabayshi said that since July 11th, they have run 54 live events with 72,706 fans and there have been zero COVID-19 cases arising from their shows.
