Wrestle Dynasty was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event co-produced by several major promotions. These promotions included New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), World Wonder Ring Stardom, All Elite Wrestling (AEW), Ring of Honor (ROH), and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL).
The event featured twelve matches, with two taking place on the pre-show. The PPV saw representation from AEW, Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Stardom and CMLL. The multi-promotion event emanated from the Tokyo Dome and featured the returns of Kenny Omega and Young Bucks to a Japanese ring for the first time in quite a while.
Since 1992, the Japanese professional wrestling promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) has held an annual show on January 4 at the Tokyo Dome, a professional baseball stadium in Tokyo, Japan; since 2007, the event has been known as Wrestle Kingdom, and has since become the largest professional wrestling event in Japan. In 2025, the January 5 Tokyo Dome show will be branded as "Wrestle Dynasty".
NJPW also holds the New Year Dash!! event in Tokyo on the day after Wrestle Kingdom; in 2025, New Year Dash!! will be held on January 6.
Tokyo Dome, the venue for Wrestle Dynasty
Read also: Comprehensive Guide to Aerial Techniques and Wrestling
Key Matches and Moments
In the event's final match, which was promoted as part of a double main event, Zack Sabre Jr. defeated Ricochet to retain the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. In the other main event, Kenny Omega defeated Gabe Kidd in what was Omega's first match for over a year due to diverticulitis.
#njWD 9th match Backstage (with Subtitles) 1/5/25 | WRESTLE DYNASTY 第9試合 Backstage
Kenny Omega
Pre-Show Highlights
The International Women's Cup finals was the first match on the pre-show. Each woman represented their home promotion in this Fatal 4-Way.
From the moment the bell rang, this was an energetic and competitive contest. All four women worked hard to put on a good show. Athena and Willow's established chemistry was on full display every time they made contact.
This was non-stop action and all four competitors came away from this looking like strong fighters, but only one was going to leave with the cup. When it was all said and done, Watanabe scored the win with some help from a baseball bat behind the ref's back.
Read also: Everything About WrestleMania 41
The ROH tag title bout was up next with Sammy Guevara and Dustin Rhodes taking on Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Sho.
The champs quickly found themselves being double-teamed by the heels from House of Torture. Whenever it looked like one of them would make a comeback, Sho or Kanemaru would cheat to regain the upper hand.
This was a decent tag match, but there were several moments when it felt like they could have taken a moment or two to sell more. Guevara scored the win with a beautiful senton from the top rope.
Main Card Highlights
The first match on the main card saw eight talented from CMLL and NJPW compete in a gauntlet match. This worked more like the Casino gauntlet in AEW than a WWE-style gauntlet match. Instead of someone having to beat everyone in a row, this was one fall to a finish.
Every time a new wrestler got to the ring, they would work against the person who just showed up. This means everyone else was just sort of sitting around at ringside waiting for something to happen. It was especially noticeable when Hechicero was standing there watching the action.
Read also: Wrestling Career of Daniel Bryan
That being said, the action we got in this match was incredible. These were eight of the best high-flyers in the world doing what they do best, so we got plenty of high spots and creative counters.
Ishimori won the match and hightailed it out of there because he knew some of the other competitors would come after him.
After saving Tanahashi from a post-match attack at Wrestle Kingdom, the two agreed to face each other in a special five-minute exhibition.
This was paced very differently from the usual matches we see, but it had to be due to the time restrictions.
They went back and forth trading moves for the first couple of minutes before beginning to vary up their offense.
The time limit eventually ran out, so we didn't get a winner. They shook hands and ended on a positive note, but it felt unnecessary to even have this on the main card in the first place.
Shirakawa took on Mone in a title for title bout that saw the NJPW Strong and RevPro women's titles defended at the same time.
Mercedes tried to big-time Mina a little bit after their first lockup, but the Stardom talent quickly showed her that she is just as fast and just as talented.
As expected, these two did not take this lightly. They were throwing stiff strikes and trying to suplex and slam each other as hard as possible.
There was no clear advantage for either competitor, so it never felt like either of them was dominating the match for too long.
After a great fight from both women, Mone pinned Shirakawa to win her third championship. She now holds the TBS, NJPW Strong Women's and RevPro British Women's Championships. This is a match you should go out of your way to see. They did some fantastic work here.
The next match had no titles on the line and no real stakes. It was simply two mean men who wanted to beat each other up.
Finlay competed less than 24 hours before this in a tough match, so King was coming into this as the fresher competitor.
King used his size and power to be the dominant force in the ring, but Finlay never once showed fear or hesitation. He took the fight to the big man and occasionally had him reeling a bit.
Even though this was 90% King in control, they did this in a way that made Finlay look resilient. He never backed down and never stayed down.
After surviving what amounted to a mauling from a bear, Finlay managed to get the victory. This was a highly entertaining encounter and both men came away from this looking good.
After challenging Jon Moxley, Umino was told the leader of the Death Riders had other obligations, so he sent Castagnoli in his place.
The Swiss Superman attacked Umino during his entrance to get an unfair advantage. The first few minutes of this bout was nothing but Castagnoli whooping Umino like he owed him money.
Once Umino was able to regain his composure, this turned into a more even exchange. He wanted to prove to his old mentor that he could take out his right-hand man, so he was using a lot of high-impact moves like a draping DDT on the floor.
In a somewhat surprising outcome, Umino survived the Riccola Bomb and defeated Claudio with Moxley's Death Rider DDT. This is clearly setting up Umino vs. Moxley down the line, and it did a good job laying the groundwork.
This could be Mox's Forbidden Door opponent if both men are healthy.
Takeshita won the NEVER Openweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom and less than 24 hours later, he found himself defending both of his titles against Ishii.
The Stone Pitbull is usually the most intimidating man in any ring, but Big Take did not show a single sign of being scared.
These are two guys who are known for being hard hitters, so they were throwing bombs left and right trying to take each other down while also incorporating some suplexes and throws.
They beat the life out of each other to make this one of the most competitive fights of the night. Takeshita has really come into his own over the past year and this match was a great illustration of his growth.
Takeshita picked up the win with a Michinoku driver after a hard-fought exchange.
Nick and Matt Jackson returned to the Tokyo Dome to compete for the vacant IWGP tag titles against United Empire and LIJ.
The Bucks sat back and watched as the other two teams started fighting, but once everyone noticed, they went after Nick and Matt on the apron.
With six men involved and very little attention being paid to tags and who was legal, this bout was non-stop mayhem at times.
Trying to recap all of the action would be pointless because there was so much going on in and out of the ring. Everyone was fighting everyone and it never felt like one team had the upper hand for too long.
While a lot of what we saw looked good, it sometimes felt like there was too much going on. We didn't always get to see what was going on at ringside because the camera was focused on the ring.
In another surprising outcome on this show, the Bucks ended up winning to become the new IWGP tag champs for the second time.
Jack Perry showed up in full Scapegoat gear to take on Tsuji in a singles match for the Global Heavyweight Championship.
Tsuji just won the belt at WK from Finlay, so he was yet another champion was in action twice in less than 24 hours.
Perry seemed to take advantage of that and was able to get the upper hand early. This was a surprisingly one-sided match for the first several minutes.
Once Tsuji started to gain some momentum, he and Perry began trading blows in the middle of the ring. A few moments later, he cut Perry in half with a nasty Spear to get the pin and the win. This was a solid match but will likely be overlooked on this show due to the bouts that came after.