[6.0] "A huge step down from the Tokyo Dome events that NJPW normally puts. There were only two matches worth the watch, they were the main event and Shibata's in ring return. If I was being incredibly generous, I could recommend the Jr. Championship match and the LIJ Vs UE 6 man tag match ( Just for the appeal). Despite a bad undercard that included a DQ finish and a House of Torture match, the main event lives up to the hype, Okada and Takagi gave a stellar performance, It wasn't perfect but it was still a great match and the saving grace of a mediocre Wrestle Kingdom."

[6.0] "Last 3 matches of the card were great, you can definitely skip everything else. Felt more like a 'Road to...' show than a Tokyo Dome. [Ranbo] 2 Ÿ stars. [YOH vs SHO] - 2 Œ stars. [Tana & Coaches vs Bullet Club] - 2 stars. [LiJ vs UE] - 3 stars. [Shibata vs Narita] - 4 stars. [Ishii vs EVIL] - œ of a star (Worst of the Night, WOTYC). [Tekkers vs CHAOS] - 3 Ÿ stars. [Hiromu vs Despy] - 4 Œ stars. [Shingo vs Okada] - 4 œ stars. Average match rating: 3 of 5 stars (or 6 of 10)."

[5.0] "A Disappointing First Night Aside from the Main Event, Tag Championship & Shibata's match, every other match on the card was either average, boring or just plain bad. Rules were as usual very loose and english commentary was slightly delayed. Great Main Event tho"

[6.0] "Oh. The first Tokyo Dome show of 2022 did not deliver up to the standard we're acquainted. I mean, the undercard delivered your standard Korakuen Hall matches, and, to be honest, was mainly there to fill the card. They put so little effort into booking this years cards. Sure, some of it is Covid issues, but with what they have available they could have easily give each and single match more purpose. SHO vs YOH was fine. No climax or anything, but, yeah, fine [** 1/4]. Was nice to see Katsuyori Shibata go at it again, and Ren Narita was a good opponent for him to try a regular bout again, but it was more a test than an attempt at something great, [**]. Ishii/EVIL, what a waste of Ishii, usually a midcard MVP. Here in the laughingstock match on the show. Thankfully things got better after that with the IWGP Tag Title bout ending up rather good [** 1/2], and the IWGP Junior Title match being even better, with a somewhat surprising result, [** 3/4]. None of them truly fulfilling their potential. So the show rested almost completely on the main event for the IWGP Title between Tagaki and Okada, and naturally it was good. Not as amazing as one could have hoped for, but considering the route the show went, it was a satisfying closer to the big show. The main problem was the length. It's a known thing with NJPW these days that they do 15 minute matches and stretch them out past 30+ minutes, and that's what they did here. That was also one of the criticisms of Takagi when his main evented Dragon Gate back in the day too, so it's something you expect from both guys. When the match was ON, it was great with devastating drivers and general hard blows. That's when you felt the NJPW we all know and love! Good to have the belt back on Okada again. Hopefully that'll help them find their identity again after some less than stellar years. [*** 1/2]."

[6.0] "Was expecting more for WrestleKingdom. Avarage matches, only one being good was mainevent. It was good to see Shibata back in action. EVIL match being a total poopy match, i could've barely wathched it."

[7.0] "For a Wrestle Kingdom, it was disappointing (clap crowds are frustrating and the House of Torture stuff was awful). But half the show absolutely delivered the goods - the main event was amazing, the two matches preceding were great, and it was awesome to see Shibata return."

[2.0] "An okay wrestle Kingdom but could have been better the only matches I enjoyed were the tag title and world heavyweight title matches, the rest were not great at all. The only reason I'm rating this event a 2 is because of them 2 matches."

"One of the worst Wrestle Kingdom's. Who has an all-time bad match v Ishii' How is that possible' Very disappointing show."

[6.0] "I would've given this a 7 based on the quality of the last few matches, but I docked it a point because other than the Main Event and the moment of Shibata returning, nothing felt like Wrestle Kingdom, and even worse, the terribly mediocre Bullet Club v Tanahash/Mega Coaches and EVIL v Ishii matches shouldn't have happened outside of a Road To event, if at all. The main event was amazing, Junior Heavyweight and Tag Title matches were great, but didn't quite feel like big Tokyo Dome matches. Honestly, if it wasn't for the main event, I would've rated this much lower."

[7.0] "Quite an inegal first night. Shibata and Narita as well Goto/Y-H and The Tekkers saved that night. Takagi vs. Okada was a hell of storytelling bout. Otherwise, that didn't felt like a WK, excepting the ramp. That's really sad;"

[6.0] "Very underwhelming for a Tokyo Dome show. I understand that they split the usual WK card across 2 shows but you'd expect more than 2 standout matches on the big 1/4 show. The only match I would tell somebody to go out of their way to watch is Shibata/Narita, because that's a very special match. Desperado/Hiromu was great too but not must-see, and the Tag and World title matches were good. Rambo was a fun undercard match if you like seeing the Young Lions, old men, and undercarders work for a bit, with a couple fun surprises in Fujinami & CIMA. Everything else is basically filler (about as much filler as the main event had to go for length). Shibata's return is the only thing on this card that felt Tokyo Dome-tier big, and that was because Shibata went into business for himself and changed the decided stip and structure of his match."

[7.0] "Kind of difficult to rate this one. The first half was meh until the Shibata match which was very good. Evil and Ishii very disappointing for a title match at the dome. The last three matches were good, very good and excellent. Probably a little below par for a Dome show but still good overall on the strength of its best moments."

[7.0] "7 - Better than the sum of its parts, as four of the first five matches were skippable. The SHO/YOH feud needs to end, Ishii vs Evil flopped, and the preview tags were OK but not designed to be more. DT vs CHAOS did just enough to feel Wrestle Kingdom worthy, while the Jr. Championship match was more about the winner than the match. Shingo and Okada did their rendition of a Jan 4th main event epic. Fortunately the whole event still had that Wrestle Kingdom aura, even if the crowd were more silent than ever. Shibata's return, Taichi congratulating YOSHI-HASHI, and the late stretch of the main event did enough to save this card."

[8.0] "The latter half of Wrestle Kingdom Night 1 is fantastic, and easily makes up for the lacklustre first half (and really, what Puro show doesn't have a boring first half full of weak multiman matches'). Shibata returning is probably gonna be the feel the good moment of the year, the Heavyweight tag bout was fast paced and well put together, Desperado FINALLY beats Hiromu and proves he's the best Jr Heavyweight in NJPW, and an absolutely incredible main event between Okada and Shingo caps everything off. As previously stated, the boring multiman matches in the first half take it down a notch, but really the stake through the heart for Night 1 was that atrocious EVIL v Ishii match for the NEVER Openweight title. You ever wondered how to book he worst Ishii match ever' No' Well, Dick Togo has, and he was kind enough to show off his findings at the biggest show in the NJPW calendar. Cheers Dick."

[6.0] "Outside of the last three matches and the Shibata match this Wrestle Kingdom lacked. I guess this is the effect of doing multiple days for one event. The opening match between Yoh and Sho was satisfactory then two matches that shouldn't be on this card were there. The Shibata match happened and it was great for a guy who hasn't wrestled in nearly five years. I don't want to mention Evil vs Ishii anymore than I have. And after that there was three good matches."

[4.0] "I'm sure this point has been beaten to death by now, but this should have been one night. There was one night's worth of good/Kay stuff and one night's worth of crap. Alot of that crap isnon this first night. The two 6-mans weren't awful, but felt like a waste and didn't do anything important or interesting. Sho and Yoh were fine, didn't have alot of zest for a match between two guys who teamed for like 10 years or something. I didn't hate Evil vs Ishii as much as everyone else did, but I would say it was not good. Everything else on this show was fine. Shibata returning and the Jr. Heavyweight title match are the only things to go out of your way for on this show but even then they're not essentials tbh. The best is on night 2 (but that stuff isn't even fantastic either :("

[5.0] "I feel wrestle kingdom would have been great this year if it was a one night show, as there was a bunch of good stuff mixed with a bunch of filler and some god awful bits. The Shibata match and the final 3 matches were all good to great, however the first 4 matches were all pointless, and the NEVER match was awful. so it gets a 5. Also, I did not like the fact that the crowd could only clap, but it would be stupid for that to hamper the rating of the show since New Japan can't control that aspect."

"I really would like to see NJPW return to the one day format for Wrestle Kingdom cards. The multiple multi-person tag matches on night one that served to set up matches on Wrestle Kingdom day two really dragged down the show."

[6.0] "Had too much filler that wasn't even truly redeemed by the co-main and main event. Hiromu vs. El Desperado was good, but nothing special compared to other Jr matches this year while the main event was good at the same time was underwhelming compared to what I wanted from performers like Okada and Shingo."

[5.0] "A pretty crummy event by Wrestle Kingdom standards for me. Nothing besides the excellent Main event really stood out, and even though I had my share of fun and joy (especially at Shibata return), it just doesn't measure up to the level of hype January 4th shows ought to have. Add to that the Ishii match, which is the first actually legitimately bad big title match on Wrestle Kingdom in who knows how long...and well, this one is just not up to par."

[6.0] "This didn't felt like a Wrestle Kingdom, this felt like a Dominion or even Power Struggle. Must-see matches: Shibata vs Narita, Despy vs Hiromu and Shingo vs Okada."

[8.0] "- Ranbo 5/10: very clunky in general, nothing too boring but you could feel that wrestlers didn't care much. Nice to see Suzuki finishing and CIMA returning. - YOH vs SHO 5/10: they had much better matches just last year so I was surprised. In general, YOH feels dead, he often fails to show the right feelings that the gimmick would require, like a junior version of YOSHI-HASHI. The thing is that before improving so much, YOSHI-HASHI was never exposed by a 10+ minutes match at Tokyo Dome. In general, this feels like the feud will continue but WK should be the end of a feud. - BC vs babyface trio 6/10: short and sweet, the DQ might've pissed off some but it helps selling the fact that Tana isn't messing around. - UE vs LIJ 6/10: much like above, short and sweet, Ospreay dicks around and wins with Hidden Blade which I like. Problem' This and the match before are not WK material, put BUSHI in the Ranbo and get 20 minutes away from the show, nobody needs those matches as much as they aren't bad. - Shibata vs Narita 8/10: I mean come on, we got to see Shibata beat the shit out of people again, what else do you want more from life' - EVIL vs Ishii 6.5/10: I know, boohoo interferences and dick shots. But at least the man is coherent with his gimmick, he's insecure and weak so he can't match up to Ishii. Good thing is this was short too and it helps, EVIL proved he can have strong matches but they must not be close to 30 minutes, it's not for him. - CHAOS vs Tekkers 7.5/10: this was a great tag matches that follows the style brought by Taichi and Zack to the division. They're just a fantastic team able to elevate anyone around them, and this did wonders for completing YOSHI-HASHI's story. Bullied and made feel less by Zack and Taichi for years, he teams up with big choker Goto and wins his first IWGP gold, earning the respect of his rivals. Awesome stuff. - Desperado vs Hiromu 8/10: it was exactly what I wanted. Not long but long enough, fast, quick and powerful like if NEVER gold was on the line. Loved the total win by Desperado that cemends him as top player. - Okada vs Shingo 8.5/10: their Dominion match was better but don't get it twisted, this was a hit, based around Shingo's tenacity and avoiding the Rainmaker for 35 minutes until it finally hit. As always when such wrestlers are involved, the counters and finisher teases were top notch and I truly believe this is not Shingo's end as main eventer. The ending was perfect too, as Okada bid his farewell to the 4th generation belt and acknowledged the new IWGP belt. If Okada likes it, like it too. - overall 8/10: some great matches, when 4 matches are at least 7.5 you know that finding 10 best PPVs at mainstream level is gonna be tuff. Yes a good part of their booking has gotten stale and a refresh would be welcomed, yes the undercard tags aren't needed, but the top matches delivered huge here. We've seen better WK events tho, I'm aware of that."

[7.0] "This was a weak show by wrestle kingdom standards, but overall a solid show. Undercard was very skippable, but 4 out of the main 5 matches were at worst very good. Ishii evil was bad, but expected. Shibata being back was great, the tag title match was good. The co main was very good. And the main event, while not being up to par with some other Tokyo dome classics, was still a really great match. All in all kinda disappointed, but those 4 matches made up for the rest of the show"

[4.0] "A very underwhelming Wrestle Kingdom, the worst one I have seen (firsted watched WK 11), there was only great match, but even that was only 4 stars."

[7.0] "There was something really missing on the lower half of this for me however the show still kept my attention. Last 3 Matches were great to excellent, Shibata was something special. It was fantastic seeing CIMA In the Rambo a very nice surprise and he is in the final four going Into Day 2 an even bigger surprise."

[6.0] "I think it's better to held Wrestle Kingdom at one night only. Nowadays New Japan doesn't have enough good wrestlers and booking to support the show for two days. For the first day, half of the matches are not quality enough to be held at Wrestle Kingdom. The bad NEVER Openweight Title Match reduced the weight of the show. Overall, there are still some postive parts, like Shibata's single match, and the last three title matches."

[6.0] "Overall I'd say it was a solid show with good matches, but for a Wrestle Kingdom you expect more... that's why I'm not a fan of splitting the event into two nights."

[7.0] "A fine show, with a strong main event and a great moment with Shibata's return, but well below the standard of wrestle kingdom."

[8.0] "This wasn't a great night by Wrestle Kingdom standards, that being said it was still a great show with many good to great matches, capped of by what to me was the best match of the Pandemic era (though I don't think I'm in the majority with that)"

[6.0] "Satisfactory is the best word to describe this PPV. Four skippable matches (with one of them being the worst thing I've ever seen) and four good matches that also had the right result. I hope Night 2 is better."

[7.0] "A fine show, but a far cry from the best that NJPW has had to offer. An underwhelming undercard, and an atrocious EVIL match really hold this back. If you're cherry picking, I'd watch the Shibata match and the main event, plus the junior title if you got time for it."

[7.0] "First four matches had big Road To Destruction in Beppu energy. Rambo, HoT shenanigans, DQ finish to build next day. What are we doing here' Shibata proper return match and then worst match in WK history and runner for Worst Match in 2022. Thank god last three matches picked up and we got a tremendous main event. But outside of that, this show was awfully meh show. Clap crowd WKs never again, but oh wait WK day 2 is tomorrow. 7/10"

[3.0] "A boring show that failed to get much of a reaction out of me which is the whole point of watching pro wrestling. It's a culmination of 2 years worth of bad booking, unfortunate circumstances, and a completely stale product. The most baffling part to me is that a lot of the wrestling was just kinda sloppy and lacking in the intensity that you would expect from Japanese wrestling. The opener was pretty bad and did not feel like the culmination of a bitter feud between 2 former tag partners. The multiman tags were totally fine and effective for building up to tomorrow's shot but you would see the exact same matches on the undercard of any show. Shibata's return was awesome and by far the best thing on the show. Maybe the wrestling was imperfect in some ways but for getting an actual emotional reaction sustained throughout the entire match it was easily a 10. EVIL vs Ishii was complete and utter garbage; I can't possibly fathom what they were thinking with this. Tag title match was fine. Junior Heavyweight match started out really great but the middle part was kinda sloppy and it ended up not feeling like a particularly special match. The main event was a perfect symptom of what's wrong with NJPW right now: about 15-20 minutes of great material stretched to 30+ minutes. The less said about this 3 belts disaster of a story the better."

[5.0] "This was way too long. If you take out the junior heavyweight title and world heavyweight title matches it was basically a Korakuen Hall show. This bad booking and Dick Togo have got to go."

[7.0] "While the show didn't feel overly long at all despite it's 5+ hr length and was an enjoyable watch, there was too much filler here that didn't feel Wrestle Kingdom worthy. In some ways to be expected with 2 Day events and a depleted roster, but there were some booking issues causing that too. The 6 man tags felt like Road To matches, YOH/SHO didn't reach the level of their previous encounter at the MetLife Dome. Shibata's return was excellent, and started to turn the tide - apart from the disappointing EVIL/Ishii match - the remainder was some good stuff. I had higher expectations for Despy/Hiromu but they still produced a very good match, and Shingo vs Okada was excellent, even if i'm disappointed in The Dragon's reign coming to an end. Okada with the title is a different animal, so we'll see how that decision turns out in time. Much felt like a build for Night 2, so will be judged upon how well January 5th goes."

[7.0] "Definitely an uneven first night for Wrestle Kingdom, but between Shibata/Narita and the final three matches, With that being said, a 7 is simply not good enough for a show as revered as Wrestle Kingdom and I hope to God Gedo and whomever else is booking over there can make next year's event a classic once again."

[6.0] "A very Uneven Wrestle Kingdom Pros: Shibata/Narita, The Tag and Junior Title Matches were all awesome, Shingo/Okada was good but not great. Cons: The Multiman Tags and the Rambo were just set up for night two and not actually interesting, YOH/SHO was pretty underwhelming and EVIL/Ishii was ruined by the amount of interference Overall not a bad show but dissapointing for what its supposed to be 6/10"

[8.0] "I understand some of the criticism regarding the undercard of the show but it is a two-night event, it is obvious that the show wouldn't be the banger of past years. The last two matches were great, the tag title match and Shibata's were pretty good too. The EVIL match was what I expected, it's not worth watching. In general, the first night was a great show, much better than last year's event."

[9.0] "Aside from a dreadful EVIL match, this was a spectacular night. A mammoth main event, a great junior bout, a fun ranbo with a few surprises, a nice blow-off match and a fun tag team championship match. All around, amazing!"

[7.0] "Nothing happened in the first matches apart from Shibata and we had one of the worst matches in WK history with the NEVER title match but the final 3 matches were great and the main event was 5 stars for me."

[5.0] "This is not good enough for Wrestle Kingdom. All the matches was below my expectation except the main event(and the main event was just ok, not so impressive). I don't even feel exciting when I was watching this, and I really do when I was watching NOAH The New Year. Now I believe that New Japan might be the biggest but NOAH is No.1 in pro wrestling."

[4.0] "This matched some of the earlier Wrestle Kingdoms but lacked a lot of the special show quality those had that made them better shows. This was a mid-year event presented as Wrestle Kingdom and I hope NJPW can figure out their booking this year. I've never been so disinterested in them since I started watching regularly in 2006. Sho and Yoh are both great and had one of the worst openers in years. Ishii/EVIL was maybe the worst match I've seen from either ever, especially Ishii. Last 3 matches plus Shibata/Ren helped this from being a worse show but there's enough talent in the worse matches that it shouldn't have been this lackluster."

[7.0] "It wasn't the best of WK, but the matches that were supposed to deliver delivered, especially main event. Tag team matches did it's job, and Shibata's return was success. The only minus is, obviously, EVIL match. Too bad, it had potential."

[6.0] "To be my first NJPW show, the truth is that at the beginning it declines a lot, although it is true there are several very good fights, but others leave much to be desired. However, at least we saw Minoru Suzuki winning something around here again."

[7.0] "An okay enough show. I didn't get bored or lose focus throughout, which I guess is saying something for a long show, but it didn't leave me with any lasting feelings of hype or energy. That's pretty disappointing for a Wrestle KIngdom show, especially since I'd really like to be more hyped up for Night 2. I do think this is one of the worst WK shows in years, but that maybe makes things sound worse than they are because the standard has usually been very high. A lot of this was about leading into Night 2. Although it didn't create much hype for me, I'm still hopeful that Night 2 will be the "real" Wrestle Kingdom."

[7.0] "The worst night of Wrestle Kingdom I've ever seen, though I still wouldn't call it a bad show. The last three matches and Shibata/Narita were the only Wrestle Kingdom quality matches on this show, with the main event being the only must watch match of the night. The early card was forgettable, but EVIL/Ishii stands out as the worst major Wrestle Kingdom match in at least 10 years. There will be worse shows that get better ratings this year, but for a Wrestle Kingdom, this show was very underwhelming."

[4.0] "I am very sorry to say that this show was good only for the last three matches (and Shibata). Too bad."

[2.0] "Since Wk9 it was the highlight of the year, i was up all night to watch wk live . This year is the worst event by far. Not even on par with a minor show of their glory years.It felt like a bad 'road to' all night long.The boring wrestlers are now outnumbering the stellars one. NJPW filled an unimpressive card (on paper and in reality) with boring tags and god knows how they can't do tags like AJPW or NOAH.The quiet ambiance due to covid 19 rules didnt help, but the truth is this show wouldn't have lite a crowd anyway since every fight under delivered."

[5.0] "This was my first Wrestle Kingdom. Understanding by first that is my first WK that I have seen it live. I think that the booking of this show (the most important show of the company) is between awful and meh. It had awful things like the Never Openweight match and very good things like the Main Event and Shibata's return. Overall this show is not able to be above the 5."

[3.0] "Easily the worst Wrestle Kingdom I've seen in my time following NJPW. It had a poor aggregate quality and not high enough peaks for it's running time in spite of the excellence of Shingo vs Okada. Despy vs Hiromu was a fun sprint. Shibata vs Narita was pretty good. Tag title match was decent. House of Torture are so awful they managed to make an Ishii singles match suck. An impressive feat. Everything else ranged from mediocre to fine though. Simply awful for what is supposed to be your biggest show of the year."