Taichi wins KOPW 2023 at NJPW Road to Tokyo Dome event

  • Ian Carey
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Taichi is the NJPW King of Pro Wrestling for 2023. 

He defeated Yashinobu Kanemaru in a Whiskey on a Poll match on today’s Road to Tokyo Dome show at Korakuen Hall. 

Under KOPW rules, only the title holder at the end of a calendar year is considered to be KOPW Champion. Other title-holders throughout the year are considered Provisional Champions. Taichi now joins Toru Yano (2020 & 2021) and Shingo Takagi (2022) as the only wrestlers to be crowned KOPW Champion.  

Today’s KOPW match saw plenty of interference from House of Torture and attempts from Just Five Guys to even up the score. In the end, Taichi hit Black Mafisto for the win.  

“From needless interference, inconsistent selling, and pointless overindulgence, this match was a total slog,” our own Chick Fritts described the match. “Oh, and it went 30 minutes. If it wasn’t actively infuriating, it was horrifically boring.”

Also on today’s NJPW show, Drilla Maloney and Clark Connors and TJP & Francesco Akira set up a coffin match that will take place on Friday’s show. The Bullet Club War Dogs brought out a coffin before their match on Thursday and declared that Catch 2/2’s careers were dead. 

‘We’ve been saying all year that Catch 2/2 is dead and you won’t stay down so we’ll just have to shit you in here,’ said Moloney.

However, TJP and Akira were not intimidated by the coffin’s presence and challenged Connors & Maloney to a first-ever NJPW coffin match on tomorrow’s show. The two teams will also meet at Wrestle Kingdom 18 for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight tag titles.

Today’s main event saw Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Tomohiro Ishii successfully defend their Six Man Tag Team Championships against the United Empire team of HENARE, Great-O-Khan, and Jeff Cobb. 

NJPW Road to Tokyo Dome December 21 results:

  • Masked Horse (Ryusuke Taguchi) & Masked Boltin (Oleg Boltin) defeated Tiger Mask & Toru Yano
  • TMDK (Kosei Fujita & Zack Sabre Jr.) defeated Young Blood (Oskar Leube & Yuto Nakashima)
  • BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Clark Connors, Drilla Moloney & Gedo) defeated United Empire (Callum Newman, Francesco Akira & TJP)
  • House of Torture (EVIL, Ren Narita & SHO) defeated Master Wato, Shota Umino & Tomoaki Honma
  • Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi & Shingo Takagi) defeated El Desperado & Satoshi Kojima
  • Just 5 Guys (DOUKI, SANADA & Yuya Uemura) defeated Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Tetsuya Naito & Yota Tsuji)
  • NJPW King Of Pro-Wrestling Championship Whiskey Bottle Ladder Match: Taichi (c) defeated Yoshinobu Kanemaru
  • NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championship: Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, & Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) defeated United Empire (Great-O-Khan, HENARE & Jeff Cobb)