King of Pro-Wrestling 2012: WrestleFile Historical Verdict

Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano and Takashi Iizuka defeated Muscle Orchestra members Manabu Nakanishi and Strong Man alongside Yuji Nagata in 11:29. CHAOS won the opening six-person match at King of Pro-Wrestling 2012, but the result was not for a championship and should not be merged with faction business later in the Tokyo card. WrestleFile rates this opening contest C+ / 6.5, behind the junior and heavyweight title bouts. Its utility is identifying the three-member winning side and the three named opponents, not inventing an immediate change to a singles or team-title lineage. The card's first actual championship contest followed in the next bout, with Forever Hooligans defending the junior team belts.

Forever Hooligans' Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero defeated Time Splitters, Alex Shelley and KUSHIDA, in 14:55 to retain the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. The Hooligans entered as champions and left with the belts, making this a successful defense at King of Pro-Wrestling 2012 rather than a Time Splitters title win. WrestleFile grades the encounter B- / 7.1, on par with the separate Low Ki-Kota Ibushi junior singles championship contest that came next. Those two junior divisions produced opposite title consequences: Forever Hooligans kept the team belts, while Low Ki beat Ibushi to take the singles championship. Keeping those outcomes distinct is more informative than labeling both bouts simply as junior title action.

Low Ki beat defending IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Kota Ibushi in 17:05 to win the singles junior belt. This was the first title change in the October 8, 2012 Ryogoku event, following Forever Hooligans' successful junior team defense over Time Splitters. WrestleFile assigned B- / 7.1, a supporting championship score on a night whose main event was rated B+ / 8.4. Low Ki did not capture the junior team title in this bout; the prize was the individual IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. That distinction also separates the win from the very next match, where Killer Elite Squad defeated Tencozy for the heavyweight IWGP tag championship.

Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr., together Killer Elite Squad, defeated reigning IWGP Tag Team Champions Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima in 12:47 to capture the heavyweight team championship. WrestleFile scores the match B- / 7.1, but its belt consequence is more decisive than that middle-tier rating alone suggests. Tencozy lost their titles at King of Pro-Wrestling 2012, while Forever Hooligans had retained the separate junior tag championship two matches earlier. The card therefore did not feature a single generic tag-title outcome. Killer Elite Squad's victory made the night's second confirmed title switch after Low Ki beat Ibushi for the junior heavyweight singles belt.

Yujiro Takahashi defeated Tetsuya Naito in 5:41, giving King of Pro-Wrestling 2012 a short singles result between the two named wrestlers amid longer championship matches. The saved C / 6.3 score is one of the event's weakest assessments, and the bout did not award an IWGP championship or change the Tokyo Dome challenge-rights certificate. That certificate was the subject of Kazuchika Okada versus Karl Anderson later in the seventh contest. For Naito and Yujiro career research, the winner and brief duration are the central facts. A short-event watch can set this contest aside without losing the two title changes or Tanahashi's successful heavyweight defense.

Laughter7's Katsuyori Shibata and Kazushi Sakuraba defeated Always Hypers, Togi Makabe and Wataru Inoue, in 7:10. This was a straightforward two-on-two victory on the Tokyo Ryogoku card, not a championship contest or a defense of Okada's later title-challenge certificate. WrestleFile's C / 6.3 gives it a supporting grade alongside the immediately preceding Yujiro Takahashi-Naito singles result. The named teams provide a useful snapshot of the October 2012 roster, especially for readers following Shibata and Sakuraba together. The following match involved Okada and Karl Anderson competing over future Tokyo Dome challenger rights, a different stake that should not be retroactively assigned to Laughter7.

Kazuchika Okada defeated Karl Anderson in 16:26 to preserve his Tokyo Dome IWGP Heavyweight Championship challenge-rights certificate. This was a match over a future opportunity, not the IWGP Heavyweight Championship itself: that belt was held by Hiroshi Tanahashi, who successfully defended against Minoru Suzuki in the main event of King of Pro-Wrestling 2012. WrestleFile graded the Okada-Anderson meeting B- / 7.4, giving the certificate defense a meaningful place in the final sequence without inflating it into a title transfer. The result is most useful in a chronology of Okada's road to the Dome, while the earlier Low Ki and Killer Elite Squad matches were the contests that actually changed belts on this particular date.

Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Hirooki Goto in 15:12 to retain the IWGP Intercontinental Championship in the eighth match of King of Pro-Wrestling 2012. The incumbent stayed champion; this was not one of the card's title transfers. Earlier, Low Ki had beaten Kota Ibushi for the junior heavyweight singles belt and Killer Elite Squad had taken the heavyweight tag belts from Tencozy. WrestleFile rates Nakamura-Goto B- / 7.4, matching the score assigned to Okada's certificate defense over Karl Anderson but serving a different purpose: this was an actual championship retained, not a secured future title shot. The final would see Tanahashi defend the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Suzuki.

Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated Minoru Suzuki in 29:22 to retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Ryogoku on October 8, 2012. The B+ / 8.4 main-event score is WrestleFile's highest individual assessment on this nine-match card. Tanahashi was defending champion, while Kazuchika Okada had earlier preserved only the Tokyo Dome challenge-rights certificate by beating Karl Anderson; that did not make Okada the champion on this night. The card's actual title changes were Low Ki over Ibushi for the junior singles championship and Killer Elite Squad over Tencozy for the heavyweight tag titles. This clear distinction among two transfers, an Intercontinental defense and Tanahashi's closing defense is the reason the final three contests reward a chronological watch.