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KUSHIDA (2018)

150 Pts.



KUSHIDA started off 2018 in a thrilling four-way dance for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 12 against champion Marty Scurll and fellow challengers Will Ospreay and Hiromu Takahashi, which he lost. Afterwards he spent a lot of his time on the undercard in various tag matches with Taguchi Japan and fellow members of the New Japan Army. He then reignited his rivalry with Will Ospreay and the two squared off for the Jr. Title on night two of Wrestling Dontaku. Ospreay defeated KUSHIDA to retain the belt in an excellent contest.

Next up was Best of the Super Juniors. The tournament has treated KUSHIDA very kindly in the past; he made it to the finals in 2014 and won the whole thing in 2015 and 2017. This year was not so kind to the “Time-Splitter.” KUSHIDA scored eight points in B Block, but it was not enough to get him to the finals. This meant that KUSHIDA got a one-way ticket back to the undercard tag scene for the next few months.

When then-IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Takahashi injured his neck at G1 Special in San Francisco in July, he was forced to vacate the belt. Takahashi’s loss ended up being KUSHIDA’s gain as he was put into a four-man tournament to determine the new champion. KUSHIDA defeated BUSHI at Destruction in Kobe, then defeated Scurll at King of Pro-Wrestling to become a six-time IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion. This meant that he was now tied for second with Tiger Mask for most IWGP Jr. Title reigns of all time. After King of Pro-Wrestling, KUSHIDA entered this year’s Super Jr. Tag League with Chris Sabin where they scored six points. Sabin was usually the one taking the falls when they lost, so when Taiji Ishimori pinned KUSHIDA on 10/27, it stood out in a major way; Ishimori was subsequently announced as KUSHIDA’s opponent and first scheduled defense of the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title at Wrestle Kingdom 13.

In hindsight, KUSHIDA’s 2018 really wasn’t that noteworthy. He’s still a super talented wrestler and whenever he was involved in a featured match (the Jr. Title matches, Best of the Super Juniors), he shined. But those major matches paled in comparison to the amount of time he spent in meaningless undercard tag matches just going through the motions. He didn’t even wrestle at Dominion, a show on which he had spent the previous three years in IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship matches. He also spent a fair amount of time overseas in Ring of Honor, RevPro, and OTT Wrestling as a traveling star. You could make the argument that this was the least integral KUSHIDA has felt to New Japan’s junior division in years. Sure he won the title again, but that was only because Hiromu got injured. Would KUSHIDA have become a six-time champ if the injury hadn’t occurred? Based on his trajectory for the first half of the year, I highly doubt it.

2019 Outlook: Towards the end of the year, some rumors floated about that WWE was interested in signing KUSHIDA. It’s not a far fetched notion by any means to picture him in a WWE ring. KUSHIDA has won every junior championship and tournament in New Japan that you can win and his prospects as a heavyweight in the company are slim to none. We know he’s used to being in the United States because of all his trips to Ring of Honor. It’s not unfathomable to see KUSHIDA make the jump to start a fresh new chapter in his career. What’s key in all of this is the title match against Ishimori at Wrestle Kingdom. If KUSHIDA loses the match and drops the belt, then I’d say the possibility of seeing him sitting at ringside during an NXT TakeOver will be looking more and more likely. But rumors are still rumors, so it may just end up being nothing. We shall see. -Andrew Rich