Because the profession of “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles looks to be winding down, no less than in WWE, everyone seems to be feeling just a little bit retrospective about Styles’ profession. Individuals are going back and searching at a few of his finest moments, his biggest championship victories, and the various, many classic matches he had everywhere in the world over the past 27 years.
For loads of fans, a big majority of those classic bouts got here in his two 12 months run with Recent Japan Pro Wrestling. Despite spending nearly 12 years with TNA and a full decade with WWE, Styles produced a listing of matches in two years with NJPW that the majority wrestlers would not be about to match in the event that they got twenty years. His IWGP Heavyweight Championship matches with Kota Ibushi and Kazuchika Okada, his G1 Climax matches with Hiroshi Tanahashi and Minoru Suzuki, and naturally, his final singles match in NJPW against Shinsuke Nakamura at Wrestle Kingdom 10.
By the start of 2016, Styles had already established himself as perhaps the very best wrestler on this planet, reaching a plain of existence that seemed alien to loads of people given how good his work in TNA and ROH was before it. Opposite him though was the definitive final type of “The King of Strong Style.” Nakamura has also spent 10 years with WWE at this point, but while you return to look at the mid-2010s and also you see Nakamura oozing with confidence, dominating the highlight, and genuinely being unlike another wrestler on the planet in the very best possible way, it does make you wonder whatever happened to this version of him.
This match was the primary of what would grow to be a series of singles matches between the 2, and while WWE tried to recreate the magic years later, nothing beats the unique. Provided that the last match recently took place at WWE Saturday Night’s Fundamental Event, let’s roll back the years and shine a highlight on the IWGP Intercontinental Championship match between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura from NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10.
An All-Timer Performance
To place it simply, this match is pretty much as good as everyone says it’s. We touched on it once we gave our picks for the very best matches of AJ Styles’ profession, but its on this particular rewatch where it becomes clear how special this match truly is. There’s something magical about this time period for Recent Japan Pro Wrestling. There’s an electricity within the air, you’ll be able to understand why NJPW was as critically acclaimed because it was during this time because after watching the entrances you will sit there like “I’ll have this NJPWWorld subscription for a very long time.”
Going into Wrestle Kingdom 10, AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura had been purposely kept apart. Each time it looked like they were going to cross paths, life would take them in a distinct direction, but after they did eventually go face-to-face within the World Tag League tournament in November 2015, everyone knew that Styles vs. Nakamura was the match to make, and it was made official for the Tokyo Dome very soon after.
With the advantage of hindsight, this can be a match that wraps up Styles’ big NJPW singles match run up in a neat bow. For 2 years because the leader of Bullet Club (you were the leader AJ, stop saying you were not), Styles would happily use every underhanded tactic he could to assist him over the road. He was greater than talented enough to place anyone away himself, but interference and distractions from his Bullet Club brothers, low blows and every thing in between were utilized to assist keep “The Phenomenal One” on top of the pile in NJPW. Styles even goes to the well of faking a back injury and causing a temporary stoppage, only to hop up and dive on Nakamura to take control of the match.
Nevertheless, that will ultimately be Styles’ downfall. Faking a back injury worked within the short-term, but within the long-term Nakamura would goal the back repeatedly, knowing that with none strength in his back, a Styles Clash could be difficult accomplish. Nakamura even broke up Styles’ control segment with a Backbreaker, little details like that made this match work so well. Styles did hit a weakened Styles Clash as a way of countering a Triangle Choke, but when he had the prospect to finally deliver the definitive blow, Styles desired to hit an Avalanche Styles Clash from the highest, just for his arrogance to get in the best way and be hit with an Avalanche Michinoku Driver and two Bomayes which gave Nakamura the win.
A Tokyo Dome classic where each men were aiming for the pinnacle in any respect times. It was AJ Styles at his best. It was Shinsuke Nakamura at his best. It was the Tokyo Dome crowd at their best, every thing just works. When you enjoyed any of their WWE work together, watch this and understand what an ideal match between Styles and Nakamura is alleged to seem like.
Not possible To Follow
If there may be one criticism that you can throw on the Wrestle Kingdom 10 match, it’s that it set an ungodly standard for the 2 men for after they would cross paths later down the road. In the very best possible way, this match being pretty much as good because it was gave the eventual rematches no probability of succeeding, especially within the environment they’d happen in.
Two years after this bout, Styles and Nakamura would meet in one other one-on-one contest, this time for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 34. It marked one in every of the one times that a match has taken place at each WWE and NJPW’s biggest shows, but only one in every of those corporations knew learn how to present this bout. In WWE, the match was built because the dream match that everybody had been waiting for ever because the company signed each men shortly after Wrestle Kingdom 10, but in the long run, the WrestleMania match just sort of fell flat.
In a vacuum, Styles vs. Nakamura at WrestleMania 34 is nice. It’s just a little formulaic and toned right down to cater to an off-the-cuff WWE audience, but it surely’s still good. Nevertheless, everyone knew how good it may very well be as Wrestle Kingdom 10 was at the back of everyone’s minds, meaning that the expectations for WrestleMania 34 were almost unattainable for each men to succeed in. It’s why probably the most memorable a part of the eventual feud they’d coming out of WrestleMania was best remembered for Styles and Nakamura kicking one another within the nuts again and again, WWE could never match what happened within the Tokyo Dome and decided to make it different. But because the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it, so it’s ironic that WWE made their 2018 feud about nut shots because WWE were kicking themselves within the nuts each time they presented one other lesser version of what Styles and Nakamura did at Wrestle Kingdom 10.
The 2026 match at Saturday Night’s Fundamental Event is a a lot better affair and far more in step with Wrestle Kingdom 10, which is hilarious considering how far removed we’re from that match now. Among the praise of that match may very well be lobbied at Nakamura for simply having the ability wrestle a great match in spite of everything this time, but it surely’s still a really fun experience that acts as a pleasant coda to the series of matches each men have had through the years. Nevertheless, as we said at the beginning, sometimes you only cannot beat the unique, and when you discover a spare half-hour or so before the Royal Rumble this Saturday, go and watch this match and appreciate that we got to live in the identical time period as AJ Styles.