NJPW has announced the final Wrestle Kingdom card and all of the teams participating in the RANBO match.
This year’s RANBO match will feature three-man tag teams vying for the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championships currently held by the team of Master Wato, Yoh and Toru Yano.
In a Ranbo match, multiple wrestlers compete at the same time much like a battle royal. Sometimes elimination happens by over-the-top-rope (both feet hitting the floor), via pinfall or submission, but the rules vary depending on the event. NJPW frequently changes the rules, especially at Wrestle Kingdom. Sometimes there are timed entries like the WWE’s Royal Rumble and sometimes there have been two rings. RANBO means “brawl” or “free-for-all” in Japanese.
The seven team participating are:
Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask & Togi Makabe
Kaisei Takechi, Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura
Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) & Oleg Boltin
Team 100 (Satoshi Kojima & Taichi) & Tomohiro Ishii
House Of Torture (Ren Narita, SANADA & Yoshinobu Kanemaru)
TMDK (Hartley Jackson, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr.)
Clark Connors & The Knockouts Brothers (OSKAR & Yuto-Ice)
The full Wrestle Kingdom card is:
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada – Hiroshi Tanahash’s retirement match.
IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Konosuke Takeshita vs. IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion Yota Tsuji – Winner-Take-All Match.
EVIL (c) versus Aaron Wolf – NEVER Openweight Championship Match.
El Desperado vs. SHO vs. Kosei Fujita vs. Taiji Ishiimori – IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship Number One Contender’s Match.
David Finlay, Shingo Takagi, Gabe Kidd, Drilla Moloney and Hiromu Takahashi vs. Great-O-Khan, Callum Newman, Henare, Andrade El Idolo & A Mystery Partner.
IWGP Women’s Champion Syuri vs. NJPW Strong Women’s Champion Saya Kamitani – Winner-Take-All Match.
NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Champions YOH, Master Wato & Toru Yano defend in a multi-team ranbo against Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask & Togi Makabe, Kaisei Takechi, Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura, Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) & Oleg Boltin, Team 100 (Satoshi Kojima & Taichi) & Tomohiro Ishii, House Of Torture (Ren Narita, SANADA & Yoshinobu Kanemaru), TMDK (Hartley Jackson, Ryohei Oiwa & Zack Sabre Jr.), and Clark Connors & The Knockouts Brothers (OSKAR & Yuto-Ice)
El Phantasmo (c) versus Chris Brookes – NJPW World TV Championship Match.
You can catch all the action on New Japan World on Sunday, January 4th.
