Destruction (2012): WrestleFile Historical Verdict

CHAOS representatives Tomohiro Ishii and Takashi Iizuka defeated Tama Tonga and Captain New Japan in 9:16 to open Destruction 2012. This was a documented two-on-two result, not an IWGP tag-title defense or one of the later junior and heavyweight singles championship bouts. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.5 is an opening-tier evaluation, consistent with its place before the card's longer championship matches. The match is useful for identifying an exact CHAOS pairing and its opposition during the September Kobe show. A curated watch focused on champions can record Ishii and Iizuka's victory, then prioritize Ibushi's defense against Taguchi and Tanahashi's final win over Marufuji.

Time Splitters, Alex Shelley and KUSHIDA, teamed with BUSHI to defeat CHAOS members Gedo, Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero in 9:37. The result came second on the card and is part of the junior-heavyweight roster picture, but it was not an IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.5 places this six-person tag with the shorter supporting contests. The title decision involving a junior wrestler occurred later when Kota Ibushi retained against Ryusuke Taguchi. Viewers tracing the Shelley-KUSHIDA team's appearances can watch this for the named partnership and a win against an identifiable CHAOS trio, not for a supposed junior-title transfer that does not exist in the source result.

Low Ki defeated Daisuke Sasaki in 8:45 in the third match of the September 2012 Kobe program. The short singles contest earns C+ / 6.5 in the existing WrestleFile evaluation. Although Low Ki had an important role in the junior heavyweight scene, this result was not the advertised IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship defense: Kota Ibushi entered and left as champion after beating Taguchi in the seventh match. Keeping the two singles pairings separate preserves the official card order and the championship lineage. Low Ki-Sasaki is a precise early-card historical entry for readers studying either competitor, while a shorter replay can favor the longer documented title matches.

Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer and Harry Smith of Suzuki-gun defeated Tencozy's Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima alongside Yuji Nagata in 12:02. The win identifies a six-person Suzuki-gun combination rather than a successful Tencozy tag-title defense. WrestleFile's C+ / 6.8 is slightly higher than the three opening matches but still below the junior heavyweight defense and main event. The precise teams are important because the participating wrestlers later appear in other singles or tag championship settings; this contest itself didn't change a belt. For an event historian, its contribution is the faction alignment, result and middle-card time allocation, not a fictitious title or tournament consequence.

Togi Makabe defeated Kengo Mashimo in 9:02 in the fifth match of Destruction 2012. The pairing gives this part of the Kobe lineup a distinct heavyweight singles result without any documented championship stakes. At C+ / 6.5, WrestleFile does not elevate the match to the quality of the later Ibushi-Taguchi junior title defense or Tanahashi-Marufuji heavyweight main event. A full-card viewer can retain it as the actual Makabe-Mashimo meeting between Suzuki-gun's six-man contest and Laughter7's brief tag victory. A selective viewer following the September title lineage can skip it without accidentally omitting a championship change; no belt transferred in this match.

Laughter7's Katsuyori Shibata and Kazushi Sakuraba defeated Hiromu Takahashi and Wataru Inoue in 3:03. The match is a notable short roster snapshot because of the named Shibata-Sakuraba combination and the young Takahashi appearance, but it produced no IWGP title change and lasted barely three minutes. WrestleFile's C / 6.3 is the card's lowest match grade, giving a clear reason to treat it as supporting viewing rather than a cornerstone of Destruction 2012. Preserving the actual four participants and winners is more useful than assigning an invented finish move, especially when the card contains two longer successful singles title defenses soon afterward.

Kota Ibushi retained the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship against Ryusuke Taguchi in 17:06 at Kobe. The champion won, so the junior title did not switch to Taguchi on September 23, 2012. WrestleFile grades the bout B- / 7.4, the strongest match evaluation below Tanahashi-Marufuji in the saved nine-match card. This is the essential junior-division replay and should not be confused with the earlier Time Splitters, BUSHI and CHAOS six-person tag that involved several junior wrestlers but did not put the singles championship at stake. The retained belt forms half of the event's championship story alongside Tanahashi's successful heavyweight title defense.

Tetsuya Naito, Hirooki Goto and Karl Anderson defeated CHAOS members Shinsuke Nakamura, Kazuchika Okada and Yujiro Takahashi in 15:08 in the penultimate bout. Multiple future and former heavyweight contenders shared the ring, but the match was a six-person tag, not a singles championship decision for Okada, Nakamura or Tanahashi. WrestleFile's B- / 7.1 evaluates the matchup as a meaningful late-card result without putting a belt on the line. Its historical appeal is the unusual mixture of Naito, Goto and Anderson as the winning side against the three named CHAOS opponents. The heavyweight title was defended only in the next contest when incumbent Tanahashi defeated Marufuji.

Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Naomichi Marufuji in 23:35 to retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in the main event of Destruction 2012. WrestleFile awards B+ / 8.1, the highest individual match score in Kobe and the clearest full-replay priority from the nine-match program. Tanahashi entered as defending champion and stayed champion; the match should not be described as Marufuji's title victory or as a vacant-belt contest. Earlier Kota Ibushi had also successfully defended the junior championship against Ryusuke Taguchi, so the evening's two prominent singles title matches ended with both incumbents retaining. The Naito-Goto-Anderson tag win in the penultimate slot is a separate non-title outcome and cannot be used to rewrite Tanahashi's defense.