Desperado states that he’ll be back in his time for the match.
In the semi-main event of NJPW Power Struggle, Hiromu Takahashi successfully defended the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship against Taiji Ishimori. The story going into the match was that Takahashi would not put the belt around his waist until he defeated Ishimori one-on-one, seeing as how Takahashi won the belt in a four-way involving Ishimori at Wrestle Kingdom 17.
After Takahashi’s win at Power Struggle, he grabbed a microphone and asked for anyone who is thinking about coming out to challenge him to hold off and let him speak his peace. Hiromu would go on to invite El Desperado to the ring. Desperado was on commentary and earlier in the show, he competed in a four-way tag match.
Takahashi offered Desperado an IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title match for Wrestle Kingdom 18 on January 4th. Desperado accepted, but stated that he has to take some time off to undergo surgery but he’ll be back in time for the title bout.
If Desperado can make Wrestle Kingdom, here is the updated match card for the event:
- IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: SANADA (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito
- Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada
- IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships: BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney) (c) vs. Catch 2/2 (Francesco Akira & TJP)
- IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi (c) vs. El Desperado
